The National Research Council paid out more than $85 million in subsidies to pharmaceutical companies from the start of the pandemic, records show. Staff at the time complained of overwork in processing payments: “How much federal funding has been provided?”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office in 2019 was told MP Han Dong (Don Valley North, Ont.) was under security surveillance but kept him in the Liberal caucus, records show. Trudeau’s chief of staff in 2023 had denied the subject was ever raised: “I am not quite sure what is being referred to.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office in 2023 was given explicit warning of illegal conduct by Chinese agents that posed an “existential threat to Canadian democracy,” the China inquiry disclosed yesterday. Trudeau had denied he was ever told foreign agents breached the Elections Act: “It truly is a remarkable document.”
Cabinet had to follow “due process” before firing suspected Chinese spies working at the National Microbiology Laboratory, says Health Minister Mark Holland. Scientists with links to the People’s Liberation Army came under surveillance in August 2018 but remained on the job until July 2019: “Do you think they were eminent scientists or eminent spies?”
The Canadian Armed Forces are more than a quarter below “target strength” with resignations and poor enlistment rates, says a Department of National Defence briefing note. New recruits average just 7,600 a year: “We’ve actually seen greater attrition.”
The Canada Border Services Agency says it has no idea how many stolen vehicles have been shipped through the Port of Montréal by black marketeers. The Agency in a report acknowledged it intercepted few over a five-year period: “The Agency cannot provide an estimate.”
Costly new Covid ventilators sold for scrap by the Department of Public Works were still in their original factory wrapping, says a paramedic who bought 51 units at bargain prices. Dissembled units that sold for $6 apiece cost taxpayers more than $22,000 each, according to figures earlier submitted to the Commons ethics committee: “They are still sitting in my driveway.”
Large cash contributions by Chinese agents to friendly public office holders breached the Elections Act, says an internal 2022 federal memo. Repeated warnings of at least $250,000 in illegal political donations were known to cabinet-appointed election monitors but never made public, the China inquiry learned yesterday: “We were not a court.”
Federal 2021 election monitors knew Chinese agents sought to re-elect the Liberal Party, document show. Witnesses at the China inquiry have questioned why monitors failed to issue any public warnings of foreign interference: “A Liberal minority was the preferred election outcome of the People’s Republic of China as the Liberal Party was perceived to be ‘friendlier.'”
Canada Post yesterday warned “the gravity of our financial situation” will be spelled out in its next Annual Report in May. One Liberal MP questioned whether the post office is now “almost unsustainable.”
Cabinet should amend its own Bill C-58 An Act To Amend The Canada Labour Code to speed a ban on replacement workers, Canadian Labour Congress President Bea Bruske yesterday told MPs. The current bill delays enforcement until after the next federal election: “There is no excuse for delaying.”
Pandemic ventilators bought from a Toronto company by the Public Health Agency under a $169.5 million sole-sourced contract were sold as scrap, records show. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had praised the manufacturer by name as a Canadian success story: “This is exactly the kind of innovative and collaborative thinking we need.”
The Department of Health continues to take delivery of millions of new Covid-19 vaccines even as it throws away nearly $2 billion worth of expired shots, records show. “Overall wastage increased,” said a department briefing note.
Federal election monitors attached little significance to suspected Communist Party meddling via Chinese language media posts because they were “written in Mandarin,” a cabinet aide told the China inquiry. None of five cabinet appointees assigned to keep a lookout for foreign agents spoke Chinese: “The fact it is written in Mandarin meant the content would likely only reach Chinese diaspora readers.”
Cabinet-appointed election monitors found it “really difficult” to track Chinese interference in the 2021 campaign, says one director. Spotting the difference between misconduct and ordinary election activities was “a very fuzzy area,” the China inquiry was told: “Had we been more certain we could have maybe applied more certainty to it.”
