Cabinet promises to consult homeowners on a draft code that would mandate energy refits of existing houses, apartments and commercial buildings. Refits would cost householders an average $35,000, according to the National Research Council: “We want to hear from people.”
The death of PPP Canada marks the first closure of a federal Crown corporation in three years. The agency, intended to attract private investment in public works, will close its doors December 31: “I don’t think Crown corporations should be entitled to a life in perpetuity.”
MPs are debating evidence a plain packaging law will curb smoking. Cabinet proposes Australian-style regulations that would see all tobacco sold in plain, logo-free boxes with gruesome health warnings: “There is a lot to consider.”
Climate change could spur Arctic agriculture including ranching, the Senate agriculture committee has been told. The forecast comes nearly a century after a Royal Commission recommended experimental reindeer and muskox ranches in the North: “Climate change may create opportunities.”
The Supreme Court in a 7-2 decision ruled government lawyers do not have a constitutional right to pay when on call the occasional weekend. The judgment ends a seven-year battle by attorneys who claimed a Charter right: “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person.”
The following program
contains details
about the personal fortune
of the Finance Minister,
including graphic images
of his villa in France,
which may be disturbing
to some viewers.
Discretion is advised.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
A Conservative MP yesterday said he was hospitalized for handshaking after suffering a virulent infection. MP Len Webber (Calgary Confederation) told his story at a Commons health committee hearing on antimicrobial resistance: “I went to hell and back.”
Canadian insurers seek a ban on new home construction and redevelopment on flood plains. Executives yesterday told the Senate energy committee that reckless building practices have left taxpayers to compensate flood victims: “Right now it’s a mess.”
A Commons committee yesterday proposed a federal law to sanction fines for refusal to provide services in French. The chair of the official languages committee dismissed any comparison to Québec’s language police: “Who pays for all this stuff?”
Senators yesterday struggled with a Conservative bill to prohibit foreign lobbyists from financing campaign-related activities. One legislator warned time is short if Parliament is to pass the bill before a 2019 election: “We need to do something.”
Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly yesterday said cabinet is committed to strengthening local news as “critical to our democracy”. Joly made no comment on a publishers’ request that federal agencies redirect advertising from Google and Facebook to Canadian newspapers and periodicals: “Many publications are going to die.”
Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault yesterday said federal departments are already using a cabinet bill to deny legitimate public requests for records. Parliament has not passed the legislation: “This is the tip of the iceberg.”
The Department of Public Works will not detail a promised deadline to revive a Depression-era Fair Wages Policy repealed by Parliament five years ago. The law, introduced by then-Conservative Prime Minister Richard Bennett in 1935, was repealed following lobbying by non-union contractors: “I don’t have details.”
Federal lawyers have lost another Court challenge of Canada Student Loan repayments under bankruptcy law. A St. John’s Court waived a $54,930 debt for a student who’d made payments of $279: “There is no point.”
Transport Canada is only now electronically compiling tens of thousands of environmental reports filed by marine shippers. The department nine years ago was faulted for failing to enforce regulations on ballast water from ocean vessels: “This backlog is a concern because it provides information for scientists.”
