Taxpayers will “likely” recover billions spent on the Trans Mountain Pipeline, says Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland. The less hopeful forecast follows cabinet assurances the pipeline would earn a profit: “The Canadian approach will be to ensure that we make a profit so that’s where we are on that.”
A federal agency paid a pollster almost $47,000 to interview 49 people, records show. The topic was financial literacy. “Participants were asked how much time they typically spend in a month on their household’s finances including activities such as paying bills.”
A far-reaching dispute over whether employers have a right to question jobseekers’ immigration status goes to the Ontario Court of Appeal June 15. The case targets an Imperial Oil questionnaire that asked, “Are you entitled to work in Canada on a permanent basis?”
A recurring date for tabling of federal budgets should be fixed by Parliament, says Budget Officer Yves Giroux. Cabinet three times in the past three years failed to table a budget in time for the new fiscal year or write any budget at all: “Your recommendation to have a fixed date for the budget, is that not too rigid?”
MPs have given Second Reading to a Senate bill to criminalize organ trafficking. Legislators for years tried to pass private bills banishing the trade: “Think of the victims and the people who have suffered horribly as a result of forced organ harvesting and trafficking.”
On the way to work,
an ant with a broken leg.
Limping. Vigorously.
Drawing a circle in the
sandy pavement.
Antennae slapping in the air.
I debate whether to end her suffering.
Or let the pain run.
Sun will desiccate the
fragile body.
A bird might come.
A predatory bug.
I remember a cross-section under the microscope.
Hundreds of lenses in the compound eye.
Thousands of sensors.
A pinhead-sized brain, more complex than
anything man-made.
100 million years of evolution.
A life that cannot originate in the lab.
The three-thousand-year-old debate on
body and spirit.
The possibility of an act from above.
End of day.
Walking back to my car.
On the way, the ant,
slowly drawing her circle.
Antennae softly in the air.
A goodbye to a faraway colony.
I debate whether to step on her.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, writes for Blacklock’s each and every Sunday)
New Democrat and Liberal MPs yesterday questioned if federal measures are needed to curb political protests. The proposals followed a Tuesday incident in which NDP leader Jagmeet Singh was jeered by profane hecklers: “How much longer do we have to wait before we actually treat this seriously and put in place the tools to prevent this?”
Penalties for Parliament Hill ethics violations lack punch, MPs on the Commons ethics committee said yesterday. Maximum penalties range from a public apology to $500 fine: “$500 is certainly not significant in the eyes of many Canadians and I would agree with them.”
Federal Debates Commissioner David Johnston yesterday acknowledged 2021 campaign telecasts “did not deliver.” Johnston, 80, said he was personally unaware of specific complaints of bias: “Changes need to be made in the future to better serve the public.”
Employers will never fill job vacancies without record high immigration quotas, Minister of Immigration Sean Fraser said yesterday. “We cannot fill those jobs,” Fraser testified at the Commons immigration committee: ‘If we want to pay for all the things we enjoy we need to bring more people.’
The Senate yesterday passed a bill to annually honour pandemic workers from nurses to truck drivers. “This will be a time to pause for individual and collective reflection,” said the bill’s sponsor Senator Dr. Marie-Françoise Mégie (Que.): “Who should be remembered?”
Cabinet effective May 18 will require gun dealers to begin compiling a 20-year database on millions of rifle and shotgun owners. Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino yesterday denied it was a de facto gun registry cabinet had promised never to reintroduce: “They broke that promise.”
The federally regulated private sector should appoint francophone directors, Languages Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor said yesterday. Appointment of English directors left her “very disappointed and even angry,” said Petitpas Taylor: “We know French is on the decline.”
New Department of National Defence data yesterday confirmed suicide rates among soldiers, sailors and air crew are no higher than the general public. Years of statistics have contradicted media claims that military members are more susceptible to mental distress: “We recruit from the Canadian general population so our organization to some degree is a reflection of the general population.”
A long-promised federal registry listing true owners of shell companies only applies to federally incorporated firms, the Senate banking committee has been told. Companies incorporated in the ten provinces are exempt: “The government wants to give the appearance that they’re doing something.”
