Elections Canada in a report to the China inquiry now says it knew of at least 149 complaints of foreign interference in the last two general elections. The agency two years ago assured MPs it was unaware of any claims foreign agents were at work: “I have no reason to believe the election was not a free and fair election.”
Canada’s Ambassador for Climate Change billed more than $254,000 in travel expenses in less than two years on the job, accounts show. Catherine Stewart charged for stays at luxury hotels ranging up to $623 a night, according to Access To Information records: “Climate change will bring unprecedented challenges.”
Talk of a home equity tax is merely a “rumor” though the Prime Minister met privately for an hour with equity tax lobbyists, says Liberal MP Karina Gould (Burlington, Ont.). Political aides in Gould’s office in a note to homeowners dismissed the meeting as routine and unimportant: “I can assure you.”
The Canada Revenue Agency demanded Saskatchewan pay $42.4 million worth of carbon taxes within 14 days or else, according to Federal Court records. Saskatchewan Attorney General Bronwyn Eyre called the unprecedented order an obvious threat at political direction: “They started with the threats.”
Canadians will live in townhouses and walk-up apartments under a Housing Design Catalogue for builders and buyers. No designs for detached single family homes are welcome: “I want to solve the housing crisis.”
Risks of money laundering in real estate have worsened despite attempts to curb black marketeers, the Department of Finance said Saturday. The department in a regulatory notice said it will mandate that all realtors identify anyone involved in the purchase or sale of property in Canada: “Realtors do not want to see a single dollar of dirty money.”
Followed a floater
in my eyeball.
Saw it disappearing
before I could reach to a pen.
Had it known
it could’ve become a poem,
it would have likely paused –
posed –
allowing me to capture
its best side.
Now I write from memory,
trust my imagination
to fill-in the missing pieces.
I question
whether my words
do justice
to the greatness of the moment.
By Shai Ben-Shalom
At a plain beige Parliamentary cafeteria where Canada’s leaders took lunch there was a salad bar with fresh greens, chickpeas, beets and whole broccoli, sometimes artichoke hearts. It was the most colourful table in the place. Further down was a grey deep fryer that sold salted, fat-laden potatoes and meats. Can you guess which had the line-up every day at noon?
In examining the national diet, Professor Anthony Winson of the University of Guelph laments the “nutritional degradation of food.” It is not food at all, Winson writes, but “edible commodities that too often subvert our well-being and promote disease instead of nourishing us.”
Soft-drink consumption in Canada increased 50 percent in a generation. The incidence of diabetes in Ontario alone rose from 6.6 percent of the population to 10.5 percent in a decade. Nationwide Canadians spent $2 billion a year on confectionery where profit margins average 35 percent. Industrial Diet notes this is neither new nor unique. Consumption of sugar in the U.K. first spiked in 1844 and has risen almost annually ever since except for periods of wartime rationing.
Yet neither Winson nor other food critics can escape the fact of the Parliament Hill cafeteria. Nobody forces Canadians to put salt, fat and sugar in their mouths. In The Industrial Diet Winson faces the question plainly: “There is almost always room for the exercise of individual responsibility, yet this view utterly fails to explain why so many individuals began making bad dietary decisions over the last twenty years or so, the period during which obesity has come to be a first-order health issue.”
This is exactly the point. Did Wendy’s Baconator burger have to carry 1500 milligrams of salt? Did Subway Inc. have to pour 16 teaspoons of sugar into its combo meal? Did Burger King have to lard up the Triple Whopper with 1240 calories?
Winson toured southern Ontario supermarkets with a tape measure and calculated up to 37 percent of shelf space for edibles was occupied by “pseudo foods,” he calls them: sugar water, potato chips, cookies, candy, bulk chocolates. In the breakfast section up to 80 percent of shelf space was devoted to pre-sweetened cereals. Eighty percent of checkouts had displays of candy, chocolate and salty snacks.
Winson’s research took him to grocery stores in his hometown Guelph, Ont. and nearby Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge, but the effect is the same in Anytown, Canada, he says. The phenomenon of consumers everywhere eating identical foods purchased at identical places is a touchstone of the culture.
“The market, dominated as it is in the food sector by so few powerful players, offers little in the way of real freedom of choice in the first place,” writes Winson. “The apparent diversity of product lines is undercut by the fact that in almost any product category, the majority of product lines are owned by a few food industry giants.”
Winson dates our enthusiasm for industrial food to the 19th century roller mills that unfortunately removed so much nutrient-rich bran and wheat germ from bread and flour that millers had to add vitamins and call it enriched: “I see the industrialization of flour milling as lying at the core of the first industrial dietary regime,” he writes.
By 1911 the market was controlled by Canada Bread Co., a conglomerate of five corporations in Montréal, Toronto and Winnipeg that drove ruinous price wars against independent bakers and in just one year, 1914, saw a 78 percent gain in revenues.
Industrial Diet is whole, colourful and rich in ingredients with an unmistakable kick that reminds Canadians: “It is perfectly possible to prepare delightful meals with ingredients that enhance, rather than damage, the health of those who consume them.”
By Holly Doan
The Industrial Diet: The Degradation of Food and The Struggle for Health Eating, by Anthony Winson; UBC Press; 352 pages; ISBN 9780-7748-25528; $32.95
There is no evidence a $30 billion national daycare program saw more mothers join the workforce, says a federal document. The Department of Social Development briefing note directly contradicted claims by Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland: “That is feminist economic policy.”
Eight Canadian diplomats couldn’t spot the error on a large map of Canada displayed at our Embassy in Washington, Access To Information records show. Staff at the Embassy yesterday would not comment on the banner that mistakenly identified Greenland as Canadian territory: “Great, thank you.”
An undisclosed number of Liberal MPs want the Prime Minister out, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said yesterday. Freeland told reporters the “vast majority” but not all members of the Liberal caucus support Justin Trudeau: ‘The people did send us a message.’
Taxpayers should expect “mind blowing” costs from cabinet’s program to censor legal internet content, Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner (Calgary Nose Hill) said yesterday. Budget Office figures requested by the MP said internet surveillance will take an entire bureaucracy with at least 330 federal employees and a five-year budget of $201 million: “The mind-blowing cost of the bill could grow.”
Federal prisons are contracting Amazon.com to run a delivery service for inmates. The Correctional Service promised there was no cost to taxpayers: “All items are purchased using inmate funds and are at zero cost to Canada.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau must release complete recordings of his remarks to a home equity tax lobby, the Opposition said yesterday. Trudeau has not commented on his appearance at an invitation-only meeting with a lobbyist who complained homeowners “reaped substantial gains in wealth.”
Fears of saboteurs yesterday prompted cabinet to grant federal rail inspectors new powers to combat “security incidents.” The Department of Transport said incidents of sabotage were growing but would not disclose numbers: “There has been a disturbing trend.”
