A news agency operating as an election campaign fact checker received nearly $2 million in federal funding over the past year, records show. The Canadian Press yesterday did not comment: “Cash flow is tightening.”
The Liberal Party yesterday would not comment on a Vancouver candidate who broke the party’s proposed rules on real estate speculation. Taleeb Noormohamed, a longtime Liberal organizer, admitted to buying and selling numerous properties for profit in a practice the Prime Minister now calls predatory: “We’ll crack down on predatory speculators competing with families trying to buy their first home.”
A senior manager with the Department of Immigration abruptly resigned while under investigation for misappropriation of funds in sweetheart contracting. The disclosure follows a warning from a former crime-busting prosecutor that Parliament must monitor sole-source contracting: “As a taxpayer I have to wonder.”
The Department of Health failed to place a single order for masks and other pandemic supplies months after telling Canadians to prepare for Covid, according to internal emails. Documents from the Prime Minister’s Office contradicted public reassurances by Dr. Theresa Tam, chief public health officer: “Be vigilant and be prepared.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau yesterday pledged a re-elected Liberal cabinet will ban all new foreign purchases of Canadian residential real estate for at least two years. Trudeau and his cabinet voted against a similar Conservative motion in the Commons June 9: “The deck seems stacked.”
Opposition Leader Erin O’Toole yesterday said a Conservative cabinet would rewrite federal law to grant preference to pensioners in bankruptcy court settlements. A similar Bloc Québécois bill lapsed in the last Parliament despite endorsement by the Canadian Labour Congress: “This needs to change.”
An Alberta judge has imposed a $1,750 fine for illegal voting. The maximum penalty under federal law is $2,000 and three months’ jail: “A lot of this is just a misunderstanding.”
Digital Services Minister Joyce Murray privately complained Canada was too reliant on contractors in China for urgently needed pandemic supplies, according to internal emails. Murray questioned why Canada did not award contracts to suppliers in Taiwan, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of personal protective equipment: “Minister Murray is concerned.”
The Department of Justice is spending the equivalent of more than $15,000 a week in ongoing litigation with former students of an Indian Residential School, according to Access To Information records. Weekly billings by federal lawyers are more than total compensation paid to individuals in other Residential School settlements: “The government has endless dollars to fight.”
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland faces investigation by the Commissioner of Elections over a social media post tagged by Twitter as fake news. The Canada Elections Act prohibits any person from knowingly making a false statement to influence voters. Freeland posted a deceptively edited interview clip of Conservative leader Erin O’Toole that Twitter called a case of video manipulation: “This is completely wrong.”
Canadians paid off billions in debt despite the Covid recession, Statistics Canada said yesterday. Consumers appeared to use pandemic relief cheques to pay down balances on their credit cards, analysts said: “Many households used this opportunity.”
Taxpayer-owned Trans Mountain Corporation will require “further financing” though a planned expansion of its British Columbia oil pipeline is less than half complete, according to documents. Cabinet to date has not detailed total costs of the pipeline bought by cabinet three years ago for $4.5 billion: “Is the sky the limit?”
The Department of Foreign Affairs closed its embassy in Kabul though it knew Canadian citizens remained trapped inside Afghanistan. Cabinet had claimed all Canadians were “safely on their way back to Canada.” The department would not account for poor planning after a 2019 federal report correctly predicted Afghanistan “could collapse quickly” once U.S. forces withdrew: “The only reason rockets are not raining down on Kabul today is because of the presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan.”
Staff in the Prime Minister’s Office complained it was “totally unacceptable” for the Public Health Agency to offer medical advice without first checking with political aides, according to 2020 internal emails. Staff debated whether to order removal of a web page recommending essential workers wear Covid masks when federal agencies knew masks were in short supply: “They’re not ready.”
The Department of Natural Resources in a briefing note says it’s relying on private landowners to help fulfill a Liberal Party promise from the last election campaign to plant two billion trees. The department earlier acknowledged it had no detailed plan to ensure “the right tree is planted in the right place.”
