The Commons ethics committee yesterday voted 10-0 to examine federal monitoring of 33 million Canadian cellphone users in the name of lockdown enforcement. Conservative MP John Brassard (Barrie-Innisfil, Ont.) accused cabinet of using Covid as cover for “massive overreach.”
A British Columbia labour adjudicator has rejected firefighters’ appeal to suspend a mandatory vaccination order. A firefighters’ union local in Richmond, B.C. challenged the program as intrusive and heavy-handed: ‘They must choose between getting a vaccine they do not want or giving up on their careers as firefighters.’
The Bible is no documentary, Ontario Superior Court has ruled. A judge rejected a filmmakers’ claim for an 85 percent “documentary” tax credit for a TV series depicting readings of Scripture with images of the Rocky Mountains: ‘This is just a Christian thing.’
Most Canadians surveyed want more representation of Indigenous cultures on Parliament Hill, says a Department of Public Works survey. It follows a cabinet proposal to address “colonialism, patriarchy and racism” in historical commemorations: ‘Parliament Hill should reflect the values and aspirations of all Canadians.’
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland yesterday was summoned by the Commons finance committee for questioning on the cost of living. The committee voted unanimously to conduct lengthy hearings on inflation and rising house prices one MP likened to a big balloon: “Our economy has become a gigantic inflated balloon.”
A B.C. senator has resigned his longstanding membership in a pro-Beijing group, the University of British Columbia China Council. Senator Yuen Pau Woo as a Council member once complained of the “sour attitudes many Canadians have about Beijing.”
Taxing unvaccinated Canadians is no substitute for education in raising immunization rates, the federal New Democrat health critic said yesterday. A Québec proposal to impose a medicare surcharge raised unsettling questions, MP Don Davies (Vancouver Kingsway) told reporters: “We believe passionately in universal access to our health care system without financial barriers.”
Governments mean well in considering compulsory vaccination, Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said yesterday. “On vaccine mandates, the key word here is benevolence,” said Duclos.
Cabinet yesterday extended by one full year a payment holiday for small business borrowers who received more than $48 billion in emergency loans. Small Business Minister Mary Ng called it “the best thing for our economy.”
A deputy minister who called climate change a “massive issue facing humanity” billed nearly $11,000 in first-class airfare to attend a climate conference, records show. Cabinet has yet to detail all expenses for Canada’s 277-member delegation to the October 31 United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Glasgow: “It is important to make a positive contribution to what I think is a massive issue facing humanity, climate change.”
A $300 million national stockpile of pandemic supplies should be privatized, says a subsidized federal contractor 3M Company. The submission to the Commons finance committee follows a similar 2020 proposal by the Canadian Medical Association Journal: “These types of events will continue to happen.”
Québec Premier François Legault yesterday said he is “working on” the legality of imposing the nation’s first medicare surcharge on unvaccinated residents. Federal law states all residents of a province are entitled to health care on the same terms: “We are working on the legal part of it.”
Cabinet within 18 months will begin “phasing out fossil fuels,” says Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault. Opposition MPs yesterday demanded an explanation of Guilbeault’s remarks to a subsidized environmental advocacy website: “Phasing out fossil fuels, all of these things must be in place in the coming eighteen months.”
A Customs agent who described supervisors as “a bunch of Nazis” has lost an appeal over denial of promotion. Nazi quips are no joke, ruled a federal labour board: “The fact it may have been used by others does not excuse it.”
RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki yesterday urged Canadians to report suspicious internet activity including comments by people who express “anti-government, anti-law enforcement” opinions. The Mounties earlier praised federal proposals to censor legal web content deemed offensive: “When in doubt, report it.”
