The last federally-owned marine service in the country failed to raise fees as mandated by cabinet, auditors reported yesterday. Subsidies for the Newfoundland & Labrador ferry service cost taxpayers the equivalent of $379 per passenger last year: “We found weaknesses.”
Auditors are citing the Department of Finance for sloppy security of confidential budget records. Fully 25 percent of staff fail to take basic steps like locking file cabinets to secure pre-budget data, says an internal audit: “The department is responsible for a significant amount of highly sensitive information.”
The Commons transport committee yesterday confirmed it will conduct hearings on bus passenger safety. It follows fatal accidents involving the Humboldt Broncos charter bus and Ottawa’s municipal OC Transpo operator, the public transit system with the worst safety record in the country: “We just want all the facts laid out.”
An Environment Canada office was so poisonous one employee searched ceiling tiles for hidden cameras, while a manager wore a bulletproof vest for fear of assassination. Accounts of dysfunction at the department’s Nanaimo, B.C. branch were detailed at a federal labour board hearing: ‘It was akin to water torture.’
Cases of drug overdose in federal prisons have nearly doubled since Parliament passed a Drug-Free Prisons Act, say penitentiary managers. The Correctional Service of Canada described drug abuse as a crisis: ‘It is closely tied to the opioid crisis in the community.’
The Canada Revenue Agency paid a pollster nearly $55,000 to confirm taxpayers expect call centre agents to pick up the phone. The research followed disclosures the Agency dropped 29 million calls a year: “We’re still going to see these crappy results coming out of CRA.”
The Department of Fisheries in Access To Information memos says it modified a 2018 audit of its own work before the report was published by Environment Commissioner Julie Gelfand. The Commissioner refused comment: “She’s declining the interview.”
Federal agencies have dismissed a complaint of misleading advertising by the first company to win a Canadian license to sell genetically-modified animal protein. AquaBounty Technologies Inc. claims its engineered salmon is 100 percent North American raised: “The fish are grown in Panama.”
Air Canada cannot ban cargo workers from wearing union ball caps, a federal arbitrator has ruled. The airline ordered the ban in a campaign to “refresh and rebrand” its image. Union paraphernalia in the workplace has been the subject of numerous labour rulings: ‘It is a legitimate, lawful activity.’
Porter announced
their new destination
to Florida coast.
In the ad,
white-sand beach,
clear waters,
and a space shuttle taking off.
But shuttles
haven’t been used
since the flight of Atlantis
in 2011.
If Porter wants to lure me
with manned space missions,
a route to Kazakhstan
would be a better choice.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
New Democrats yesterday challenged Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault to enforce a fake news ban in a federal byelection in British Columbia. The appeal at the House affairs committee followed disclosures a Vancouver newspaper published a false claim that the leader of the NDP owns a multi-million dollar home: “It is utterly untrue.”
A Saskatchewan investigation has found repeated breaches of private medical records on victims and survivors of the 2018 Humboldt Broncos disaster. A Crown agency responsible for managing a patients’ database identified snooping of young players’ medical files: “I find that privacy breaches occurred.”
A federal report says Parliament could face a climate change challenge under the Charter Of Rights. Staff questioned whether “environmental rights” could be written into the Constitution: “What is the state of the law in Canada?”
A defence department campaign to recruit more women will take years to reach its targets, the Commons defence committee was told yesterday. Female focus groups uncovered strong negative views of military life: ‘We’re not seeing much progress.’
The Commons has given quick Second Reading to a jurors’ aid bill co-sponsored by Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats. The bill followed agonizing committee testimony from jurors who attended murder trials: “You don’t know what you’re getting into.”
