Refugee claims by travelers passing through Canadian airports fell 73 percent after cabinet reintroduced a Mexican visa requirement, records show. Inland claims also declined as cabinet cut foreign study permits at colleges and universities: “Ineligibility measures are about protecting the asylum system.”
Federal regulators have suspended thousands of marijuana distributors’ licenses “for reasons of public health and public safety” including illegal diversion of cannabis into the black market, says a Department of Health memo. It follows widespread bankruptcies in the marijuana trade: “Health Canada has refused or revoked over 4,100 registrations.”
Canadians will be expected to make sacrifices to build up national defence, Prime Minister Mark Carney said yesterday. Carney reiterated a pledge he reneged on last year to spend 2 percent of GDP on military preparedness: “Can you outline what sacrifices?”
The Alberta Human Rights Tribunal will allow a hearing on whether mandatory medical tests for older drivers are discriminatory. The case involved an octogenarian motorist who complained he had to pay out of pocket for needless exams: “He has no medical issues.”
Federal agencies last year mailed more than a million government cheques that were never cashed, records show. Payments totaling $609.4 million ranged from Old Age Security to unclaimed carbon rebates: “How many cheques?”
The Department of National Defence in three years spent nearly $300 million hiring transport contractors due to its inadequate vehicle fleet, say auditors. A total 203 separate contracts were approved: “Armed Forces transport capability cannot satisfy the transportation requirements.”
A federal climate program to install clean energy in First Nations cost the equivalent of more then $9,000 per person, records show. The disclosure follows a 2023 report acknowledging a multi-million dollar program to phase out diesel generators in Arctic Canada was nowhere near to reaching its target: “Projects can take more than 10 years to develop.”
Talk radio is a lucrative medium for white bigotry, says Liberal appointee Senator Charles Adler (Man.). Speaking in a podcast, Adler said his radio career was impacted by his refusal to “play that game.”
CMCH yesterday cautioned Canadians against celebrating temporary gains in housing starts amid a longer term construction decline. Housing Minister Gregor Robertson repeatedly pointed to a temporary increase in housing starts last summer as proof that “our plan is working.”
RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme assigned a total seven officers to policing hate crimes in seven provinces, records show. Most were part-timers. The disclosure followed complaints of weak protection of Jews, the leading target of hate crimes in Canada, by official estimate: “What are the risks?”
Cabinet acknowledges a “moral obligation” to recover Indigenous artworks that vanished from government offices, the Commons heritage committee was told. One MP said federal managers appeared determined to downplay the loss of paintings, jewelry, sculptures and other art that went missing from a multi-million dollar collection: “I do believe there is a moral obligation.”
Liberal MP Tatiane Auguste (Terrebonne, Que.) has lost her Commons seat after the Supreme Court invalidated her election by a single ballot in 2025. It was the closest federal campaign in 62 years: “I think this is an issue that goes beyond party politics.”
Extraordinary pandemic-era infringements of Canadians’ rights were justified in the name of public safety, says the Supreme Court of Canada. Judges by a 5-4 decision upheld a Newfoundland and Labrador order that prohibited outsiders from entering the province: “These were difficult times.”
A former campaign manager and longtime political aide to Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith (Beaches-East York, Ont.) has been cited for multiple violations of the Elections Act. Breaches included falsifying records: ‘He was the official agent.’
The political heart of Ottawa spans a ten-square block area of the old city stretching from Wellington to Somerset Streets. Here on Somerset lived Prime Minister John Thompson, a workaholic who wrote Canada’s first Criminal Code, created Labour Day in 1893 and was an early supporter of votes for women.
“The days are not long enough for all the work I have to do,” wrote Thompson. “About all the exercise I can get is the walk from my house up to the Hill and back.”
Thompson was a brilliant young lawyer whose career was meteoric. At 15 he was a Halifax law clerk, at 26 a city alderman. By 37 he had become attorney general of Nova Scotia and a high court judge. “The best thing I ever invented is Thompson,” said John A. Macdonald, who recruited him as federal justice minister in 1885.
For three years Thompson lived in Ottawa boarding houses, lonely and miserable while his wife and children remained in Halifax. In order to forget his solitude, he would work late into the night at his office on the Hill.
When re-united with his family Thompson resumed a joyous home life. He and his wife Annie had nine children. He was devoted to them. For years they led a rambling existence, moving from one rental house to another. On becoming prime minister in 1892 Thompson moved to a grand home at 276 Somerset Street. It was a splendid, over-the-top Queen Anne Revival affair.
Here Thompson read Treasure Island to his children and left love notes for his wife. He called her “baby dear.” She nicknamed him “grunty.” Biographer Peter Waite recounted: “He always remembered birthdays and gifts for the children. He was a wonderful family man.”
Thompson had vices too. He smoked and ate too much. His favourite lunch was a fistful of coconut caramels. At 5’ 7” his weight ballooned past 200 pounds. In September 1894 he was diagnosed with heart trouble and advised by doctors to lose weight and stop drinking rye.
“You have to give your best and your worst,” Thompson said. Tragically, the prime minister who gave his best did not have long to live.
Seven weeks after seeing his doctor, Thompson left the capital on an Italian holiday. In Rome he proposed to climb the 404 steps to the top of St. Peter’s Dome. Left panting by the exertion, Thompson took to his bed for two days. Shortly afterward he was summoned to London to receive an honour from Queen Victoria.
On Dec. 12, 1894, at a luncheon with the Queen, Thompson dropped dead of a heart attack. He was 49. Back in Ottawa a newspaper reporter ran to the house on Somerset Street to break the news to Thompson’s widow. “If it were not for children,” she wrote, “I should long to creep away in some corner and die.”
Thompson died so poor Parliament paid the cost of the funeral. His estate totaled $9,727. Today he is forgotten. While most of the grand houses at Somerset and Metcalfe Streets survive, Thompson’s home was demolished, replaced with a dreary 1960s apartment building. No monument commemorates his life in Ottawa.
By Andrew Elliott
