New data suggest the Government cut its hiring of students despite MPs’ complaints of chronic youth unemployment. The number of student hires by federal agencies has declined an average 23% in the past five years: “The cuts are across the board”.
In a venture one former executive called “depressing”, the Canadian Space Agency is hiring consultants to persuade cabinet of the benefits of investments in science. The initiative follows a 10% budget cut: “Help us talk to the politicians so they will think we do something useful”.
Cabinet proposes to harmonize regulations on workplace chemicals in sync with U.S. rules. Health Canada estimated the measure will cost industry $14 million a year but result in long-term savings on relabeling goods for cross-border shipment: ‘There are real concerns’.
A Saskatchewan businessman has lost a bid to avoid a six-figure tax bill by declaring bankruptcy – twice. Court of Queen’s Bench ruled the delinquent tax-filer must make at least partial payment after going 14 years without paying tax: “Canada Revenue was really pushing to get that money”.
The St. Lawrence Seaway has rebounded strongly enough from a delayed start to fuel speculation about whether it can match or surpass its 2013 traffic total of 37.1 million tonnes: “All forecasts suggest this trend will continue”.
Privatization of Canada Post appears likely under a cabinet proposal to lower the corporation’s pension deficit by cutting benefits, say retirees. A Department of Finance plan would repeal defined benefits guaranteed under the Canada Post pension, currently struggling with a deficit that has grown 25% since 2011: ‘They are doing everything they can to privatize’.
Canada Mortgage & Housing Corp. is budgeting $7 million to help employees brush up on résumé writing, “having difficult conversations” and other skills. The initiative comes amid persistent speculation the corporation is to be privatized: “Does the government have any plans to do this?”
Consumer groups are petitioning cabinet to overturn a CRTC decision on expiry dates for prepaid wireless cards. The appeals come a year after the telecom regulator finalized its Wireless Code that allows prepaid cards to run out even with a cash balance: “I don’t know how anyone can justify that”.
The federal Treasury Board is promising to finally streamline electronic services by 2016. The latest deadline follows a critical auditors’ report that found departments still have no simple, standardized format to handle business online: “That’s totally unacceptable”.
A government group, the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada, commissioned confidential research that concludes Indo-Canadians are “price conscious”; Chinese-Canadians “value aesthetics”; and aboriginals are “insecure”. The research also concluded Filipino immigrants are much like other Asians: “Birds of a feather flock together”.
Natural Resources Canada in a confidential cabinet grievance suggests senior scientists are biased and too talkative with reporters. The memo followed publication of federal research on the environmental impact of Alberta’s oil sands development.
“This is classic,” said Dr. John Smol, a Queen’s University professor who co-authored the landmark oil sands research; “You can call me all sorts of names but, look, I’m an honest guy. The Canadian people have a right to know this. I am very proud of that paper.”
A panel of scientists at Queen’s and Environment Canada wrote the study that revealed hazardous emissions from oilsands development had resulted in detectable levels of contamination in nearby lakes. The 2013 research paper Legacy Of a Half Century Of Athabasca Oil Sands Development Recorded By Lake Ecosystems based its findings on lake sediment deposits in north-central Alberta.
“The study received significant media coverage,” complained a Memorandum To The Minister. “Environment Canada has told us that this was, in part, because Queen’s University provided an embargoed advance copy to media outlets along with a technical briefing by Professor Smol.”
The memo continued, “In interviews, Professor Smol stated: ‘We have, in some ways, a smoking gun here…We can show that the amount of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, only one of the many contaminants that are out there, are increasing in lockstep with the tar sands developments starting in the 1960s…We’re not saying these lakes are poisonous, but it’s going to get worse. It’s not too late, but the trend is not looking good.’ The advance briefing by Queen’s University and the statements would indicate a lack of neutrality in the study participants and are not in line with the study findings.”
Natural Resources staff vowed to get advance copies of potentially critical scientific research in the future: “We will aim to brief you on these reports prior to their release.” The memo’s author, then-Deputy Minister Serge Dupont, was not available for an interview. His memo was released through Access to Information; Dupont left the department June 20 for appointment as Canada’s $288,000-a year representative to the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C.
“To say this lacks ‘neutrality’ raises the question of how these people can be so out of touch with how science works,” said Professor Smol. “This is my job. This research was funded by taxpayers. It’s my job to report to the people of Canada and the scientific community on what the data show. To cast aspersions on that by this internal document – it’s sad, really.”
Smol is Queen’s Canada Research Chair in Environmental Change; co-director of the Paleoecological Environmental Assessment & Research Laboratory; editor of the journal Environmental Reviews; a former Rutherford Lecturer at the Royal Society of London; and a 2004 winner of the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council’s Herzberg Gold Medal as the nation’s top scientist.
“The supposed ‘bias’ in having media take an advance look at this – that’s standard practice,” Smol said. “Media always have advanced copies of scientific studies under embargo. Surely people writing this must understand how media normally work.”
The research was widely covered by world press including public radio in the U.K., Sweden and Germany; the New York Times and Christian Science Monitor; all major Canadian dailies and Alberta Oil magazine.
Legacy concluded lake contamination has grown as oil sands production increased since 1980, and was projected to keep growing with industry forecasts of a 150 percent gain in production by 2025. “The conclusions are obvious to anyone who can draw a line on a graph,” Smol said. “When you can show increasing pollution trends, and petroleum producers talk of doubling production in fifteen years, how would you conclude otherwise? It’s a logical conclusion, not a lack of ‘neutrality’.”
By Tom Korski 
Canada’s privacy commissioner is suing one of the nation’s largest supermarket chains alleging it refuses to divulge personal information it kept on an unhappy customer. The application in Federal Court seeks to compel Sobeys Inc. to answer requests dating back three years, including repeated appeals from federal attorneys.
A federal judge will rule whether Transport Canada exceeded its authority by quietly exempting Air Canada from in-flight staffing regulations without first notifying staff. The Canadian Union of Public Employees is asking that Federal Court review how the exemption was granted, and whether it affects public safety: ‘Flight attendants have told me they are concerned’.
Dear Friends: staff and directors of Blacklock’s Reporter pause for our annual August holiday week. We’ll be back August 9th. Our best wishes to you for a safe and happy holiday.
Public Safety Canada has no reliable estimate on the size of a “flourishing” trade in black market cigarettes, according to confidential documents. “We do not know the basics,” concluded one in-house study commissioned by the department. The data was obtained through Access to Information: “All you have to do is walk out the door to find contraband tobacco”.
