Avalanches are the “deadliest natural hazard in Canada,” says a Department of Public Safety report. More people die in avalanches than earthquakes, floods, hail, icebergs or volcanic eruptions, it said, though mountaineering is statistically less risky than taking a bath or eating a meal: ‘Avalanches kill more people annually than all other natural hazards combined.’
The Conservative Party last night in a byelection upset toppled a longtime Liberal stronghold in Toronto-St. Paul’s. The win ended a Liberal monopoly of Toronto ridings that narrowly re-elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s minority government three years ago: “Send Justin Trudeau a message.”
Ottawa media last night mistakenly proclaimed the Liberal Party as victors once again in a Toronto byelection. “A win’s a win,” said Paul Wells, pundit and Trudeau author, while one news agency formerly owned by the Toronto Star published a now-deleted headline announcing a Liberal win before all ballots were counted: “The Trudeau team will show new spring in its step.”
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s department confidentially polled Canadians on resentment against “the rich” before announcing an $18 billion hike in the capital gains tax, records show. Freeland, a millionaire, within days of receiving the pollsters’ report began characterizing critics as having “rich friends.”
Public support for immigration quotas is falling sharply, says a federal report. The Department of Immigration memo said a third of Canadians nationwide and a clear majority of Ontarians complain there are too many immigrants: “This is the most concern about the rate of immigration to Canada that we have seen in nearly 20 years.”
The Commons justice committee has published 78 petitions and reports documenting vulgar anti-Semitism from universities to elementary schools. It follows testimony from witnesses who said campuses now lead the nation in “Jew hate.”
More than a tenth of young drivers have operated a vehicle after using marijuana, says a Department of Public Safety report. Researchers acknowledged Parliament’s 2018 legalization of recreational cannabis countered years of progress in reducing impaired driving rates: ‘It is significant.’
The Department of Natural Resources in an internal memo acknowledges cabinet’s 2019 promise to plant two billion trees within a decade was faked. “Two billion trees” was picked as an inspirational slogan and should not be taken literally, it said: “I can’t give an exact date on when the two billion trees will be planted exactly.”
The Public Health Agency in an in-house memo says it introduced the $59.5 million ArriveCan app because it feared ordinary Customs forms were infected with Covid. The Agency’s own doctors at the time said there was no evidence paper spread the coronavirus: “We were told we could catch Covid from touching documents.”
Tax write-offs jumped 55 percent last year to more than $4.3 billion, records show. The Canada Revenue Agency gave no reason for the surprising increase: “It really has the appearance of an Agency without accountability.”
Cabinet sees “potential” in a Department of Employment scheme to build Canada’s biggest database using payroll information on 31 million tax filers. “Government departments and agencies could then access the information when they need it,” said a Briefing Binder: “It would impact every employer and every worker in Canada.”
Loblaw Companies and its subsidiaries pocketed more than $10 million in federal subsidies since 2019, records show. New Democrat Alexandre Boulerice (Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie, Que.), the MP who requested the figures, protested that taxpayers who can’t afford to shop at Loblaw still have to pay for it: “Enough is enough.”
Boston’s transportation system.
The Big Dig.
Scheduled to complete in 1998
for $2.6 billion.
Completed in 2007
for $14.6 billion.
Bostonians will continue to pay
until 2038.
The City of Ottawa learned the lesson,
chose a light rail instead.
“On time and on budget.”
Phase 1 missed
only three deadlines.
Phase 2 costs ballooned
by only 35%.
And mechanical testing confirms:
On sunny summer days,
when the breeze is light and
the birds are singing,
the system will actually function.
By Shai Ben-Shalom
If hindsight is 20-20 it’s also two dimensional. The past is often depicted by amateur historians and skillful propagandists as a morality play with cardboard characters: good, bad, black hat, white hat. This is the screenplay of every John Wayne film you ever saw.
More Than Just Games asks, why did Canada support the 1936 Nazi Olympics? There were several reasons. Co-authors Richard Menkis of the University of British Columbia and Harold Troper of the University of Toronto are talented writers with a keen eye for detail.
Just Games is not merely honest, it is compelling. First, Menkis and Troper dispense with myths.
No, Hitler did not pointedly refuse to shake U.S. sprinter Jesse Owen’s hand after the black athlete won gold. Hitler had shaken so many hands earlier in the games the International Olympic Committee told the effusive Fuehrer he’d breached protocol: no more handshakes.
No, Canadian athletes did not give the Nazi salute in the parade of athletes. They gave the traditional Olympic salute, arm straight from the side. It was a naïve thing to do, and uneasy British athletes dropped the salute altogether, but the 120-member Canadian delegation could be forgiven for being provincial.
And no, Olympic organizers never intended to give Hitler the Olympics in the first place. Two cities had bid for the 1936 games: Berlin and Barcelona. At a 1931 IOC meeting that settled the issue, Barcelona unsurprisingly received only 16 of 59 votes. “The German Weimar Republic and Berlin, if hardly rock stable, seemed to IOC members a far safer bet,” authors note.
Hitler would not seize power till 1933 and Spain was already a basket case. When the IOC voted, Spain’s King Alfonso had just fled the country, there were bread riots and a general strike in Madrid, Spain was ruled by a military dictatorship and three prime ministers had been assassinated to date. “From the vantage point of 1931, Berlin seemed a far more credible bet,” writes Just Games.
But Hitler did seize power and Nazi brutality was known by 1936. From the vantage point of 21st century readers horrified by the Holocaust, Canada’s participation seems inexplicable. Here Menkis and Troper crisply document the apologia of those pre-war years.
Nazis had consulates in Montréal and Winnipeg. The Deutsche Bund of Canada had 2,000 members and the German cruiser Karlsruhe was given a warm welcome by the Royal Canadian Navy when it paid a 1935 call on the Port of Vancouver.
Anti-Nazis of the era also had the taint of Bolshevism. High jumper Eva Dawes of Toronto boycotted the ’36 German games but had no qualms in competing at a Soviet-sponsored track meet in Moscow in 1935. Dawes returned from Stalinist Russia with high praise for the “great and marvelous work that has been accomplished in a country owned and built by the workers.” Dawes sadly passed away before the authors could complete a scheduled interview.
More telling, the Germans like Soviets were marvelous hosts. Overt anti-Semitism was tucked away for Olympic festivities and Canadian athletes would later write “we were royally treated everywhere.”
The great Olympic scandal of 1936 was not that Hitler hosted the summer and winter events but that Canada lost in hockey to Great Britain. As sportswriter Lou Marsh of the Toronto Star put it, “Canada has no real reason for dropping out of the Olympics unless Great Britain decides to withdraw her team.”
More Than Just Games is well-told and beautifully researched. In 1936 as today the IOC maintains a “low human rights bar,” authors conclude: “Low enough for all countries to qualify.”
By Holly Doan
More Than Just Games: Canada and the 1936 Olympics, by Richard Menkis & Harold Troper; University of Toronto Press; 254 pages; ISBN 9781-4426-26904; $27.95
Cabinet aides yesterday confirmed they withheld spy documents requested by the China inquiry. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s national security advisor testified she did not know how many confidential memos were concealed: “It is impossible.”
