Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation is asking a federal judge to seal files regarding mortgages it “inadvertently” insured at Montréal’s Laurentian Bank. CMHC said it had confidential reasons for defying a federal order to release the records under the Access To Information Act: “There is a reasonable expectation that harm could occur.”
A federal labour board has upheld the firing of a Canada Revenue employee for reading his own tax file on Agency time. Managers called it a breach of their zero tolerance policy on snooping: “He should have known better.”
Federal inspectors this year are on pace to levy record fines against employers for breach of migrant labour regulations, figures show. Steep penalties levied in the first six months of the year followed cabinet complaints that Canadian employers had “gotten addicted” to using the Temporary Foreign Worker Program: “We have gotten complacent.”
Annual pensions for retired MPs averaged $81,140 last year, according to new Treasury Board figures. Payments indexed to inflation went up 11.4 percent compounded in the past two years: “Pensions under the plan are indexed annually to cover increases in the cost of living.”
Federal hiring is so convoluted that jobseekers wait months after filling out “repetitive and time-consuming questionnaires,” says a Public Service Commission report. Even managers in charge of hiring complained paperwork was “burdensome.”
Federal compensation for Covid vaccine-related deaths and injuries has nearly tripled in two years, new figures showed yesterday. Managers of a Vaccine Injury Support Program had withheld scheduled reporting of payments for an undisclosed reason: ‘It is still a drug and there are potential risks even if they’re rare.’
A labour board has dismissed allegations by a former Teamsters business agent that his union failed to properly disclose use of members’ dues for “non-core” activities like political campaigns. Cabinet 10 years ago revoked an Act of Parliament that would have forced all unions to publish confidential financial records: “I’ve often wondered whether or not Bill C-377 would have passed if we had a secret ballot.”
Cabinet’s $393,000-a year science advisor Dr. Mona Nemer in a draft memo proposed to examine the feasibility of contacting alien civilizations. Nemer assigned seven employees to her Sky Canada Project at an undisclosed cost: “There are the problems of distances and timing. Two civilizations might not exist at the same time.”
An internal ArriveCan investigators’ report long sought by MPs has been sealed by Federal Court order. A judge blocked distribution of the findings at the request of Cameron MacDonald, a former Canada Border Services Agency director briefly suspended over the $63 million program: “The allegations each side makes against the other are most serious.”
The cost of keeping an inmate in federal prison averages $436 a day, a new record, according to Correctional Service figures. Inmates at women’s prisons were the most expensive at an average $779 per day: “The Correctional Service of Canada is among the highest resourced correctional systems in the world.”
Québec residents surveyed in a federal focus group say they’ve never heard of the Order of Canada. The civil honour has been awarded nearly 8,000 times since it was introduced 58 years ago: “None had any specific candidates in mind.”
A landmark human rights complaint involving schoolchildren with Down Syndrome was stalled 13 years by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, records show. The Tribunal said it was overworked: “Future delay will have far more of a negative impact in this case.”
The Department of Immigration in a briefing note admits it never sought “comprehensive security screening” of suspected Egyptian terrorists arrested a year ago for plotting an attack on Toronto. Then-Immigration Minister Marc Miller at the time defended his department’s handling of the case: “What the hell is going on?”
Canadians in Privy Council focus groups questioned cabinet’s rationale for record high immigration quotas. A pollsters’ report on the findings was delivered only weeks before then-Liberal leadership candidate Mark Carney announced “the system isn’t working.”
The Commons transport committee yesterday voted to investigate taxpayers’ financing of shipyard jobs in China. Members approved a motion by Conservative MP Dan Albas (Okanagan Lake West-South Kelowna, B.C.) to find who approved the use of “scarce public taxpayer dollars” to benefit a Chinese state-run company: “Remember the government that said ‘elbows up,’ ‘Canada strong,’ ‘we can build it together’?”
