Rideau Hall yesterday said it played no role in censoring a newspaper column critical of Governor General Julie Payette. The weekly Hill Times, a subsidized federal contractor, said it deleted, revised then republished the column due to “negative feedback.”
The Department of Agriculture is awarding a sole-sourced contract for “cultural literacy” to a company led by Victor Tootoo, brother of a former Liberal cabinet minister. Tootoo’s firm has received seventeen federal contracts in four years: “It is believed no other organizations have the experience.”
Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier has quietly expanded audits on charities after publicly condemning the practice under a previous Conservative cabinet as harassment. “Charities are being used,” the Canada Revenue Agency wrote in Access To Information memos.
The national archives has warehoused thousands of donated treasures without looking at them, says an auditors’ report. The backlog of unprocessed boxes laid end to end would run to eight kilometres: “It represents 8.34 kilometres of material.”
Collapsing revenues will see VIA Rail face rising deficits at public expense for at least another year, says management. The Crown railway said the impact of pandemic travel bans was so disastrous it could not predict future income: “A future government will have to make the decision to eliminate VIA Rail or do something else.”
The labour department today begins enforcement of name-and-shame penalties for federally-regulated private sector employers that breach the Canada Labour Code. Tighter enforcement comes fifteen years after it was recommended by a federal labour commissioner, Professor Harry Arthurs, 85, former dean of Osgoode Hall Law School: “Legislation does not enforce itself.”
We wish you a happy New Year. Blacklock’s pauses for our annual holiday observance and will return January 4 — The Editor
A gloomy day,
darker shades of grey.
The wind pulls leaves off the tree
while tormenting those already
on the ground.
Birds have fled south;
groundhogs took shelter
in underground headquarters.
Through the boardroom window,
the outside atmosphere
is still warmer,
more inviting
than inside.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
The Department of Finance yesterday said it’s hiring auditors to complete an “independent financial analysis” of the taxpayer-owned Trans Mountain Pipeline, but will never make results public. The department budgeted $17.7 billion to buy and expand the oil pipeline from Edmonton to Burnaby, B.C.: “Costs tend to go up.”
The Canada Revenue Agency in an Access To Information document rated itself “part of the engine” that drives the country. “We make Canada better,” management wrote in a contest application: “We contribute to the quality of life in Canada.”
A taxpayer-funded cellphone sales company in Kenya is the target of complaints to stock regulators. Executives including the Canadian CEO Jesse Moore are accused of alleged self-dealing in shares. A federal agency bought $15.4 million worth of stock in the company, M-Kopa Holdings Ltd. of Nairobi: “The Securities and Exchange Commission neither confirms nor denies the existence of an investigation.”
Fifteen percent of marijuana smokers grow plants at home, says Department of Health research. Critics of legalization had warned of endless legal fights involving insurers, condo boards and landlords under a 2018 bill that permitted home cultivation of cannabis plants: “How many problems does it create?”
Canadians must not leave the country, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said yesterday. Cabinet earlier cautioned anyone holidaying abroad shouldn’t expect federal aid to return home in case of pandemic lockdowns: “This is not the time for a vacation abroad.”
The Canada Revenue Agency in Access To Information documents calls tax avoidance “unethical.” Managers recommended publicity campaigns avoid images of luxury cars or threats of jail, and instead ‘aim at the reputation’ of wealthy Canadians with offshore accounts: “A little bit of fear may be good.”
Early federal pandemic test programs were so haphazard the Public Health Agency proposed to check municipal sewage to track the spread of Covid-19. Internal memos show staff later dropped the idea as pointless: “Who knows how many people are getting sick?”
