Small breweries aided by 2006 federal tax cuts should receive additional credits, says the sponsor of a beer bill in the Commons. Microbreweries have complained of unequal treatment that sees them taxed more heavily than winemakers: “It is vital”.
A Commons bill aims to settle an ancient rivalry by proclaiming Charlottetown, not Québec City, the “birthplace of Confederation”. Advocates said only an Act of Parliament will officially recognize Prince Edward Island’s role as the cradle of Canada’s founding, even if P.E.I. twice declined to join the country: “History is full of glitches”.
Canada’s western forests are shrinking amid a “widespread, significant increase” in tree loss, warns a new study. Researchers suggested global warming is a factor: “The climate continues to change”.
The Supreme Court is refusing to hear further appeals from a Winnipeg man who claimed he couldn’t find an “undefiled Bible” to swear an affidavit in a Manitoba courthouse. Justices declined to hear the case and ordered the man to pay costs: “This entire case is based on an unfortunate misunderstanding”.
Those supporting assisted suicide
believe that free choice
outweighs the sacredness of life.
Why do Conservatives oppose that?
Don’t they want to see Liberals, NDPs,
end their life with dignity?
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
The fisheries department says it has no idea of the extent of illegal harvesting in Canada. “We can’t know about those that we did not observe,” an official told the Commons fisheries committee, prompting protests from MPs: “We need to know what is going on”.
Canada has lost so many bread-and-butter factory jobs it’s flattened incomes for the entire middle class, says the country’s former chief statistician. The research follows a bleak Employment Canada report that concluded “the ‘Canadian dream’ is a myth” for millions of households: “This was the heyday”.
Cabinet is ‘shooting itself in the foot’ with curbs on migrant workers that have cost production and left food processors with chronic labour shortages, say executives. Processors said they are unable to find enough Canadians willing to work in trade: “They don’t want to get their hands dirty”.
Crown corporations are racking up billions in taxpayers’ debt with virtually no public oversight, says the Parliamentary Budget Office. Researchers calculated government-guaranteed loans to Crown agencies have grown five-fold in the past decade: “The government is on the hook”.
Regulators should more closely track the growth of genetically-modified crops in the nation, says an advocacy group opposed to the practice. A majority of soybeans and corn in Canada are engineered, while the Department of Agriculture has contemplated “plausible scenarios” for first-ever licensing of engineered wheat: “That is a problem”.
Cabinet claims a proposed billion-dollar liability limit on oil spills reflects “historical data”, though an Enbridge pipeline break in Michigan has cost the company 50% more to date. The Department of Natural Resources miscalculated actual costs of the 2010 Kalamazoo River spill in justifying its liability cap: “A billion dollars is actually just a rounding error”.
Canada has lost 4% of its farmland, some seven million acres, since 2006 due to urban sprawl, says a report by the National Farmers Union. The group cautioned remaining land has become a prize for foreign investors, echoing an Agriculture Canada memo that officials have little insight on offshore ownership: ‘Who is buying farmland?’
Federal regulators in a decision one MP called “nonsensical” have ruled scooter batteries run afoul of Dangerous Goods Regulations. The judgment came in the case of a disabled Winnipeg woman ordered to ship her back-up battery as cargo: “They have taken a very narrow view”.
Most gun robberies occur in British Columbia while Saskatchewan leads the nation in suicide by firearms, according to Department of Justice records. Canadians own more than 7.8 million rifles, shotguns, handguns and other firearms: ‘There’s security’.
MPs are demanding the RCMP justify a $19 million program that’s seen officers assigned to foreign posts from Bangkok to Panama City. The Commons public accounts committee has given the Mounties a 2016 deadline to submit a performance management report on its Liaison Officer Program: ‘There are deficiencies’.
