Two Federal Court of Appeal decisions further weaken Canada’s Access To Information Act. The rulings, including a rare split decision, follow a cabinet bill granting federal agencies new grounds to conceal public records: “If we get it wrong…”
Cabinet faces demands it order commercial airlines to staff more attendants on Canadian flights. The Commons transport committee recommended a review of a 2015 staffing order that prompted a federal lawsuit: “Liberals had promised.”
Cabinet has listed a popular home heating oil as toxic. Industry has until 2018 to prepare risk management plans for spills that number hundreds a year: “There will be some challenges for industry.”
Health Canada says provinces can draft their own marijuana regulations similar to liquor controls under a federal cannabis bill. Legislatures are free to lower possession limits or restrict public marijuana use: “Are we not normalizing the use of this substance?”
Federal managers and staff take 800,000 cab rides a year through Ottawa, according to new data. The public works department proposed to save money not by using transit, but dispensing with paper taxi chits: ‘It should provide good value to Canada.’
Environmental groups accuse the Department of Fisheries of allowing oil sands companies to breach federal law. Environmental Defence of Toronto and the Washington-based Natural Resources Defense Council yesterday petitioned regulators to restrict Alberta tailings ponds: “What are you going to do about it?”
Department of Health research says Canadians want more data on added sugars as regulators revise the benchmark Canada Food Guide. A department report was silent on proposals for a national sugar tax: ‘Canadians want more information about sugars and how to reduce consumption,’
Transport Canada proposes that 12,000 railway employees and shippers’ staff take anti-terror training. The last incident of enemy sabotage against a Canadian railway occurred in World War Two: “Transportation of dangerous goods by rail is vulnerable to misuse or sabotage by terrorists.”
The Canada Border Services Agency was the target of 29 racial profiling complaints in 2016, according to Access To Information records. All but four were dismissed as unfounded. The Federal Court this year upheld a complaint against the Agency: “You fit the profile.”
The National Research Council warns ratepayers face billions in utility repairs due to climate change-related rainfall. Municipalities are unprepared, researchers wrote: “Storm water and drainage systems are already failing.”
Statistics Canada says the average child draws 24 percent of daily calories from sugar. New data were reported as Parliament considers a bill to prohibit junk food marketing to children under 17: ‘The average Canadian teen consumes over half a litre of sugary drinks per day.’
Tuberculosis rates
continue to decline.
Except among two groups.
The first,
newcomers from developing countries
where
access to health care is limited,
diagnosis delayed,
treatment unavailable or unaffordable.
Where poorly ventilated and
overcrowded housing
favour the spread of infection.
Where hunger and malnutrition
weaken the immune system.
Where education on
risk factors and prevention
is lacking.
Where HIV is prevalent.
The second, Inuit.
(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 energy committee yesterday warned Canadian drivers face extraordinary difficulty in meeting cabinet’s climate change targets. It “is going to be a huge challenge”, senators wrote: ‘If all the cars, trucks, planes, trains and ships were to disappear, we would still fall far short.’
A Department of Public Safety report says the public has been misled over the size of Canada’s illegal marijuana market. Researchers said police grossly inflate the value of drug seizures, and that regulators have no data on how much or how little cannabis Canadians actually use: “What is the issue that’s trying to be solved?”
Parks Canada could become only the third agency ever to lose UNESCO heritage status for failing to care for cultural property, says a United Nations official. Cabinet has yet to answer a UN report critical of development at Alberta’s Wood Buffalo National Park: “A World Heritage Site could lose its status. It has happened.”
