Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon yesterday told MPs his unprecedented use of cabinet orders to force unions into binding arbitration was intended to “ensure industrial peace.” MacKinnon in testimony at the Commons human resources committee did not say if he would act to end a five-day strike by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers: “How can we not hear?”
A total 880 Canada Revenue Agency employees fraudulently claimed pandemic relief cheques, the highest figure disclosed to date, Revenue Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said yesterday. It followed claims by an Agency executive that “not very many” employees were cheats: “We have a zero tolerance policy for fraud.”
Taxpayers should expect a loss in any sale of the Trans Mountain Pipeline despite cabinet assurances, Budget Officer Yves Giroux said yesterday. Giroux recommended MPs audit billions’ worth of cost overruns: “That is a very interesting question.”
A former deputy industry minister yesterday denied any responsibility for rampant conflicts at the disgraced federal agency Sustainable Development Technology Canada. Retiree John Knubley, testifying by videoconference at the Commons public accounts committee, appeared agitated as MPs accused him of a coverup: “I am not a lawyer.”
The Conservative Party yesterday in its final submission to the China inquiry questioned why Prime Minister Justin Trudeau twice approved a Liberal nomination for MP Han Dong (Don Valley North, Ont.) despite learning he was under security surveillance. Political aides vetoed Dong’s appointment to a committee on China relations but permitted him to attend four years’ worth of secret Liberal caucus meetings: “Liberals knew.”
New Democrat MP Heather McPherson (Edmonton Strathcona) yesterday was reprimanded by the Commons Speaker for wearing a lapel pin proclaiming support for Palestinians. MPs jeered after McPherson compared her “solidarity” pin to wearing a Remembrance Day poppy: “No!”
Addictions Minister Ya’ara Saks yesterday said families across Canada often ask her for parenting advice. Children “are feeling immense anxiety” due to the internet and climate change, she told reporters: “We can’t always protect our kids from the hardships they may face.”
The Department of Finance will order banks to disclose how much they pocket in non-sufficient funds fees on chequing accounts — it could be as high as a half billion a year, said the department — with a new cap on NSF charges. Service fees overall may account for more than a tenth of earnings by Canada’s largest banks, said a federal report: “There is very limited information published by banks.”
Twenty-five New Democrat MPs oppose any cabinet intervention in rotating postal strikes, says Party leader Jagmeet Singh. The last mail strike six years ago ended with back-to-work legislation after five weeks: “Stay out of this.”
Parliament owes Canada an apology for the housing crisis, says a Commons petition sponsored by a former Government House Leader. Liberal MP Bardish Chagger (Waterloo, Ont.) did not comment: “There must be accountability and a public apology.”
The Canada Revenue Agency continues to make thousands of errors in assessing taxes, records show. The latest figures follow a 2016 audit that found taxpayers had a 6 in 10 chance of successfully appealing an assessment: ‘Taxpayers have a right.’
Drug addicts should be called patients instead, says the Federal Housing Advocate. Marie-Josée Houle in a report to Parliament said the noun “addicts” was insensitive and judgmental: “Words we use matter.”
My hairdresser
pressed his fingers against my scalp;
my teller
had her eyes in my transactions;
my plumber
had his tools in my bathtub;
my physician
stuck his swab down my throat.
I get nervous thinking
how much of my private life
is in the hands of others.
In a society that sanctifies privacy
none of these should be tolerated.
Time to see my psychologist.
By Shai Ben-Shalom
It was a horrific year, 1917: conscription and coal rationing in Canada, carnage in France, revolution in Russia, unrestricted submarine warfare on the Atlantic. Steamships were torpedoed at the rate of ten a day. One British liner bound for Halifax, the Rappahannock, vanished without a trace.
This was the moment French Foreign Minister René Viviani spoke to Parliament. “Every speech is a freeze-frame of history in the making,” writes J. Patrick Boyer in Foreign Voices In The House; “When Réne Viviani spoke in 1917, his vibrant voice had to fill the entire chamber because no amplifying speakers delivered his words to the audience.”
Boyer captures the event, May 12, 1917. Canadian casualties were 13,000 a month. Twenty-seven MPs were in uniform. One had been killed in action, another won the Victoria Cross. The MP for Beauce, Que., Henri Béland, could not attend the Commons that day. He was held in a German prison camp.
Viviani rose to speak. “Your generosity toward France is unfathomable,” he said. “Some members of this House have fallen at the front in this holy cause.”
“Mothers who now listen to me, it is for your children’s freedom,” Viviani said. “It is to prevent the recurrence of any wars and to secure the peace of the world that a whole generation is now giving its blood and making today the supreme sacrifice.”
Foreign Voices In The House is a fascinating contribution to Canadiana, the first compilation of its kind. Not every visiting VIP gets a Parliament Hill speaking engagement. Fidel Castro never made the cut. Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was denied an invitation on his 1985 Canadian tour.
Nor is every speech profound. Author Boyer recounts a 1958 address by West German President Theodor Heuss that reads like remarks at Rotary luncheon. Heuss was impressed with Niagara Falls, he said: “I had a quiet feeling of pride when thinking that 60 years ago when those Falls were first harnessed to generate power, it was my native province in Germany that supplied the first turbines.”
Boyer, a former MP and skilled writer, recounts speeches by foreign leaders in the finest theatre in the country, the “high-vaulted cathedral” of the House of Commons. “Collectively, they chart the evolution of a world in relentlessly accelerating transition,” Boyer writes.
There was Indonesia’s President-for-life Sukarno, appearing in a dazzling white suit with Pat Boone shoes in 1956. “I beg you, do not underestimate the force of the nationalist torrent which is today pouring over Asia and Africa,” he said. “It is a mighty torrent.” Ahead lay Vietnam and Cambodia, and Sukarno’s ouster in a 1967 coup.
Here was Eisenhower, addressing Parliament in 1953. “I get such a thrill every time I come to this country,” he said. Later Ike shot an 85 at the Royal Ottawa Golf Club.
And there was Churchill in his famous “some chicken, some neck” speech, the first address ever broadcast live from Parliament Hill via BBC shortwave. The date was December 30, 1941, one of the darkest periods of the war, only days after the disastrous Battle of Hong Kong and sinking of the battleship HMS Prince of Wales. “If anybody likes to play rough, we can play rough too!” he said. MPs roared.
Foreign Voices In The House is concise and intriguing. “Some speeches fall quickly into the dustbin of history,” writes Boyer. “Others gain lustre in hindsight. Yet none can be judged, truly, apart from its times.”
By Holly Doan
Foreign Voices In The House: A Century of Addresses to Canada’s Parliament by World Leaders, by J. Patrick Boyer; Dundurn Press; 600 pages; ISBN 9781-4597-36856; $35
Liberal and Bloc Québécois MPs yesterday by a 6-5 vote blocked a committee motion asking that cabinet disclose a secret blacklist of Nazi collaborators let into Canada after 1945. The majority on the Commons heritage committee expressed unease in identifying suspected war criminals: “This is an extremely delicate situation.”
