The Department of Northern Affairs forecasts spending of $98.7 million this year on an Arctic grocers’ subsidy dubbed a failure by MPs. Reforms of the Nutrition North program have been promised since 2016: “This is a program that desperately needs to be fixed.”
Federal departments and agencies since 2016 have spent $1.76 million on fake news content ghostwritten and edited by government employees, say newly-released accounts. Staff distributed unsigned stories free of charge to newsrooms.
“They shed crocodile tears for print media and say, ‘We’re on your side’, and then do things like this,” said Conservative MP Tony Clement (Parry Sound-Muskoka). “The government is always looking for ways to make sure the news is in their favour.”
Cabinet in an Inquiry Of Ministry tabled in the Commons detailed scores of contracts with News Canada Inc., a Toronto-based broker that distributed ready-to-use content to editors. Stories were attributed to News Canada without identifying the government’s authorship. Blacklock’s earlier identified weeklies from Alberta to Québec that republished stories without advising readers they were produced by federal employees.
“The government is trying to buy its way into the good graces of Canadians,” said Clement. “I think there should be a general review of government promotions to make sure they are in line with what Canadians expect.”
Large contracts awarded to News Canada Inc. included $316,735 by Health Canada; $298,201 by Statistics Canada; $256,594 by the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation; and $198,309 by the Canada Revenue Agency. No agency cancelled its news contracts, though the Department of Immigration wrote it allowed its existing arrangement with News Canada Inc. to expire on March 31.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which sponsored $9,440 worth of content, denied the practice amounted to fakery. “The Agency uses services provided by News Canada Inc. to provide factual information of public interest on important matters of health or safety,” wrote staff. “Contracting with News Canada Inc. has proven to be an effective means of supplementing all the various techniques used to reach Canadians.”
The Department of Canadian Heritage in a 2017 Memorandum To The Minister described fake news, including “state-sponsored” content, as a public policy issue. “Creators of fake news are non-traditional sources, i.e. not journalists; individuals on social media; individuals not preoccupied with facts,” said the memo obtained through Access To Information.
“Characteristics of fake news” include content that writers are “quick to create and share, and are not constrained by research or fact-checking,” wrote staff; “The issue is complex and there is not likely one single, easy solution. (There are) limitations to actions that governments can take, e.g. cannot decide what is fake news.”
“Access to accurate information from diverse perspectives underpins our democratic institutions,” said the memo.
Examples of ghostwritten stories included a Financial Consumer Agency of Canada item, Achieve Your Long-Term Financial Goals With Your Home Equity, that advised homeowners on how to apply to banks for lines of credit. The item did not disclose the federal Agency draws 77 percent of its $17.6 million annual budget from banks and other lenders.
Health Canada distributed an article Pesticides In Canada that told readers: “When used properly, you can be assured there is no risk to human health or the environment.” The story failed to note ongoing Agency reviews of three common neonicotinoid pesticides regulators have cited as environmentally toxic.
By Jason Unrau 
Health Canada paid $42,990 distributing climate change questionnaires to family doctors on the perils of extreme heat, according to records. Physicians said the research was irrelevant. Canada’s deadliest heat wave occurred in 1936: “It’s a very rare problem.”
The Senate has given Second Reading to a bill mandating greater disclosure by the Canada Revenue Agency. Senators described the Agency as ineffectual and untrustworthy: “There is something wrong at the Agency.”
Finance Minister Bill Morneau yesterday said cabinet has fully costed its decision to nationalize the Trans Mountain pipeline, but would not disclose figures when asked 12 times by members of the Senate national finance committee. “I don’t have the exact number in my head,” said Morneau.
The chair of the Senate transport and communications committee yesterday accused the CBC of over-reaching its Broadcasting Act mandate as a de facto internet newspaper. The remarks came as cabinet launched a review of the 1991 Act: “I don’t know how you guys handle that.”
Environment Minister Catherine McKenna yesterday said cabinet is still calculating the cost of oil and gas company subsidies one year after the Auditor General cited officials for concealing records. “Difficult things are difficult,” McKenna told the Commons environment committee.
A former Bank of Nova Scotia employee in a Federal Court lawsuit alleges he was fired for legally growing cannabis at home. The Federal Court of Appeal earlier ordered the Canadian Human Rights Commission to review a similar complaint over Bank policy: “The government is rushing to get cannabis legalization in place without wanting to talk about the details.”
Newspaper publishers yesterday blamed federal advertising policy in part for the loss of 16,500 journalism jobs in the last decade. Federal agencies tripled their spending on Facebook ads last year even as Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly lamented the state of local media: “We’ve lost over 20 percent of the newspapers in Saskatchewan over the past two years.”
Canada Post secretly commissioned six separate studies and reports on postal banking, according to an Inquiry Of Ministry tabled in the Commons. The research was conducted over a five-year period: “The six reports looked at whether or not postal banking had potential.”
The Canada Border Services Agency searches thousands of iPhones, laptops and other electronic devices annually, say Access To Information records. A disproportionate number of inspections occur in British Columbia. The Agency did not explain why: “These are personal things.”
Small business start-ups create more than a quarter-million jobs a year but suffer a high attrition rate, says new Department of Industry research. Data show 30 percent of new retailers and 33 percent of restaurants fold within three years: “If a business starts small, its potential for future growth is very limited.”
Cabinet will again delay enactment of a new food safety law until 2019, nearly seven years after Parliament passed the bill. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency did not account for the unusual delay: ‘It’s highly complex, to say the least.’
Health Canada proposes to more than double fines for improper pesticide use after concluding current penalties are too paltry. Fines on corporations for very serious violations of federal law are as little as $4,000: “That’s really concerning.”
The Government of Canada spent more than a million dollars on the malicious tax prosecution of a family-owned restaurant, say Access To Information records. Department of Justice spending totaled $946,622. It did not include the cost of an ongoing appeal of a Court ruling that cited auditors for “high-handed, reprehensible and malicious” conduct: “A million dollars is an awful lot of money to spend on a court case.”
