Cabinet’s omnibus budget bill will criminalize wage fixing following an outcry over conduct of leading grocers. The ban would apply to every employer nationwide, a Department of Industry manager said yesterday: “The law applies broadly across the entire economy.”
Border guards seized 1,113 firearms last year, the most up to date figure on the scope of known gun smuggling in Canada. The Canada Border Services Agency said a majority of seized firearms, a total 1107, were owned by Americans: “The total number of firearms successfully smuggled into Canada is unknown.”
Federal managers dismissed an average 72 percent of employee requests for medical and religious exemptions from mandatory vaccination, figures show. No reason was given for the high rates of rejection: “Managers are not making these decisions on their own.”
Cabinet is prepared to introduce an abortion bill for the first time in 31 years “if we need to,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said yesterday. Canada has no abortion law. Cabinet will “move forward as necessary on ensuring that not just under this government but under any future government the rights of women are properly protected,” Trudeau told reporters. Other cabinet members expressed wariness.
The post office yesterday hinted it will seek cabinet approval for a stamp rate hike for the first time in two years. Inflation was a risk, managers wrote in an Annual Report: ‘Canada Post has an obligation to charge rates that are fair and sufficient to cover the costs.’
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau yesterday declined comment after MPs accused him of shouting a vulgarity at a female MP. “What is the nature of your thoughts, gentlemen, when you say you move your lips in a particular way?” Trudeau told reporters.
Rates of violent crime in First Nations communities are up to 16 times higher than other towns and hamlets, says the Department of Public Safety. Staff did not detail any reason for the crime wave: “Indigenous women had an overall rate of violent victimization that was double that of Indigenous men and close to triple that of non-Indigenous women.”
A backlog of veterans’ applications for disability benefits numbers just under 11,000, a rate that is “okay but it’s not good enough,” Veterans Affairs Minister Lawrence MacAulay said yesterday. A staff memo in MacAulay’s department said the pandemic appeared to help ease the backlog: “It was at 23,000 and now it’s around 11,000 and that’s okay.”
Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier yesterday dismissed as “twisted” allegations of corrupt practices at the Canada Revenue Agency. MPs in the Commons demanded answers on whistleblower accusations a former assistant revenue commissioner helped a corporate lobbyist save millions: “Internal Canada Revenue Agency emails raise concerns around corruption.”
The Department of Finance last night disclosed it never verified whether all account freezes under a Freedom Convoy order were justified. The department relied on banks to act in good faith, it said: “You are certain of that? Why are you certain of that?”
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.”
