Blacklock's Reporter

Final costs of the ArriveCan program were ten times the original budget, two former managers yesterday told the Commons government operations committee. “I delivered a detailed costing of $6.3 million,” testified Cameron MacDonald (pictured right), former director general with the Canada Border Services Agency: “We are not responsible for the $60 million.”

A majority of Canadians are confused and anxious about climate change while 20 percent are uninterested, says in-house Privy Council “behavioural science research.” The federal study obtained through Access To Information showed worriers and skeptics alike were found in all regions and walks of life: “Canadians are a diverse group.”

Costs of federal employee salaries and benefits topped $67 billion last year, a record, Budget Officer Yves Giroux said yesterday. Giroux earlier described growth in payroll expenses as “worrisome.”

Justice Marie-Josée Hogue yesterday pleaded with immigrant groups to testify without fear of retaliation at the Commission on Federal Interference. Hogue promised extraordinary precautions for anyone with evidence against foreign agents: “They fear reprisals if they provide information.”

CBC’s Ombudsman yesterday dismissed viewer complaints of bias over a TV show on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Mormon viewers called it a “hit piece.”

Housing Minister Sean Fraser has launched national fundraising but yesterday would not comment on whether he is campaigning to lead the Liberal Party. “Hopeful about the future!” wrote one Fraser fundraiser: “While many are counting the federal Liberals as being dead on arrival in the next election I think the outcome of this is far from clear.”

The Department of Public Works has “sufficient suspicion” of wrongdoing in ArriveCan contracting, a manager testified yesterday. Assistant Deputy Minister Catherine Poulin made the admission under questioning at the Commons public accounts committee: “People would be fired for this.”

Federal contracting is “lacklustre and faulty,” the Liberal parliamentary secretary for revenue said yesterday. MP Iqra Khalid (Mississauga-Erin Mills, Ont.) said all taxpayers suffered under mismanagement of the $59.5 million ArriveCan program: “We did not take care of taxpayer dollars.”

The Commons transport committee yesterday by unanimous 11-0 vote summoned Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault for questioning over his remarks that Canada doesn’t need more roads. Conservative MP Mark Strahl (Chilliwack-Hope, B.C.), sponsor of the motion, called it “a radical policy.”

A labour board has dismissed a complaint against the largest federal employees’ union that it failed to speak up for Jewish members amid ongoing war protests. “Internal affairs” of the Public Service Alliance of Canada were not the board’s business, wrote an adjudicator: “Public statements have nothing to do with the Act.”

Liberal MPs yesterday blocked committee subpoenas forcing ArriveCan contractors to testify under threat of arrest. “This is putting us all in a rather precarious position,” said MP Charles Sousa (Mississauga-Lakeshore, Ont.), parliamentary secretary for the Department of Public Works that okayed $59.5 million in ArriveCan contracts: “It is important I think that we take a pause.”

It is impossible to know whether federal managers destroyed ArriveCan evidence sought by investigators, Auditor General Karen Hogan said yesterday. Hogan and others cited a suspicious lack of records regarding the $59.5 million program that went overbudget on sweetheart contracting: “When documentation doesn’t exist it is either they never existed or they were destroyed.”

As many as a fifth of Canadians face “energy poverty” due to high costs, says the Canadian Journal of Public Health. “Depending on the measure, six to 19 percent of Canadian households face energy poverty,” said a peer-reviewed study led by a McGill professor: “In Canada home heating during the winter months is a matter of life and death.”