Inadequate federal funding is to blame for long airport security lineups, MPs have been told. Spending on security screening has declined since 2010 even as security fees for passengers rose more than 50 percent: “This is more than just a problem of passenger experience”.
A Vegas-style sports betting bill is back in the Commons. MPs quickly passed the measure in 2012 but saw it lapse in the Senate over protests from the Toronto Blue Jays: “We have to deal with this”.
Cabinet must test a national guaranteed annual income program, says a Liberal legislator. The proposal follows an appeal from the Canadian Medical Association to revisit earlier pilot programs dating from 1974: “There is some momentum”.
Delinquency rates are falling at a faster rate than adult crimes, say new data. Statistics Canada confirmed that youth crime has declined steadily since 1991, but pointed to no single reason for the trend: “There is no consensus on it”.
Cabinet will not scale back its monitoring of the Atlantic seal hunt though costs to taxpayers are five times the value of the commercial harvest, says Fisheries Minister Hunter Tootoo. A confidential department memo noted the hunt is so expensive it’s impacted other fisheries programs.
“I fully support the seal hunt,” Tootoo said in an interview. “You can tell I’m wearing a nice sealskin tie. It’s important to the economy out east.”
The department is spending $2.5 million a year monitoring the hunt, according to memos obtained through Access To Information. Revenues from the harvest have fallen to less than $500,000 annually due to a 2009 European Union ban on Canadian seal products.
“There are strict rules in place for monitoring it and we’re doing what we have to do to ensure it’s done properly,” said Tootoo, who defended the expense as an environmental necessity. “If someone spills oil in the water and it costs millions to clean it up, it may only be a little bit – but you still have to do it. There are rules in place that we have to follow, and we’ll ensure we continue to do that.”
Costs of monitoring include $1 million a year for a Coast Guard icebreaker; $475,000 for helicopter rentals; $400,000 for long-range cameras; and $375,000 a year in staff overtime. Expenses do not include costs incurred by the RCMP in monitoring the annual hunt that gets underway in March.
Fisheries staff in a 2009 memo Funding Pressure Business Case said costs of the hunt were so high they’ve required funds to be drawn from conservation programs. “This has a tremendous impact on relatively small detachment budgets,” read the memo, written by the department’s conservation and protection branch.
“These costs are beyond the capacity of conservation and protection to absorb from traditional budgets and this level of surveillance cannot be maintained without additional funding allocations,” the memo said; “That ends up significantly impacting the ability of the detachments to carry out patrols in other fisheries given the budget pressures.”
“There has been a significant increase in costs,” staff wrote; “Teams deployed via dedicated icebreakers and helicopters as well as the investment in sophisticated remote observation cameras is required”; “These enhancements are above and beyond the traditional monitoring carried out by fishery officers in the regions and come at a significant cost.”
Seal Meat On The Menu
Disclosure of seal hunt expenses came as the Senate yesterday resumed debate on a private bill to proclaim a yearly National Seal Products Day. “The commercial seal hunt is down but it is not out,” said Senator Céline Hervieux-Payette (Liberal-Que.), the bill’s sponsor.
“Canada should not be embarrassed about the seal hunt,” Hervieux-Payette told the Senate; “The disappearance of a market for seal products will never result in the end of the hunt, and those who claim otherwise are trying to manipulate public opinion.”
The value of the Atlantic hunt peaked at $34.3 million in 2006, with 348,000 seals landed. Sales fell to $1.3 million by 2010 and are now under $500,000, according to the trade department.
Bill S-208 An Act Respecting National Seal Products Day would honour the hunt every May 20, coinciding with the European Union observance of Maritime Day. “There is a lot of potential,” Hervieux-Payette said; “Seal fur is used for winter coats”; “Seal meat is even available at the Parliamentary restaurant at request during the seal hunt.”
The Senate fisheries committee in a 2012 report recommended that cabinet add seal oil as a supplement to the Canada Food Guide, and develop markets for seal products as pet food and waterproof clothing. The report Sustainable Management of Grey Seal Populations noted there has “never been a well-developed and viable market for grey seals”.
By Dale Smith 
There is no chance of a housing crash in Canada despite spiralling prices, the Prime Minister’s Office forecast in a confidential 2014 memo. More recent federal reports have cited concerns of a housing bubble: “This is not the case”.
Alberta has the worst air in the country in terms of dust and coarse particulate matter, says new Health Canada research. The department based its data on air samples from test sites in Edmonton, Calgary and cities nationwide: “This is irritating”.
All Crown corporations would be required to appoint women to at least half their directorships under a New Democrat bill introduced in the Commons. Currently 27 percent of Crown directors are women, and two agencies have no women board members whatsoever: “It’s a start”.
Canada Revenue Agency has tallied another conviction – the 20th in eight years – involving an internet-fueled tax evasion scheme blamed for more than half a billion dollars in false claims. The Agency in earlier confidential memos lamented the “multitude of fraudsters” adhering to the so-called natural person movement: “The true size of the problem was never known”.
