Solving a single murder costs police more than $342,000 according to the latest federal research on the economics of crime. A study by Public Safety Canada also concludes the vast majority of violent crimes such as robberies and assaults are never reported to police, and result in billions’ worth of intangible costs: “I’m not sure what the government’s motivation is”.
Parliament will consider a bill to federalize all shipwrecks. The Canadian Coast Guard would be permanently designated as receiver of marine flotsam and jetsam under a private New Democrat bill before the Commons: “I’m a sailor”.
Nearly forty years after banning the manufacture of PCBs, Environment Canada is conducting new tests on samples of the toxin in Arctic fish and mammals. The analysis is required under a 1977 United Nations pact: “There are still reservoirs of PCBs in the Arctic”.
A federal tribunal has upheld a Canada Food Inspection Agency penalty against a trucker who kept a load of hogs 22 hours in a transport truck in 29° heat. The fine was $6,000. Animal rights activists have protested that penalties are inadequate: “It was a hot day”.
A deal’s a deal with Canada Revenue Agency as the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from a taxpayer unhappy with terms of a tax settlement. A British Columbia developer tried and failed to appeal tax charges after signing a settlement agreement with the agency: “Taxpayers succeeding with appeals like this is just about non-existent”.
A multi-million dollar charity endorsed by Canadian sports celebrities faces a federal order to surrender financial records to tax auditors. Canada Revenue Agency has been attempting to scrutinize the books of the 4Life Foundation since May, according to court records. The foundation’s “anti-bullying” motivational speakers include former NHL and CFL players: “Please don’t use my name”.
In a David and Goliath tax dispute, one of the nation’s smallest municipal organizations is suing Canada Revenue Agency over loss of sales tax rebates worth about one-tenth of its annual budget: “All of a sudden they get a letter”.
A catastrophic decline in Atlantic salmon stocks is prompting the Department of Fisheries to appoint an expert advisory panel on the issue in 2015. The initiative follows repeated warnings that numbers of salmon are reaching the lowest levels ever recorded: “We are killing too many”.
Farm groups say were never told of a last-minute bill introduced by cabinet before Christmas to amend the Canada Grains Act. Bill C-48 expands the powers of the Canadian Grain Commission to conduct paid inspections at eastern elevators on the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River: ‘It caught us by surprise’.
Prince Edward Island is now the seventh province to regulate payday loans under a federal cabinet order. The island is authorized to define criminal rates on term loans of 62 days or less under a 2007 Act of Parliament: “It’s high time”.
He set the earthquake
– 9.3 on the Richter scale –
to hit at precisely 7:59 am.
Triggering a Tsunami
1502 times stronger than the Hiroshima bomb.
Claiming the lives of
exactly 230,508 people
(one third children),
injuring 125,000,
displacing 1.69 million,
leaving 45,752 still missing.
This act’s accuracy
leaves me no choice but to conclude:
it was a sign
of supreme intelligent design.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
Public Works Canada is awarding a $1.25 million contract to a publicist to distribute government-vetted “news” to publishers and radio and TV stations. The budget for handout “news” increased 25 percent from a previous contract. The department said it wanted to “inform and educate Canadians on public issues”.
The publicist, News Canada Ltd., said it gives editors handout stories free of charge bearing a “News Canada” credit – “just like Canadian Press,” said president Shelley Middlebrook. “We help distribute content,” Middlebrook said. “Journalists either pick it up or they don’t”; “Nobody pays to publish this. We follow Canadian Press-style rules of writing, and articles have to be marked as ‘News Canada’ just like CP.”
Handouts include standard 400-word newspaper stories for dailies and weeklies, and prepackaged broadcast items downloaded from the company’s website. Recent articles scripted for the Government of Canada and other clients include, “Supersize Your Tax Refund”; “Farmers Are Interested In The Environment”; “Food & Beverage Industry Raises the Bar On Nutrition”; and “Hey New Graduate, Check Out The Insurance Industry!”
The client list for News Canada handouts is not known, though the Department of Public Works said it expects audits of actual publication and broadcast of “news” items. “This is educational, informational, lifestyle news,” said Middlebrook. “It’s not breaking news.” The profile of media users is “a real mix”, she added: “With daily newspapers we get 71 or 72 percent of dailies; in community newspapers, there have been a lot of closures but we average 60 percent.”
