Federal employees did their bit to save electricity under a January 13 Alberta Emergency alert, records show. Guards dimmed the lights at an Edmonton penitentiary while constables unplugged RCMP block heaters at Elk Point as temperatures fell to -40°.
A former Conservative MP named as a target of Chinese Communist Party agents in the 2021 campaign yesterday said he felt like Canadian election monitors left him to drown. “The government doesn’t seem to care,” Kenny Chiu testified at the China inquiry.
Senior Liberal Party managers attended MP Han Dong’s 2019 nomination meeting deemed a target of Chinese agents, according to documents released yesterday by the Commission on Foreign Interference. “Party brass from Ottawa were at the nomination vote,” one eyewitness said in sworn statement: “They wanted to know whether there was anything the media could pick up on to tarnish the campaign.”
Foreign interference cost the Conservative Party “a certain number of seats” in the 2021 election, former leader Erin O’Toole yesterday testified at the China inquiry. Internal federal memos confirmed Conservatives were targeted by a Chinese language slander campaign claiming O’Toole planned to cut diplomatic relations with Beijing: “The government knew there was a level of foreign interference occurring.”
Federal agents have lost track of more than 28,000 foreign fugitives in Canada including several hundred with criminal records, documents show. The latest figures follow an admission by the Canada Border Services Agency that it found it difficult to keep track of people ordered deported: “Should we not look to remove close to 100 percent of these individuals?”
The Canada Border Services Agency yesterday said fears of transmitting Covid by paper Customs forms prompted it to spend $59.5 million on the ArriveCan app. Federal health authorities at the time said there was little chance of getting sick by handling paperwork: “The risk is not really out there.”
Independent MP Han Dong (Don Valley North, Ont.) yesterday admitted foreign students attending school out of town voted in his 2019 Liberal nomination. Dong dismissed the incident as commonplace though his own campaign manager questioned Chinese teenagers’ eligibility to vote: “Do you accept that would be an outrageous intervention by the People’s Republic of China in our democracy?”
Liberal MP Ken Hardie (Fleetwood-Port Kells, B.C.) yesterday said he privately contacted the Canadian Security Intelligence Service following his 2021 re-election regarding allegations of pro-Liberal interference by foreign agents. The China inquiry yesterday disclosed names of 13 ridings including Hardie’s that were allegedly targeted by Beijing. Others include seats held by two former cabinet ministers and the current chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee: “I asked for a meeting with CSIS.”
Erin O’Toole’s Conservative Party was never told its candidates were targeted by foreign agents, the China inquiry learned yesterday. One confidential memo said offshore money was “funneled to preferred candidates” deemed pro-China: “Would information of this nature have been useful to your Party?”
Pensions for retired MPs averaged $77,900 last year, an increase of nearly 10 percent since the pandemic, says the Treasury Board. Pensions are indexed to inflation to “cover increases in the cost of living.”
Zookeepers are protesting a Senate bill to restrict the public display of elephants and apes. Exotic animals in Canada enjoy the highest standards of care, the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee was told: “It is very disappointing.”
Federal investigators waited years to look into allegations a 2021 Liberal candidate benefited from thousands in undisclosed donations from friends of China, records show. Vancouver East candidate Josh Vander Vies’ campaign was ultimately fined $500 for poor bookkeeping: “I cannot speculate here.”
Federal election monitors never caught any Chinese agents despite numerous tips but instead spent four years prosecuting Rebel News Network for improper signage, the China inquiry was told. A director of Elections Act enforcement testified it was complicated: “It is difficult to answer such questions.”
The insolvent SaltWire Network newspaper chain pocketed more than $5 million in taxpayers’ subsidies in one year while failing to pay its tax debts, Court records show. Creditors in filings with the Nova Scotia Supreme Court described SaltWire management as incompetent: ‘They mismanaged the business.’
A 2019 pre-election program promising to make home ownership “an achievable dream” failed, says a CMHC report. The billion-dollar scheme was poorly designed and delivered only a fraction of the promised benefits, wrote auditors: “The program has low uptake.”
