Crown corporations are in no conflict of interest if they assign their own lawyers to vet Access To Information disclosures, says Newfoundland & Labrador’s information commissioner. The practice is restricted under federal policy: “Basically they are saying they can do whatever they want.”
Electricity rates could rise up to 77 percent under any climate change plan to replace fossil fuel, the Senate energy committee has been told. Researchers said even a massive conversion to electricity in home heating, transport and the commercial sector will not meet pollution targets: “It’s going to require everything from everybody.”
Free 2017 admission to national parks for Canada’s 150th anniversary will cost Parks Canada more than $70 million, records show. The agency in Access To Information memos had proposed to drum up corporate sponsors to offset revenue losses: “Obviously it’s a lot of money.”
Canadian companies would be forbidden from knowingly investing in munitions companies that make cluster bombs, under a private Conservative bill introduced in the Senate. Some of the nation’s largest banks and insurers hold shares in weapons manufacturers, according to monitors: “My money is being used for this?”
A legal challenge of the 1934 Bank Of Canada Act over interest-free municipal loans has failed at Federal Court for a fifth time. The Court of Appeal struck down a lawsuit to force the Bank to offer financing under the Depression-era law: “There is nothing that we could usefully add.”
In the year 2056,
Chapters will announce
a major expansion
to its gift section,
boosting the display of
decorative pillows, scented candles, and
specialty teas.
Books may still be found
on the remaining shelf
near the emergency exit.
Gillette will introduce its new
– and revolutionary –
17-blade razor,
in stores
just in time for Father’s Day.
You wouldn’t believe
the smooth, close shave it delivers.
Nothing like its predecessor, the
16-blade model.
And in the House of Commons,
the Minister of Public Services and Procurement
will announce
that the remaining 6,000 pay issues
will be resolved
by Christmas.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
The Senate has passed into law a bill raising Canada Pension Plan premiums and benefits. Senators yesterday approved the bill by a vote of 52 to 30 on a critic’s warning it will damage small business: ‘One percent means the difference of whether they stay open or close their doors.’
Magazine ad revenues in Canada have fallen 33 percent in two years, says new Statistics Canada data. Total declines in circulation came despite millions in taxpayers’ grants to publishers. The new figures follow an Access To Information report questioning the future of print publishing: “Can the print magazine survive?”
A bill to rewrite O Canada with gender-neutral lyrics faces a final, divisive vote in Parliament in 2017. The Senate social affairs committee yesterday approved the bill for Third Reading following conflicting testimony: “It has to do with the soul of the country.”
Cabinet should provide research and development aid to assist former asbestos mining communities in Québec, the Senate has been told. Cabinet yesterday said it will enact a national asbestos ban by 2018: “We are relieved.”
Cabinet will conduct a “competitiveness review” of its national carbon tax, says Environment Minister Catherine McKenna. The Minister yesterday faced questioning from skeptical senators seeking details on the impact of a $50 per tonne tax on emissions: “You’re only starting the process.”
Health Canada is giving the $88 billion-a year food industry five years to revise “confusing” food labels. Regulations would urge Canadians to cut daily sugar consumption by 30 percent: “This is purely a strategy on the part of industry to try and influence a delay as long as possible.”
The incidence of drug-impaired driving increased 4 percent nationwide last year though rates of drunk driving continue to decline, says new Statistics Canada data. The research points to looming trouble over cabinet’s plan to legalize marijuana, said a senior senator: “Can you imagine the increase in health care costs?”
The Senate sponsor of a bill against animal cruelty is protesting “abhorrent” new federal regulations involving testing on lab rabbits. Health Canada in a rare notice detailed the best methods of testing chemicals on rabbits’ eyes and skin: “It makes me really sad.”
The Parliamentary Budget Office should complete independent research on the actual cost of a national pharmacare program, say MPs. Private estimates vary by billions: “We could go back and forth forever.”
