Three years into its rebranding as a “concierge” for business, executives have told the National Research Council its new motto is boring, and that dealing with the federal agency is a “hassle”. The Council would not say how much it spent on its new corporate slogan, cnrcsolutions: ‘It reminded many of a consulting firm’.
The Salvation Army will not comment on a lawsuit against its Governing Council alleging financial irregularities. An Ontario Superior Court judge declined to dismiss the suit, saying though the allegation “may seem outrageous at first blush, that does not make it untrue”.
Operators of Canada’s aging payphone system must disclose long-distance charges to customers, federal regulators have ruled. Toll charges are unregulated for payphone clients: “This solves a problem that actually exists”.
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal against Law Society rules by longtime Winnipeg lawyer Sid Green, 86, a former Manitoba cabinet minister. Green was suspended for declining mandatory “professional development” training after practicing law for 60 years: “This case falls within a time-honoured tradition”.
A DNA privacy bill has been reintroduced in the Senate after lapsing in the last Parliament. The Liberal bill would forbid employers and insurers from demanding that Canadians take genetic tests, or divulging the results of previous testing: “The law is well behind the science”.
Environment Canada is mapping toxic emissions from Alberta’s oil sands including mercury, benzene and other poisons. The department commissioned the most sweeping review of new pollution data for the industry since 2006: “We really don’t have a good handle on emissions”.
A trucking company has lost a Constitutional challenge of fines issued by agricultural inspectors. A federal tribunal ruled corporations with “pure economic interests” cannot cite the Charter of Rights in challenging administrative monetary penalties: “The law is clear”.
Telecom companies must divulge wholesale roaming rates to federal regulators within 30 days ahead of a promised 2016 cap on charges. The CRTC ordered wireless providers to disclose all rates charged smaller rivals for cellphone calls and text messaging in 2014 and 2015: ‘The sooner, the better’.
New Democrats for the third time since 2008 are attempting to legislate bilingualism at the Supreme Court. The party’s languages critic introduced a bill requiring that all justices pass a language test: “They have to be able to understand”.
Authorities propose more changes to aquaculture regulations after sanctioning companies’ use of chemicals, says the fisheries department. A review of federal rules follows a 23 percent decline in sales for the industry: ‘Hurdles prevent sustainable aquaculture development’.
Canada Revenue Agency has assigned senior managers to check documents after misplacing thousands of pages of records. Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault yesterday cited the Agency for “serious” problems in tracking tax files.
“We had a high number of missing records cases,” Legault told reporters. “More than half of those were valid complaints, leading us to ask the Agency to now certify they’ve taken all reasonable steps to search and find records.”
Under a 2015 Agency directive a senior manager – the assistant commissioner or director general – must personally certify that “all reasonable steps were taken to conduct relevant searches to identify and retrieve responsive documents” requested by taxpayers.
The policy followed a 2014 Federal Court case in which a judge cited tax authorities for concealing documents from a Sooke, B.C. taxpayer, Sandra Summers, despite three requests. Justice John O’Keefe ruled the Agency “consistently delayed disclosure of information, withheld information, destroyed information and misled the applicant as to what information was available.”
Summers had filed a 2012 Access To Information request for records after she was audited over claims of business losses the previous year. Only after Summers sued in 2013 did Canada Revenue conduct a top-to-bottom search for documents in her case and “discovered it had not destroyed records”.
Commissioner Legault in her Annual Report cited two other cases in which Canada Revenue disclosed 14,000 pages of documents after companies went to Court; and a taxpayer who received 57 pages of censored records and then received 57 more after an investigation was launched.
“Canada Revenue Agency has acknowledged to the Commissioner that it has a serious information management and document retrieval problem when it comes to identifying and retrieving records in response to Access requests,” the Report said.
In a string of unrelated incidents one official rated “embarrassing”, the tax department earlier admitted to losing tax returns, cheques, moving receipts, bank statements, audit files, permanent residency cards, marriage licenses and registered letters sent by taxpayers. Records obtained by Blacklock’s through Access To Information revealed cases in which taxpayers were charged late-filing penalties of up to $2,200 for returns the agency simply misplaced.
“I am very concerned,” one manager wrote in a July 13, 2012 email. “It is embarrassing to acknowledge that Canada Revenue Agency cannot trace their correspondence.”
“No, we have no procedures for logging correspondence,” another manager wrote in a July 9, 2013 memo. “From what I hear from my colleagues this type of thing seems to be happening quite a bit,” another wrote in a March 1, 2013 memo; “It really doesn’t make Canada Revenue Agency look very competent when we call the client a week after they sent something by Xpress Post saying we didn’t get it.”
The Agency processes more than 25 million tax returns annually, by official estimate.
By Dale Smith 
Legislation promised to repeal a 1920 ban on unions in the RCMP will maintain a ban on members’ political activities or public criticism of management, authorities confirm. The Mounties this year began compiling an electronic database of “problem” employees: ‘It restricts certain matters from being included in a collective agreement’.
Taxpayers misled by unscrupulous advisers are still liable for 50 percent gross negligence penalties for filing a false return, Tax Court has ruled. Identical judgments came in two separate cases involving claims for fictional business losses: “No one except the most unsophisticated, ignorant, naive and gullible could believe that”.
Cabinet will not meet a Supreme Court-ordered deadline to repeal a ban on unions in the RCMP. And even a unionized force will see enforcement of a strict Code Of Conduct that threatens officers with firing or demotion for criticizing management or engaging in political activities: “The devil is in the details”.
Cabinet is threatening to expand its blacklist of U.S. imports targeted with punishing tariffs in a cross-border dispute over meat shipments. Ministers acknowlege no trade retaliation action is likely, if at all, till 2016: “Free trade only works when everyone follows the rules”.
