Senator Frances Lankin (Ont.) yesterday questioned whether lawmakers were misled by cabinet in passing back to work legislation against striking Montréal longshoremen. Access To Information records contradict cabinet claims the strike was “a matter of life and death.”
The taxpayer-owned Canada Infrastructure Bank should be disbanded, says the Commons transport committee. MPs in a report recommended that cabinet abolish the Bank as a costly failure: “This was supposed to be a marquee institution.”
Recent reductions in Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions were a Covid anomaly, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said yesterday. Guilbeault added he didn’t know what portion of reductions was due to his climate change program or the recession: “What was a result of the economic slowdown?”
Parliament should regulate telecom companies’ collection and sale of cellphone customers’ mobility data, say MPs. Recommendations of the Commons ethics committee followed disclosures the Public Health Agency bought data on millions of telecom clients in the name of monitoring pandemic lockdowns: “I had not seen anything on this scale.”
The Opposition yesterday called for Commons finance committee hearings into management of the Canada Revenue Agency. Ted Gallivan, a former assistant commissioner, is named by whistleblowers in allegations he approved a “secretive tax deal” for a wealthy corporate lobbyist: “Ted wants this done.”
Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly last night said she had no idea why Canada was the first NATO country to abruptly close its embassy in Kabul. The closure stranded thousands of Canadians and Afghan allies desperate to flee the Taliban: ““I was not privy to that information.”
It makes no sense to lift federal mask mandates for air travelers, Dr. Theresa Tam said yesterday. The Department of Transport called the mandate the “least cumbersome” pandemic precautions: “At the height of a sixth wave? No I don’t think we should be lifting mask recommendations.”
Marijuana users are now a “major contributor” to fatal road accidents, says a Department of Public Safety report. Data show police charges for drug-impaired driving jumped 43 percent with legalization of cannabis: “Drug-impaired driving is a major contributor to fatal road crashes.”
Bitcoin owners in Canada are typically young, affluent speculators who score poorly in financial literacy, says Bank of Canada research. The central bank that monopolizes the printing of banknotes in Canada has to date rejected any direct involvement in cryptocurrency: “The size of this market is not big enough to pose significant risks to the financial system. However this may change quickly.”
The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board says it is determined to “slow the pace of global warming” but did not explain its million-dollar investment in an Indonesian coal mine. Cabinet has promised to withdraw all federal investments in coal, oil and natural gas: “We do believe climate change is happening.”
The Commons health committee by unanimous vote has endorsed Taiwan’s bid for membership in the World Health Organization. MPs passed the motion without notice or debate and quietly tabled it in the Commons: “I’m seeking the unanimous consent.”
An Alberta MP’s “I love Canada” button prompted formal protest in the Commons. Conservative MP Martin Shields (Bow River) expressed dismay that the slogan would cause offence: “If people in the House disregard their love for Canada I have a problem with that.”
Cabinet will “eradicate” slave-made imports already banned under the Customs Act, says Public Works Minister Filomena Tassi. The pledge follows the Senate’s approval last Thursday of a private bill mandating public reporting on ethical contracting by large Canadian corporations: “What are you doing in ensuring Canada is procuring ethically sourced goods?”
The Laurentian Bank has been fined almost a half million for breach of a 9/11-era disclosure law. Bank management in Montréal was cited for failing to report suspicious cash transactions: “We will be firm. We will take appropriate actions when they are needed.”
Wladyslaw Niewinski, a Polish combat veteran of WWII, recalled taking the train all the way from Halifax to Lethbridge and standing outside the depot, a man without a country. “Farmers started arriving to pick up soldiers,” said Niewinski. “They were picking us up like piglets.”
Niewinski was assigned to a farm near Cremona, Alta. where he slept in the barn. Later he moved to Calgary, and served 15 years as treasurer of the Polish Credit Union.
Calgary was home to so many Polish war veterans they formed a club, Polish Combatants’ Association Branch No. 18. Author Aldona Jaworska interviewed the last survivors for Polish War Veterans In Alberta, a haunting account of a little-known corner of Canadiana, the 1947 Polish Resettlement Act.
At war’s end some 250,000 Polish veterans were stranded in Europe. Returning home was a ticket to the Soviet Gulag. The Resettlement Act assigned veterans to Commonwealth countries. Canada accepted 4,527 as contract farm workers at $45 a month, 25 percent less than prevailing wages. Some 750 landed in Alberta.
They were “like slaves”, Niewinski recalled. At 92, he told his story over tea and banana bread in his tidy Calgary bungalow. “Nobody came for me,” he said. Author Jaworska writes that Niewinski seemed pleased to find someone interested in his story.
Anatole Nieumierzycki, who died at 94, remembered a treasured 1937 Polish travel book on Canada. “The way the author described Canada inspired me,” he said.
“We couldn’t return to Poland because we already had our Polish citizenship taken away,” said Nieumierzycki. “We learned that if we returned, we would be taken to Siberia.”
Nieumierzycki worked two years on an Alberta ranch, was cheated of a year’s back pay – all the veterans complained of unpaid wages – and later became a Calgary electrician. “I’d trained as a telemechanic while in the Army,” he explained.
Canada accepted Polish veterans on four conditions: young, single, fit for hard labour, with some agricultural know-how. Zbigniew Rogowski remembered his immigration test: “They put seeds on the table and asked me to recognize them” – wheat, oats, barley. “I know all the grains. ‘Good! You will go to Canada,’ the examining committee told me.”
Rogowski was an 11-year old schoolboy when the war broke out. “The Russian police officers in blue uniforms came to our home to arrest my father,” he tells Jaworska. “I was still in bed. As they were taking my dad away, he looked at me and nodded toward my mother and my three younger sisters. I understood that he wanted me to take care of them.”
Author Jaworska is a passionate writer. Her interviews with survivors are compelling. Polish War Veterans In Alberta has a melancholy quality – no survivor dreamt of working as a Prairie farm labourer – with a very human ending. Electrician Nieumierzycki cannot forget his 1937 travel book.
“I was never disappointed,” he said. “Canada is a beautiful country.”
By Holly Doan
Polish War Veterans in Alberta: The Last Four Stories, by Aldona Jaworska; University of Alberta Press; 328 pages; ISBN 9781-77212-3739; $29.99
