Canada must halt solitary confinement of mentally-ill inmates, says the Correctional Investigator of Canada. The renewed appeal follows a 2015 Federal Court ruling that struck down a longstanding prison psychological test as biased and unreliable: “23-hour lockup in isolation isn’t healthy for anyone”.
Banks will see a 53 increase in revenues under an amendment to a federal small business loan program. Small business was neither consulted on the change nor asked for it, said the Canadian Federation of Independent Business: “This program is not really about increasing revenue for the banks”.
Atlantic offshore oil companies have won new regulations limiting their liability in case of a spill. Natural Resources Canada proposed to exempt offshore rigs from strict billion-dollar liability for Arctic drillers and pipeline operators: ‘It is puzzling, frankly’.
Canada will take no moral lessons from the U.S. in defending its seal hunt, says the Senate sponsor of a bill proclaiming a National Seal Products Day. “Stop sending black people to jail,” said Senator Céline Hervieux-Payette.
“Fantasyland” scenarios under a Pacific trade deal will grow the nation’s manufacturing trade deficit, says Unifor. The union representing autoworkers joined Ford Motor Co. in urging MPs to reject the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement as written: “We’re a country that has lost our way”.
MPs will consider a motion to examine internet regulation of pornography. Broadcast regulators in 1999 concluded web content was beyond federal control — a policy reaffirmed in 2009 by the CRTC: “There are other things we have to do”.
Transport Canada says it will take weeks to respond to a sweeping federal report urging privatization of airports, elimination of regulated rail freight profit caps and cuts to regional VIA Rail subsidies. The report is “a lot of big talk”, said a senior official.
Nearly a third of Canadians with new car loans have borrowed more than their vehicles are worth, says the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada. The Agency – which draws 90 percent of its budget from banks and other corporations – said it could not fault lenders: “I would not submit to you it is an unfair lending practice”.
Health Canada must protect consumers from a barrage of sugar-laden processed foods, says a Senator who led a two-year probe of obesity rates. Critics yesterday condemned proposals for tighter regulation of processors as reckless and outrageous: ‘It’s up to the Minister of Health, not the Senate’.
National mercury emissions have declined mainly due to the closure of a single Manitoba copper smelter cited as the worst polluter in the country, says Environment Canada. More study of long-term effects on First Nations, anglers and Asian Canadians with fish-rich diets is needed, researchers warned: “There is a lack of data on mercury exposure of Canadian children”.
A cabinet bid for Canadians’ input on new internet privacy regulations is being cheered by advocates. It follows 2015 passage of a Senate bill that sanctioned data mining by internet service providers: “It has a long way to go”.
The Canada Labour Code will see significant amendments including changes to workplace health and safety regulations, says Labour Minister MaryAnn Mihychuk. Her remarks came as MPs last night voted in principle to repeal two newly-enacted Conservative labour bills: “There will be a number of changes”.
Industry Canada breached federal law in concealing basic details of an easy-term loan program that’s seen most payments go to Québec, says the Information Commissioner. Blacklock’s tried for two years to obtain the names of borrowers who received $75.5 million from the little-known Canada Youth Business Foundation: “I do not have those numbers”.
Service Canada’s national 1-800 service is so dysfunctional even federal employees won’t use it, according to evidence in a labour board hearing. Call records show Canadians have zero chance of speaking to a live operator: “Clients want to speak to a real person”.
Advocates credit the Minister of Fisheries with enforcing the Species At Risk Act to save trout threatened by Alberta industry. It follows a 2015 lawsuit that cited cabinet for breaking its own laws intended to protect fish and wildlife in peril.
“We are monitoring this and will step up if more legal action needs to be taken,” said Prof. Shaun Fluker, of the University of Calgary’s law faculty; “There are far-reaching effects – and that’s why they have been reluctant to issue the order.”
The Alberta Wilderness Society and Timberwolf Wilderness Society sued cabinet for failing to issue a required order to save the Westslope Cutthroat Trout, the only trout species native to Alberta’s Oldman and Bow River systems. The fisheries department in 2014 published a recovery strategy for the threatened fish, but then failed to issue any order prohibiting mining, logging or other activity threatening the trout’s critical habitat.
The Species At Risk Act obliges cabinet to “prevent wildlife species from being extirpated or becoming extinct; provide for the recovery of wildlife species that are extirpated, endangered or threatened as a result of human activity; and to manage special of special concern to prevent them from becoming endangered or threatened.”
Fisheries Minister Hunter Tootoo issued the critical habitat order last November 20 two weeks after being sworn to cabinet. “It affects the ability to change the character of environmental protection along the Eastern Slopes of the Rockies,” said Prof. Fluker.
Scientists counted only 51 surviving “genetically pure” Cutthroat Trout in nine lakes at Banff National Park, and the upper Bow and Oldman River systems.
‘Not Just A Technical Breach’
“This order does nothing to solve the problem; it just makes it easier to improve the situation,” said David Mayhood, aquatic ecologist with the Timberwolf Wilderness Society. “The order is stringent and doesn’t allow for much leeway. They basically have to prosecute if people continue damaging these critical habitats.”
Advocates cited industrial threats to trout habitat including hydroelectric dams, roads, a proposed open-pit coal mine and “other linear disturbances”. “The basic problem is they don’t have an action plan,” Mayhood said. “Most of what they are doing now is a holding action.”
A federal judge in 2014 also concluded regulators failed to comply with the Act in meeting deadlines to save British Columbia wildlife in peril. Ecojustice sued in Federal Court, saying cabinet had needlessly delayed recovery plans for species at risk including the Pacific Humpback Whale; Nechako White Sturgeon; Southern Mountain Caribou; and the Marbled Murrelet, a small coastal bird listed as threated in 2003.
“The federal government blasted through deadlines required by Parliament,” Sean Nixon, counsel for Ecojustice, said in an earlier interview; “This isn’t just a technical breach of the statute. The timelines are there for a reason: delays harm species. The longer you wait to address a problem, the more the species declines.”
In the Ecojustice case, Justice Ann Mactavish ruled it was “simply not acceptable for the responsible Ministers to continue to miss the mandatory deadlines that have been established by Parliament.”
“To state the obvious, the Species At Risk Act was enacted because some wildlife species in Canada are at risk,” wrote Mactavish; “Many are in a race against the clock as increased pressure is put on their critical habitat, and their ultimate survival may be at stake.”
By Kaven Baker-Voakes 
