The Department of Public Works yesterday disclosed it spent more than three-quarters of a million dollars digging up a Senate parking lot in a failed search for antiquities. An entire team of “highly qualified archaeologists” was hired for the dig, said staff: “The archaeology program has come to an end.”
Health Minister Patricia Hajdu yesterday predicted most Canadians will not be directly affected by the coronavirus and urged calm. The Toronto Stock Exchange fell ten percent amid tumbling oil prices and a federal warning travelers must cancel cruise ship bookings: “Do you anticipate more deaths?”
Union complaints of federal ‘morality police’ prompted the Department of Fisheries to rewrite a workplace ban on marijuana users, according to Access To Information records. The department had sought to forbid any employee in a safety-sensitive position from using cannabis 28 days before reporting for work: ‘It would regulate the private morality of employees.’
The Department of Public Works went over budget in a failed search for evidence of ancient settlements on Parliament Hill, say Access To Information records. The department would not say how much it spent digging up a Senate parking lot looking for antiquities: “How could this happen.”
One federal department lost nearly two hundred laptops, tablets and USB keys, says an internal audit. Lapses at the Department of Infrastructure included a “lost bag with potential secret documents”, and IT checks so haphazard staff had no real idea how much equipment was misplaced or stolen: “It is difficult to assess.”
The CBC since 2012 has failed to meet all solvency payments to its employee pension plan, according to Access To Information records. Then-Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez last August 21 gave the broadcaster its latest waiver from meeting a pension deficit greater than the CBC’s entire English-language TV ad revenues: “You have no objection.”
A federal agency billed nearly $100,000 to trademark a copycat phrase from the national anthem to promote vacation packages. Expenses by the Canadian Tourism Commission included $59,500 paid to an ad agency, Cossette Inc. of Québec City: “This doesn’t make any sense.”
Judges have upheld an eight-year prison sentence for a ringleader in the biggest maple syrup heist in Canadian history. Sixteen people were found guilty in the 2011 theft of $17.8 million worth of syrup from a Québec warehouse: “The absence of a link with organized crime is not a mitigating factor.”
Cabinet’s plan to tax Google, Amazon and Facebook ad revenues is unworkable under current law and would breach a 1984 tax treaty with the U.S., says a federal report. The Liberal Party in its election platform promised to tax tech giants headquartered outside Canada.: “It’s a lot easier to say you’re going to tax them than it is to do it.”
A cabinet appointee attended a farewell Liberal Party fundraiser for defeated cabinet minister Ralph Goodale, records show. Cabinet guidelines forbid appointees from attending party fundraisers: “It’s not like I belong to the Liberal Party.”
The minority Parliament must pass legislation declaring climate change mitigation a human right, the 24-member New Democrat caucus said yesterday. The proposal coincides with a lawsuit by Québec environmentalists claiming failure to meet emissions targets breaches the Charter Of Rights And Freedoms: “There is a risk the debate is only theoretical.”
Two New Brunswick exporters that unsuccessfully challenged federal food inspectors over a paperwork “disaster” have been ordered to pay $77,285 in legal costs. A Saint John judge at trial described Canadian Food Inspection Agency management as “very bureaucratic”.
The Department of Foreign Affairs used Filipino disaster aid to finance karaoke machines, says a federal report. Staff yesterday did not comment. Auditors said a 2013 typhoon relief fund was left with such a large surplus, money was used to subsidize local storekeepers: “There were inefficiencies.”
A British Columbia senator in a 2019 speech said all Canadians should be “praying every night” for the People’s Republic of China. Senator Yuen Pau Woo of Vancouver made his remarks to alumni of a Communist-sanctioned university: “We should be humble.”
In-house Privy Council Office research says more than a quarter of Canadians surveyed, 28 percent, say “I am just getting by with no savings”. The polling data was released through Access To Information: “We know we still have work to do.”
