A New Democrat lawyer who publicly endorsed decriminalizing heroin yesterday was appointed a judge by the federal cabinet. Suzan Fraser of Toronto was named an Ontario Superior Court justice: “Canadians are rightly concerned about Liberal policies that make it easier to use hard drugs.”
A promised federal campaign to plant two billion trees is off to a slow start due to years spent “going out and finding excess trees,” says Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson. The Liberal Party announced the plan in its 2019 campaign platform: “Why are you so bad at making plans?”
Senators yesterday considered billing taxpayers for a $175-an hour counseling service for witnesses who volunteer to testify at committee hearings. A decision was deferred after Senator Donald Plett (Man.) suggested the matter be discussed behind closed doors: “A witness would select a therapist or other culturally-appropriate counseling service or person of their choice and could claim up to $500.”
Federal employees ran up nearly $20,000 in routine parking and traffic violations, records show. The incomplete figures excluded millions in violations by the two largest fleet operators, the post office and Department of National Defence: “All factors of vehicle usage that led to an infraction are examined in the public interest.”
Cabinet yesterday for the third time in two years introduced a bill for oversight of the Canada Border Services Agency. Critics complain the Agency with a $1.6 billion annual budget and 11,500 employees is the largest police force in Canada without an independent oversight board: “We’re not doing something right here.”
Federal legislation is needed to control the craziness of the internet, a cabinet advisor said yesterday. “We are now looking at a whole new alignment of what is online harm,” said Bernie Farber, appointee to a 12-member panel on censorship: “We live in a time of craziness. We live in a time where people will believe whatever they want to believe.”
Inflation already running at the highest rate in 40 years will rise even higher with new calculations, Statistics Canada confirmed yesterday. The agency acknowledged it failed to fully account for the cost of used cars in calculating its benchmark Consumer Price Index: ‘There are steeper price increases for used vehicles than for new vehicles.’
Cabinet’s 2017 creation of two Indigenous departments merely added cost without results, the Parliamentary Budget Office said yesterday. The findings were requested by the Commons Indigenous affairs committee: “Canadians want to make sure that gets into the hands of Indigenous people and doesn’t support a bloated bureaucracy in Ottawa.”
Federal investigators yesterday repeated calls for mandatory Department of Transport licensing in Canada’s most dangerous occupation, commercial fishing. It follows the 2020 disappearance at sea of the Sarah Ann, a fishing vessel on its last run of the snow crab season: “The vessel was never found.”
Federal prisoners who meet their victims face to face are less likely to reoffend, says Correctional Service research. Data showed even hardened criminals “rated as high risk to reoffend” reformed after meeting their victims: “The program shows promise in reducing recidivism.”
The Receiver General last year paid more than $2.2 million in federal pension payments to dead employees, records show. Payments to dormant bank accounts totaled $23.6 million over six years with write-offs as high as 20 percent: “A request may be sent to the deceased member’s financial institutions to return payments.”
Ottawa Interim Police Chief Steve Bell yesterday disclosed he never asked cabinet to invoke the Emergencies Act against a truckers’ blockade. Cabinet repeatedly claimed it was “acting on the advice of law enforcement” when it proclaimed a national emergency over the Freedom Convoy: “Which police agency asked for the Emergencies Act?”
The Canada Revenue Agency paid millions in unrecoverable Covid wage subsidies to tax delinquents and insolvent companies, records show. Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier disclosed the figures in the Commons: “What is the total amount of subsidy received by the companies?”
More critics of Rogers Communications’ proposed buyout of Western rival Shaw Communications yesterday piled on demands to halt the $26 billion deal. The Commons heritage committee recommended cabinet kill the merger: “Media concentration and the erosion of local journalism have worsened dramatically.”
A $175 million annual federal tax intended to help ease housing shortages affects less than two-tenths of one percent of Canada’s shelter stock, the Department of Finance disclosed yesterday. Cabinet had called it an important measure to help families: “We have to make some big assumptions there.”
