An executive with a federal agency disbanded over sweetheart subsidies yesterday described public criticism of the “green slush fund” as hurtful. Sheryl Urie, vice president of finance, said Sustainable Development Technology Canada benefited all Canadians beyond the 186 conflicts of interest by the board: ‘It is difficult to hear.’
Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc yesterday would not commit to naming Parliament Hill spies before the next election. LeBlanc earlier said he knew the identities of public office holders working for foreign embassies: “I asked a simple question; answer the question.”
Senator Yuen Pau Woo (B.C.) predicts a McCarthyist witch hunt with Parliament’s passage of a bill mandating public disclosure of Canadians lobbying for foreign governments. Fellow Liberal appointees in the Senate ridiculed Woo’s claim: “What advice would you give to Chinese Canadians who want to build good ties with their motherland?”
Canada must spend billions more to meet its minimum NATO commitments, says the Commons national defence committee. The recommendation follows remarks by Defence Minister Bill Blair that it “is a challenge for Canada” to achieve the same funding targets as the U.S., United Kingdom and other allies: “Meet the Alliance’s two percent defence spending target.”
Federal managers are still attempting to recover about $1.6 million worth of wages mistakenly paid to employees while they were on strike in 2023, records show. Management blamed paperwork errors: “What was the total amount mistakenly paid out?”
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland says she routinely shares password-protected news stories with friends. Freeland’s remarks followed a Federal Court ruling won by Department of Justice lawyers that permits password sharing, a Canadian first.
“As you guys know I used to be a journalist,” Freeland told reporters. “I still read two newspapers every day in print and take pictures of the articles that I share with people.”
Freeland did not name her subscriptions. The finance minister was previously deputy editor of the Globe & Mail.
“We work for you guys,” Freeland told reporters. Her comments were in response to an unrelated question from Canadian Press.
“I am a huge believer in the value of the work that all of you guys do, the work of professional, salaried journalists,” said Freeland. She did not elaborate.
Federal lawyers on May 31 won a court judgment approving Canadians’ sharing of passwords to paywalled media content. The ruling came in a Blacklock’s lawsuit against Parks Canada for ignoring repeated warnings and “plainly visible” terms and conditions against sharing passwords without payment or permission.
Evidence showed Genevieve Patenaude, a Parks Canada manager, bought a single Blacklock’s password and then emailed it to any co-worker who asked, at least nine people, “if you ever need to access any Blacklock’s article.” Parks Canada had 2,160 employees at the time.
Patenaude refused to answer Blacklock’s when asked what she did with the password and later testified she was confused. Blacklock’s lawyers argued Parks Canada’s misconduct was unethical and a clear violation of property rights under the Copyright Act.
“Enormous Implications”
The Federal Court ruled anyone who believed they had a “legitimate business reason” could share a password to access paywalled media content. Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair at the University of Ottawa, called the ruling a “huge win” for people who wanted free content with “enormous implications for libraries, education and users more broadly.”
Blacklock’s argued its password system was standard in the news business. Globe & Mail executives in 2020 testimony at the Commons finance committee said newsrooms had no choice but to sell passwords to paywalled content. “The majority of our revenue comes from the 120,000 digital subscribers and 110,000 print subscribers who currently pay to consume our journalism,” testified then-publisher Philip Crawley.
“The cornerstone of our business is not advertising which is a revenue stream that shrinks each year,” said Crawley. “No, the present and the future of the Globe is founded on readers and users paying for our content. More than 60 percent of our revenue comes from subscriptions, print and digital. Advertising revenue is now only 33 percent.”
Crawley said the Globe sold passwords and “put that reporting behind the paywall to drive subscriptions.” Copyright protection was “very important,” he said.
The Commons heritage committee in a 2019 report recommended that cabinet tighten the Copyright Act to protect creators from haphazard sharing “when the work is commercially available.” Nothing for sale should be copied without payment or permission, said the report Shifting Paradigms.
“This is not just a clinical report,” Liberal MP Julie Dabrusin (Toronto-Danforth), then-chair of the heritage committee, said at the time. “Creators talked about the impact on income they need to keep producing the works that we love.” Cabinet never acted on the report.
By Staff 
Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault yesterday banned the sale of lightbulbs once touted by his department as climate-friendly energy savers. Compact fluorescent bulbs in fact contained toxic mercury blamed for poisoning the environment: “There are probably 100 million of these bulbs in Canada.”
Liberal MPs will spend the summer talking to voters “about their hopes and dreams,” Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon said yesterday. MacKinnon made the remarks to reporters as the Commons adjourned for a 13-week summer recess: “At what point is it time to change?”
Cabinet yesterday adopted an all-party recommendation of the Commons justice committee to blacklist the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group. It did not comment on a committee proposal to immediately “expel the estimated 700 Iranian agents operating in Canada.”
A University of Alberta economist who used his Twitter account to ridicule Conservatives as “idiots” and “sociopaths” received more than $68,000 in sole-sourced federal contracts, records show. Economist Andrew Leach yesterday said he made no secret of his work: “Are we governed by idiots beholden to sociopaths?”
China is “helping” fight climate change by manufacturing solar panels, says Deputy Foreign Minister David Morrison. MPs expressed astonishment at his remarks, noting Chinese panels are made by slave labour and prohibited from being imported under Canadian trade law: “They are actually helping; Chinese production is helping countries around the world transition off dirty fuels.”
More than 36,000 foreign students have claimed refugee protection in Canada, records show. The figures covering the period from 2018 identified five universities and colleges with the highest number of refugee claims: “That isn’t the sign of a healthy system.”
The Senate has passed into law a first-ever federal ban on replacement workers in strikes and lockouts. Senator Frances Lankin (Ont.), a longtime union executive, called it the historic fulfillment of labour rights sought since Confederation: ‘I hope you feel the weight of history.’
Federal hiring practices are buried in paperwork, says a Public Service Commission survey of government managers. Nine out of 10 rated it “burdensome.”
Doctors have “huge advantages under our tax system” and can afford to pay more, Health Minister Mark Holland said yesterday. His remarks followed a warning from the Canadian Medical Association that changes to capital gains tax rates would cost most doctors nationwide: “A nurse should not be paying a higher marginal tax rate than a multimillionaire.”
