The Senate is preparing for final votes on Bill C-377 on warnings it will be left to the Supreme Court to decide if unions can be legally compelled to disclose confidential data. Opponents privately said they were resigned to passage of the bill, first introduced in 2012: “The curtain is falling on the last act of the 41st Parliament”.
A six-figure fine on an airline for breaching federal anti-spam regulations is a “wake-up call” for industry, says a legal analyst. Porter Airlines was fined $150,000 for emailing prospective customers: “This really brings home the reality that the regulations are impacting everyday Canadian businesses”.
A longtime sportswriter who lost thousands of dollars publishing a free-to-read hockey blog has won a Tax Court judgment over the Canada Revenue Agency. The tax department had refused to credit the blogger’s losses incurred while travelling with the Toronto Maple Leafs as legitimate business expenses: “It is taking immense internal restraint to not comment on the ongoing Leafs ‘legacy’”.
Blacklock’s notes with sadness the passing of Paul Delahanty, 82, an original contributor and longtime reporter. Mr. Delahanty died Sunday of cancer.
Born the son of a Massachusetts accountant, Mr. Delahanty graduated from Boston College in 1955 and began his journalism career with a diocesan newspaper in Worcester, Mass. He subsequently worked for the Catholic press in Montréal in 1966, and was a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery for 30 years.
Mr. Delahanty was formerly managing editor of RNCC News Inc. and independent publisher of newsletters on technology and environmental law. He is survived by his wife Connie and four children.
Found among Mr. Delahanty’s personal effects at his Gallery desk was a prized copy of the Charter Of Rights & Freedoms, and a handwritten quotation from Thomas Jefferson: “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”
Blacklock’s directors join subscribers and friends in expressing deepest sympathies to Mr. Delahanty’s family, and in remembering Paul as a dedicated newsman and friend – The Editor.
An ex-Mountie cashiered on suspicion of drinking off-duty has lost a bid for a Supreme Court hearing. Justices declined to hear the constable’s complaint of wrongful dismissal. The case predated a court order striking down a 1920 ban on unions in the RCMP: “I have no jurisdiction”.
Senators today take up Bill C-377 amid warnings that angry disagreement over the union bill is further diminishing the Senate, itself. Final passage of the bill appeared close but likely after Conservatives overruled Speaker Leo Housakos in a bid to throttle a Liberal filibuster: “Changes have to occur in the Senate”.
A former Olympian has lost a human rights claim that he suffered discrimination due to cocaine addiction. Ontario Divisional Court dismissed a lawsuit by Paul James, a 2007 soccer Coach Of The Year, against York University: “He succumbed to the vicious grip of an addiction to crack cocaine”.
The Canadian Union of Postal Workers is considering a legal challenge after scores of newly-unionized workers lost their jobs at mail processing plants in three cities. The cuts came as the post office declined to renew a long-time contract with Adecco Canada, a staffing agency: “We have to take this on”.
One of the nation’s longest-serving community charities has formally disbanded. The charity committee of the Canadian Jewish Congress, active from 1934, surrendered its registration under the Income Tax Act: “It is definitely the end of an era”.
Government attorneys are in Federal Court tomorrow in a bid to fend off a Vancouver lawsuit to fill Senate vacancies. Twenty seats in the 105-seat chamber sit empty since the Prime Minister suspended appointments in 2014.
“He’s either legally required to do it or he’s not, and it’s the court’s role to enforce the constitution,” said Aniz Alani, a British Columbia lawyer who filed the claim; “We should have the benefit of the court’s guidance before the next election.”
The Prime Minister halted all new Senate appointments last August 23 after three Conservative members were suspended in an expense scandal. Two – Mike Duffy and Patrick Brazeau – face criminal charges, still unproven in court.
Alani noted under the wording of section 32 of the 1867 Constitution Act the Prime Minister has no choice but to immediately fill Senate vacancies as they occur: “When a vacancy happens in the Senate by resignation, death or otherwise, the Governor General shall by summons to a fit and qualified person fill the vacancy,” the section reads.
Alani earlier won a Federal Court judgment that the lawsuit could proceed over government objections. The Department of Justice is appealing the ruling, arguing the lawsuit is frivolous.
“Depending on how quickly the government is moving on the appeal – they haven’t taken any steps to expedite it so far – the appeal may or may not be heard before the application is,” Alani said. “In the meantime, I have to be preparing arguments for the main application.”
Under Senate rules a minimum 15 members are needed for quorum. “Certainly at some stage senators have to be appointed,” Judge Sean Harrington wrote in rejecting a government bid to dismiss the lawsuit out of hand; “If there were to be no quorum, Parliament could not function as it is composed of both the House of Commons and Senate.”
Another five senators will leave by 2016 as they reach the mandatory retirement age of 75. With current vacancies Ontario and Québec are short eleven members, followed by Manitoba (three vacancies); New Brunswick (two); Nova Scotia (2) and British Columbia (one vacancy).
The Prime Minister became the first in Canadian history to announce a Senate appointment on his first day in office, and the only government leader to name eleven senators on a single day: January 2, 2009.
By Dale Smith
It’s Canada Day
in the National Capital.
We gather by the Notre-Dame Cathedral
to watch the exploding sky.
Behind the hydro pole,
a couple in their 20s;
eyes closed,
lips locked,
hands in gentle explorations.
They came for the
fireworks.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
Conservative Senators will attempt to break a Liberal filibuster and force a final vote on a bill compelling every union in Canada to disclose confidential data. The Government Leader in the Senate said further delays will kill Bill C-377: “If we leave for the summer this bill will die”.
The Government of Canada is hiring stenographers to electronically transcribe every utterance of the Prime Minister and his 38-member cabinet. Authorities said a verbatim account of all remarks is essential “24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.”
Health Canada is reviewing nearly thirty years’ worth of pollution data to find the true extent of illness and death caused bad air. The department commissioned a $75,000 study into mortality rates in all major cities in spring and summer months from 1983 to 2009: “Air pollution could make people sick”.
The Supreme Court will review a workers’ compensation appeal over a baffling incidence of cancer in a British Columbia lab. Justices agreed to hear the case of lab workers who noted a high number of co-workers fell ill though no “causal” link to job conditions was proven: “I’m glad they decided to hear the case”.
