Cabinet should mandate surveillance recorders in rail locomotives so long as employee privacy rights are acknowledged, says the Transportation Safety Board. The transport minister said the proposal, including amendments to legislation, will be considered: “Unions have some concerns”.
Industrial employers have won the right as intevenors to join an Alberta challenge of random workplace drug tests. The Supreme Court ruled three years ago that random testing was unjustified: “Employers are intervening in order to try to influence how that case is now interpreted”.
Canadians emailing federal employees should first consult a government directory to avoid misdirected messages, says Shared Services Canada. The agency has been warned of inevitable confusion as it standardizes all email addresses, even for staff with identical names: “This remains an important initiative”.
One of Canada’s largest corporate fish farmers has received millions in federal funding to limit use of chemicals in ocean salmon pens. An environmental advocacy group questioned the funding for Cooke Aquaculture, which reports annual sales of nearly $1 billion: “This is a significant public investment”.
A Prince Edward Island grandmother has won a small claims fight with City Hall that went all the way to the provincial Supreme Court. The plaintiff represented herself at trial after being unable to find a lawyer who would take the case: ‘One lawyer wanted a $5,000 retainer’.
A young woman
forced to walk to work
after a driver
kicked her off the bus.
Her shirt was too revealing,
showing midriff.
Meanwhile, the prime minster
is spotted shirtless again.
In public.
Admired, midriff and all.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
Infrastructure Canada will not disclose traffic data used to justify a multi-billion dollar taxpayers’ investment in a new cross-border bridge. U.S. data indicate traffic at the Windsor-Detroit crossing has declined by nearly 2 million vehicles a year since 2007: “The information is considered commercially sensitive”.
A new $21 million-a year electronic visa fee is not intended as a money-maker and will operate at cost, says the Department of Citizenship. The visas, affecting 7 in 10 foreign travelers to Canada, take effect September 30: “There will be no burden”.
A court ruling over data seized from a Canadian internet server is worrying, say privacy advocates. Police could launch a “fishing expedition” through encrypted BlackBerry messages, acknowledged an Ontario Superior Court judge: “A large quantity of data was collected”.
Insurance policyholders with ambiguous contracts are entitled to the benefit of the doubt in appealing claims, the Supreme Court has ruled in a contractors’ dispute. The judgment came in the case of an Edmonton building owner denied coverage over a costly window-cleaning error: “Many Canadians can relate”.
Authorities in 1976 suspected at least one member of a visiting USSR hockey squad was a KGB agent, but praised the Soviets for good sportsmanship. The spy hunt is cited in partly-declassified files released through Access To Information: “There was something of an infatuation with old Canadian stars”.
Liberal MPs are promoting a bill to honour the Canadian seal hunt amid the broadcast next week of a new documentary critical of the annual kill. Discovery Channel on September 22 will televise Huntwatch, produced by organizers of the International Fund for Animal Welfare: “We know it’s a controversial harvest”.
One of the nation’s last surviving music publishers has won a copyright case on sheet music 95 years after Parliament outlawed copying of songs without owners’ permission. The case followed a year of litigation in Federal Court: “People think, ‘Oh, well, if I just make one copy, what’s the problem?’”
A federal judge has blocked the firing of an RCMP constable who admitted having sex on duty. The Mounties’ handling of the case was unfair, the Court ruled: “They routinely make these types of errors”.
CBC management sold airtime to a telecom firm cited for misleading advertising, though the Crown broadcaster banned numerous other sponsors. The public network has refused ads paid by environmental groups, Campus Crusade for Christ and an anti-tobacco message by the Access To Media Education Society: “One would assume there is a consistent policy”.