Middlebrook said handout stories are also carried by some 350 radio stations nationwide. “TV is smaller,” she added. “It used to be a bigger portion of our business.” Public Works said television clients were unnamed cable news broadcasters.
“It Has To Be Balanced”
Samples of pro-government TV handouts including one item lauding the Canadian Space Agency, including “interviews” with two officials; and another celebrating cabinet’s record on Aboriginal land claim settlements. The script reads: “How do you right a past wrong? Well, the Government of Canada has been working towards finding solutions to do just that.” The report continues, “Canada has made a commitment to reconciling relationships with First Nations people”; “The future looks bright. More win-win solutions are in the works to bring closure and justice for all.”
Another “news” story promotes Public Works’ own program to have Canadians surrender bank account information to the department for electronic deposit of benefits cheques. “This convenient service can help manage hectic schedules by depositing government payments directly into their bank accounts,” viewers are told; “It’s fast, secure and convenient – so there is more time for families to play together.” A similar item features an “interview” with Lorraine and Roch Beauchamp, identified only as a “retired couple”.
The public works department said, in addition to paying $1.25 million, it would edit all scripts and make officials available in Ottawa, Toronto and Montréal for “in-person interviews or testimonials”. Middlebrook, asked if the handouts were propaganda, replied: “I don’t think so”; “If it is, editors won’t pick it up. It has to be balanced. If it was too propaganda-based, editors wouldn’t use it.”
By Tom Korski
Air passenger rights are “uneven” due to a complaints-based system that fails to meet E.U. or American standards, Transport Canada admits in a departmental memo. The document cited public demands for “more prescriptive” regulations that would spell out airlines’ duties to their customers.
The 2013 memo was released through Access To Information. It was written by unnamed staff for Transport Minister Lisa Raitt, detailing Canadian Transportation Act regulations that require passengers to individually complain to regulators over lost luggage, flight delays and denial of boarding on over-booked flights.
“This system results in an uneven application of measures, as Canadian Transportation Agency decisions only apply to the carrier and issue(s) that were the subject of a complaint,” the memo states. The “uneven” reference was marked for deletion. Raitt was unavailable for comment.
The document continues, “The European Union and the United States have more prescriptive passenger rights regimes in place, and some members of the public have called for a similar approach in Canada.”
The memo follows disclosure of other confidential documents in which the Transportation Agency acknowledged it hears only a small fraction of passenger complaints, and has no estimate of airlines’ actual performance on flight delays, lost luggage and over-booking.
The agency received only 882 complaints from air passengers last year and 529 the year before, according to its Annual Report. Canadian airlines carry some 40 million passengers a year.
Weak Regulations
Regulators in a confidential Assessment Of Air Passenger Level Of Service Indicators In Canada concluded they had no “official data” on airlines’ performance since carriers refused to disclose the information. “Although air carriers do not publish data on the number of complaints they receive, the U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that for every complaint they receive, the air carriers receive around 50,” Assessment concluded.
“Although there are significant differences between the two jurisdictions, applying the same ratio to Canada results in an estimate of approximately 40,000 complaints in 2010-11.”
Assessment continued, “Agency staff report that an Air Canada representative suggested the carrier received around 20,000 complaints annually but this anecdotal report is now dated and was for a single air carrier only. Lacking firm data, a range of between 20,000 and 50,000 annual air passenger complaints to Canadian airlines is not an unreasonable estimate.”
Canada has among the weakest consumer legislation for airline passengers, the report noted, citing statutory passengers’ rights in the E.U., Argentina; Brazil; Chile; China; Colombia, Iceland; India; Israel; Nigeria; Norway; Pakistan; Peru; The Philippines; Switzerland; Thailand; Turkey; Uruguay; Venezuela and the United States, where delays of more than four hours entitle passengers to 400% compensation to a maximum US$1,300.
By Staff
Transport Canada is ordering all major railways to automatically report on traffic, employee training and maintenance worries effective April 1, 2015. The mandate is the latest to follow the Lac-Mégantic wreck that killed 47 people: “Companies are expected to follow the rules”.
Federal regulators are citing telecom companies for an odd billing practice – charging fees to lease service poles they don’t own. The ruling followed complaints from local British Columbia cable firms that Telus tried to collect leasing fees on thousands of poles that belonged to somebody else: “They have no cost to recover”.
