Cabinet today will detail cash payments to Métis survivors of WWII and the Korean War though few veterans are alive to collect. The Department of Veterans Affairs in an Access To Information memo said it found no evidence Métis were denied their fair share of billion-dollar benefits, but noted the historical record was “unclear”.
Federal staff in Access To Information emails expressed astonishment at exorbitant fees paid to government-approved media. Operators of two websites received “huge, crazy” contracts totaling nearly a million dollars. “Yowzers,” wrote one Department of Public Works manager. “Yikes,” replied another: “I’m not sure what you guys are willing to pay or what the source is worth.”
Federal employees working overseas billed the equivalent of nearly $18,000 a day in mobile roaming fees, according to monthly accounts. Disclosure of billing records follows a federal IT survey that employees typically email each other up to a hundred times a day: “It is quite a hefty sum of money.”
Federal attempts to regulate the nation’s private drone fleet have fallen flat, says in-house research by Transport Canada. Only nine percent of flyers surveyed said they had a Drone Pilot Certificate as required under Canadian Aviation Regulations: ‘It’s a cash grab.’
A national radio ombudsman has been inundated with complaints over comments by a Vancouver host who criticized pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. The pundit earlier told a Commons committee China is “an open-minded country” where “the press has ninety percent freedom”.
The UN report
on climate change
warns of widespread floods and fires,
food shortage and global famine.
“People need to burn fewer fossil fuels,”
says one of the authors.
That could spell trouble
for Alberta.
Its oil and gas industry
wants to move more crude to refineries,
build more pipelines,
allow for more tankers
in the northern Pacific coast.
Premier Kenney has already
promised to fight anyone
who criticizes the province’s energy sector.
That could spell trouble
for the United Nations.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
Environment Minister Catherine McKenna describes as a “must read” an apocalyptic novel by a former Green Party organizer. The book depicts climate change chaos that reduces Canadian society to an encampment on the Pacific coast: “They have blood on their hands.”
Fewer than half of voters support the carbon tax in 64 federal ridings nationwide including seven Liberal seats, according to academic research detailed yesterday. Authors of the study noted most anti-tax ridings are already held by Conservative MPs: “Carbon taxation is more divisive.”
Veterans are skeptical a promised Pension For Life program is a “dressed up” election offer, says in-house research by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Cabinet launched the program April 1. Veterans surveyed said even the name appeared misleading: “What is meant by ‘for life’?”
Spending on prescription medicines by public insurers rose a “considerable” 7.4 percent last year compared to 1.7 percent in 2017, a federal agency reported yesterday. The Patented Medicine Prices Review Board found only “limited savings” from use of generic drugs: “Notable growth in 2018 was primarily driven by increases in the patented medicine market.”
A Department of Immigration manager yesterday did not comment after tweeting and retweeting derogatory references to Opposition MPs. The Public Service Employment Act restricts federal employees from “carrying on any activity in support of or in opposition to a candidate before or during an election period.”
The post office in financial statements buried millions in pay equity payouts, according to an Access To Information memo obtained by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. Canada Post in its latest Corporate Plan said it is committed to “gender equality”.
The 225,000-member United Steelworkers yesterday launched campaign ads citing the SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. scandal. Steelworkers outspent every other union in third-party advertising in the last general election in 2015: “Steelworkers are disappointed.”
The Department of Natural Resources yesterday commissioned research on methods “to reduce or eliminate the use of fossil fuels.” Cabinet earlier endorsed a recommendation from an advisory panel that Parliament ban the Canadian manufacture of gas and diesel-powered cars by 2040: “You could try to stop using fossil fuel but that’s impossible.”
Federal compensation for local authorities facing emergency costs of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers total nearly $372 million to date, the Department of Immigration said yesterday. Costs do not include a 56 percent increase in expenses at the Immigration and Refugee Board: “The government is committed to orderly migration.”
