An Alberta judge in an unusual ruling has overturned a bankruptcy court decision and ordered an ex-student to repay thousands in loans. Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Douglas Mah called repayments a “moral obligation” to taxpayers: “Her sole purpose for the bankruptcy was to avoid her student loan debt.”
A Crown bank approved high fees to consultants totaling nearly $9 million in six months. Twenty-two consultants were paid more than an MP, according to Access To Information records at Export Development Canada. The agency censored hourly rates it approved for contractors: “Parliament doesn’t pay too much attention.”
The Department of Finance in an Access To Information memo says no “simple set of words” can fulfill a promise to cut inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. Cabinet has vowed to overhaul aid for oil, gas and mining companies by 2025 but has yet to calculate what subsidies are worth: “Difficult things are difficult.”
Tax Court has upheld a $74,000 penalty against an auto mechanic who falsified his tax return. The case is the latest in the Fiscal Arbitrators fraud that sent a tax consultant to prison: “The penalty seemed very high to me.”
A federal arbitrator after five years of litigation has upheld the firing of a Canadian Pacific Railway engineer who derailed a locomotive while under the influence of cocaine. The railway cited the case as an argument for random workplace drug tests in Canada: “I am appalled.”
A homeowner described as the last man in Ontario with a dial electrical meter has lost a final challenge of the province’s Smart Meter program. Scofflaws opposed the digital meters as a nuisance, health hazard and invasion of privacy: “What’s the point?”
Federal executives billed taxpayers more than $135,000 this year for airline tickets that were never used. Tammy Clifford, vice-president at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, charged $7,121 for a business class flight to Brussels that she later cancelled: “Transportation shall be based on cost.”
Catholic charities plan an all-party election debate, the largest of its kind, on campaign platforms “from a Catholic perspective”. The event follows a 2018 Court ruling that upheld charities’ ability to engage in political activities under the Charter Of Rights: “Citizens should be mindful of the right and also the duty to use their free vote.”
The Department of Fisheries in a redacted secret memo indicates a proposal to ease the “administrative burden” for fish farming corporations was a last-minute addition to federal plans. No reason was given: “The department doesn’t know.”
Any re-elected Liberal cabinet might introduce a national guaranteed income program, Environment Minister Catherine McKenna told a campaign meeting. The program would cost more than $43 billion a year, according to the Parliamentary Budget Office: “That might be one of the solutions.”
The Green Party platform if enacted in any minority Parliament would raise taxes by nearly $60 billion a year, the Parliamentary Budget Office said yesterday. Green proposals include new taxes on soda pop, banks and their customers and employers and workers paying Canada Pension Plan premiums: “The platform is a blueprint.”
Limits on jury selection passed by Parliament June 20 following the Colten Boushie case have survived their first challenge. “Gut feeling” is no reason to disqualify a person from serving on a Canadian jury, ruled Ontario Superior Court: ‘It is not transparent.’
The New Democrat Party yesterday proposed a fifteen percent tax on foreign buyers of homes and condos nationwide. The tax similar to measures adopted by legislatures in British Columbia and Ontario would cost more than $300 million next year, said the Parliamentary Budget Office: “We’ll take real action.”
Reviving a 2009 Conservative Party tax credit for home renovations would cost nearly $2 billion, the Parliamentary Budget Office said yesterday. Canadians spend more than $44 billion a year on home improvements, by official estimate: “It doesn’t take much.”
The People’s Party has won a second Federal Court ruling against a British Columbia businessman who claimed to invent its name. The Party dismissed legal challenges as “frivolous and weak”.
