The nation’s underground economy has grown to a record $45.6 billion a year, estimates Statistics Canada. The new data follow a Canada Revenue Agency complaint that tax avoidance is socially acceptable: “Small dollars multiplied by a lot of people add up”.
Finance Minister Bill Morneau and staff have had thousands of dollars in expense claims returned by department bookkeepers for “arithmetic errors” and other mishaps, records show. Nearly $26,000 in claims were sent back to the Minister’s office: “There’s more than a little irony”.
A Health Canada proposal to legalize the sale of radiation-treated hamburger to kill bacteria and parasites should go to public hearings, says a cattle industry critic. The department served notice it’s prepared to approve irradiated beef by request of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association: “Cattle live in their own excrement in feedlots”.
Senators and MPs complain even a parliamentary committee can’t get straight answers from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency over regulations. Lawmakers counted 9 unanswered letters and 38 unresolved issues dating over decades: “Do you ever pick up the phone?”
Transport Canada is delaying a contentious report on mandating recording equipment in all railway locomotives. Union executives have opposed the measure as a company tool for round-the-clock surveillance of train crews: “We’re dealing with companies that fire people for not having their boot laces correctly tied”.
The health department is beginning to draft regulations under a drug recall bill feared to put a “chill” on industry. Parliament in 2014 passed the bill dubbed Vanessa’s Law for the teenage daughter of an MP who died after taking Johnson & Johnson medication for a digestive disorder: “No Big Pharma executive has ever gone to jail”.
A change towards gender equality
may be coming to O Canada.
Indeed, it has been on the masculine side for too long:
“The True North strong and free!”
Time has come for a feminine touch.
Let the True North be “pretty and free!”
Because it’s 2016.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
Canada faces the death of commercial passenger rail service or mammoth deficits without structural reforms at VIA Rail, says the Crown corporation’s CEO: “A future government will have to make the decision to eliminate VIA Rail or do something else”.
MPs last night rejected a Criminal Code amendment to legalize single sports betting. Provincial gaming regulators had petitioned for the bill, forecasting millions in revenues. A senior Liberal MP said governments are no match for black market bookies: “Illegal bookmakers have lower overhead costs”.
Statistics Canada for the first time in its 99-year history is proposing to pay people to fill out surveys. The agency said it’s considering use of incentives like cheques or debit cards, typically worth $20 to $100 according to practices by other national statistics bureaus: “People will think if they do a government survey they should get paid for it”.
Federal agencies have spent millions of tax dollars advertising on U.S.-owned social media, records show. Newspaper publishers described the Facebook, Google and Twitter campaigns as a Canadian media job killer: “They think that’s where the cool kids are”.
Cabinet should enact an air passenger bill of rights similar to international codes that guarantee travelers thousands of dollars in compensation for poor service, says a former Transport Canada advisor: “They do not know what their rights are”.
Another cabinet bill is in jeopardy as senators yesterday voted to send an Air Canada concession to committee for amendment. The bill shields the airline from liability for illegal job cuts: “Call it like it is”.
The Royal Canadian Mint in a production error misidentified a WWII aircraft on a commemorative coin as “Canadian-made”. It wasn’t. The Mint yesterday declined comment. The coin, complete with the inscription REMEMBER, is intended to educate Canadians about their wartime history: “No aircraft of that type served in Canada”.
The union representing federal prison employees is appealing to the Canada Industrial Relations Board after management proposed credit checks on 12,000 staff. The scope of credit checks, beyond any found in municipal police departments, includes credit card balances and mortgage payments: “We have to draw the line somewhere”.