Lawmakers’ failure to pass a DNA privacy bill has let more employers and insurers discriminate against Canadians using their own genetic data, says the Huntington Society of Canada. Senators reopen hearings tomorrow on a first-ever bill protecting DNA as confidential: “Where is this going?”
The government wants to ‘simplify’ the payment of millions it spends each year on taxi fares for employees in Ottawa – but won’t say if staff should use bootleg Uber cabs. The initiative follows a Competition Bureau proposal for deregulation of the entire taxi industry: “The government wishes to modernize”.
The fisheries department is spending $2.5 million a year monitoring an Atlantic seal hunt with an export value of barely $500,000, according to confidential memos. Draft minutes of a censored Intradepartmental Discussion On Seals blamed the industry’s collapse on a gullible public: “What we’re up against regarding misinformation: ‘A person is smart, people are stupid,’” the memo said.
The Department of Fisheries has concealed data on the Atlantic hunt since 2014, when figures confirmed its value declined from a peak of $34.3 million in 2006 to less than half a million dollars. “The industry has been decimated,” Marvin Hildebrand, director general of market access for the Department of Trade, earlier told the Commons fisheries committee.
Memos obtained through Access To Information indicate field supervisors and other fisheries staff questioned the cost of monitoring the annual hunt, set to get underway next month. “The Government of Canada spends a fortune,” said a memo; “These enhancements are above and beyond the traditional monitoring carried out by fishery officers in the region and come at a significant cost. These costs are beyond the capacity to absorb from traditional budgets”.
Surveillance expenses totaling $975,000 in 2007 more than doubled to $2.5 million a year by 2009 including $1 million for a Coast Guard icebreaker; $475,000 in helicopter rentals; $400,000 for high definition long-range cameras “capable of identifying a person at one mile”; and $375,000 in staff overtime. Costs for the RCMP were not tabulated.
The Senate in 2015 passed a bill expanding the surveillance quarantine around the Atlantic hunt. Bill C-555 An Act Respecting The Marine Mammal Regulations imposes a 1.9 kilometre no-go zone around the seal hunt, restricting access to official “observers” licensed by the Department of Fisheries. The department in the past refused permit applications from photographers, the Human Society and a European Union environmental commissioner.
The bill’s passage followed disclosures the Department of Trade paid a total $857,500 in grants to the Fur Council of Canada to promote seal products in the period from 2006 to 2013. Cabinet’s 2015 budget proposed another $5.7 million in five-year funding to “secure new market access” for seal meat, oil and pelts.
Seal exports collapsed under a 2009 European Union ban on Canadian products. The World Trade Organization three years ago upheld the ban that saw the price of seal pelts fall from $100 apiece to as little as $20.
Sausages & Heart Valves
Fisheries staff wrote in memos they must maintain support for sealing despite the market collapse, and the fact funding for surveillance is deducted from other fisheries programs. “Ever consider an end for the commercial hunt? The short answer: no,” said one memo.
“There is a need for fresh public opinion research,” staff wrote; “We need more education of the Canadian public”; “We’ve been telling folks its humane for years. Is it being effective? What are the issues we need to address? Is it just the look of the hunt, or would something else assist?”
The size of the harp seal harvest in the decade from 2004 to 2014 fell from 366,000 animals to just 60,000, by official estimate. The fisheries department withheld figures from the 2015 hunt, claiming its release would compromise “the privacy and economic interests of participants in the fishery.” Officials did confirm only some 11 percent of licensed sealers were active.
The department in a secret 2015 memo earlier obtained by Blacklock’s said it had no scientific research to support Canada’s claim that seals are to blame for dwindling fish stocks. “No explicit linkage has been identified between diminishing groundfish resources and the increased presence of grey seals,” said the Memorandum For The Minister by Leslie MacLean, associate deputy minister; “While no explicit link has been established, the burgeoning grey seal population has been identified by harvesters as a possible cause for the decline, and also the cause of gear damage and depredation to fish caught in gear.”
Authorities have commissioned numerous studies to boost seal exports through alternative uses of products, including a 2014 Fur Institute study Grey Seal Management that suggested shipping seal penises to Asia as aphrodisiacs; marketing seal meat as “gourmet” meatballs; and selling intestines to food processors as sausage casings.
A 2009 fisheries memo also contemplated some medical use for seal heart valves, but cautioned “the need to be very careful here”; “Apparently grey seals have calcium deposits in their valves,” the memo said; “There is medical rebuttal to some information we had”.
By Tom Korski
Rising rent increases are running at more than five times the inflation rate, says a new report. Costs for renters jumped 10.7 percent in 2014, the most recent data available. The typical Canadian now spends 29 percent of household income on shelter: “You’re starting to make sacrifices”.
Official figures grossly misrepresent the actual number of poor seniors in Canada, says a confidential Department of Finance memo. The true number is about half, and possibly as little as a fifth of what Statistics Canada claims, according to the memo obtained through Access To Information: “Statistics overestimate the actual number of seniors living in low income”.
Canadian National Railway Co. seeks to waive federal caps on certain freight revenues in British Columbia. The railway has been fined six times in the past 10 years for excess profits on grain shipments under the Canada Transportation Act: “We have no comment”.
