UN Special Envoy Mark Carney yesterday appealed for cash donations to a Liberal Party think tank. “Please chip in,” said Carney. A United Nations ethics code prohibits conflicts of interest by envoys: “I hope that you will join in and share your ideas and if you’re able, please chip in today.”
Mental Health Minister Dr. Carolyn Bennett yesterday decriminalized personal possession of cocaine for the first time in 111 years, but only in British Columbia. “Today we take the first steps in the much needed bold action,” said Bennett: “This is not legalization.”
There was “no one act that you could point to” that made the Freedom Convoy blockade harmful, a New Democrat councillor yesterday testified at the House affairs committee. Ottawa Councillor Catherine McKenney said the “pure chaos” of the protest was a cumulative impression: “I’ll be clear here, I’ve never suggested it was the trucker from Saskatchewan or Canmore or anywhere.”
The Commons yesterday by a 169 to 153 vote endorsed an ethics committee report proposing tougher conflict laws. It followed a committee review of cabinet dealings with We Charity: “We need to make sure that we do not fall into the practices of other failed states where kleptocracies rule.”
Wait times for veterans filing disability claims are at least twice the service standard claimed by the Department of Veterans Affairs, auditors said yesterday. Ex-military can typically wait more than a year for a decision and reassessment: “No, everything is not alright.”
Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino yesterday defended a cellphone search bill as necessary and constitutional. Liberal-appointed senators likened the bill to a fascist measure that would promote racial profiling: “It’s the same kind of searches I witnessed in Spain during Franco.”
Canadians can now wait an average three months to renew a passport, Social Development Minister Karina Gould said yesterday. Gould recommended the public take complaints to their MP: “I would recommend you contact your Member of Parliament.”
Cabinet yesterday admitted failure with a pre-election bill allowing municipal handgun bans. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau instead introduced what he called a proposed a “national freeze” on sales: “It didn’t make sense for them.”
University students who take a “gap year” after high school typically lose thousands in long term earnings, says Statistics Canada data. There were no similar impacts on high school graduates who waited before entering trades: “A gap year may have long term economic implications.”
The abrupt resignation of VIA Rail’s chief executive is a “privacy matter,” Transport Minister Omar Alghabra yesterday told the Commons transport committee. The $318,000-a year CEO quit May 20 with two years remaining on her contract: “I don’t think you want this committee to do a performance review on individual employees.”
The head of CMHC in a private meeting complained of a “need for home prices to stall,” according to Access To Information records obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. CEO Romy Bowers also welcomed tips from equity tax advocates on a strategy to “brief political leaders” on the tax scheme: “Her own personal view is that real estate being 14 percent of GDP is not a strong path.”
Online black market drug dealers sell more marijuana pound for pound than federally-licensed distributors, says a Department of Public Safety report. Data suggested criminal gangs prospered when Parliament legalized recreational cannabis four years ago: “Factors put the online illicit market on par with the online legal market.”
A federal contractor Thomson Reuters paid to host the Prime Minister’s chief of staff and her deputy at the invitation-only White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, according to ethics filings. Katie Telford was earlier quoted by a cabinet minister as boasting she could manipulate press coverage: “Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson made a splash.”
Nunavut has the largest government payroll outside Scandinavia, new federal figures show. Statistics Canada estimated 29 percent of the territory’s workforce is employed by government: “The public service is the largest employer in Nunavut,”
Conservative and New Democrat MPs joined in condemning a Supreme Court decision striking lifetime imprisonment without parole as unconstitutional. Parliament in 2011 amended the Criminal Code to permit literal life sentences for multiple murderers: “This is unacceptable.”
