Cabinet in a rare but not unprecedented move confirmed Saturday it spent $40.3 billion, about eight percent of its annual budget, by special warrant. The alternative would have seen federal functions cease at the start of a new budget year including payment of Old Age Security and salaries for police and prison guards: ‘It is urgently required for the public good.’
New Democrat leader Jagmeet Singh urged electors to “know their vote does matter” after reporters dismissed his campaign as a lost cause. Party support has averaged in the three million vote range for the past decade: “Have you learned any lessons from stumbling out of the gate?’
The Pact.
Freedom isn’t the same as Liberty.
But Liberty treads the path,
To enlightenment.
Both are imposters,
Tickled into the ears,
Of people with long memories.
Those in charge,
In the high places,
Will make their sacrifices.
And it’s evident,
Those in charge will always be,
Those in charge.
The best we can expect,
Rightfully, our only demand,
Is fair dealing.
The best they,
Can hope for,
Is to keep their heads.
But a reminder may be needed,
Of the year of our Lord,
Twelve Fifteen.
By: W.N. Branson
John Diefenbaker was a folk hero whose very commonness was heroic. Historian Bob Plamondon captures this beautifully. Diefenbaker first held public office as a town councillor in Wakaw, Sask. His favourite pastime was fishing. Making small talk with Pope John XXIII, Diefenbaker asked: “How does it feel to be Pope anyhow?”
“He held the highest office in the land yet he instinctively mistrusted authority, the rich, the powerful, and even some members of his cabinet,” writes Plamondon. As Prime Minister he insisted on sending rent cheques to the treasury, $5,000 a year, for the privilege of living at 24 Sussex Drive.
Diefenbaker was a man of the Prairies, the most egalitarian society on Earth. There was no aristocracy in Wakaw or Oyen or Crystal City. He ranked 7th of 39 candidates on the 1919 Saskatchewan bar exam. “He had no blue chip clients in his roster,” notes Plamondon.
Freedom Fighter is pure Canadiana, smartly written and evocative. Plamondon recounts the Diefenbaker story, big and small. As Prime Minister in 1959 he reversed a departmental order to cull 250 ponies on Sable Island. What harm did the ponies ever do?
“Diefenbaker was a charismatic leader with a deep connection to ordinary Canadians,” writes Plamondon. “He said he never campaigned; rather, he continuously visited the people.”
He was a folk hero to Senator Hugh Segal, a poor boy from Montréal who was mesmerized when Diefenbaker spoke at his school. “The family table we call Canada is the finest table in the world,” said Diefenbaker. “There is space and food for all.”
He was a folk hero to Harry Narine Singh, the Trinidadian plaintiff in a landmark 1955 Supreme Court case against race-based immigration quotas. Narine Singh to the end of his days recalled a chance meeting with the man: “He shook my hand. He said, ‘My name is John Diefenbaker.’ I said, ‘Yes, sir, I know your name.’ He said, ‘Do you know I have argued your case in Parliament? Trust me.’”
All Diefenbaker’s instincts were heroic. The fact Black immigrants qualify for Canadian citizenship, and Indigenous Canadians have the vote, and Jews can serve as Bank of Canada governor, are not gifts that fell from the sky. Diefenbaker did that. “Diefenbaker was sensitive to discrimination in any form,” writes Plamondon.
Of course the story has a beginning, a middle and an end. Waging his last campaign as Prime Minister in 1963, “Diefenbaker lost the most seats in the big cities and affluent neighbourhoods, winning only 1 of 39 seats in Montréal and Toronto,” notes Plamondon.
When he died at 83 they carried him home by funeral train. There are Prairie residents who still recall the farmers and townspeople who clustered along the fence lines to watch the locomotive pass.
Jean Chretien first met Diefenbaker in 1963 and writes in a forward to Freedom Fighter: “We were both small town lawyers with a deep connection to ordinary Canadians. That may be why we were often underestimated.”
Yes, that’s it exactly.
By Holly Doan
Freedom Fighter: John Diefenbaker’s Battle For Canadian Liberties And Independence, by Bob Plamondon; Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy; 350 pages; ISBN 9781-06925-4504; $30
Liberals if re-elected will make a third attempt at regulating the internet, Prime Minister Mark Carney suggested last evening. Carney made the remark after being heckled at a rally in Hamilton, Ont.: ‘Pollution that’s online washes over our virtual borders from the United States.’
New York Consul Tom Clark billed taxpayers thousands for a winter junket to Marilyn Monroe’s favourite Beverly Hills hotel, Access To Information records show. The Department of Foreign Affairs approved the California holiday despite cabinet’s pledge to cut spending on unnecessary travel: “The exercise is extremely important.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday said Canadians “can’t believe everything you read” about his contacts with friends of China. Carney denied meeting members of a pro-People’s Republic business group despite photographic evidence: “I certainly never had a set-up meeting.”
Parliament must regulate municipal fees blamed for slowing construction of new homes, Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre said yesterday. Any future Conservative cabinet would take up to $50,000 off purchase prices by rolling back development charges, he said: “For the first time in our history an entire generation of young people can’t imagine buying their own house.”
People’s Party leader Maxime Bernier yesterday proposed a first-ever national moratorium on immigration until Parliament solves the housing crisis. “The Canadian government should work for us Canadians, not foreigners,” he told reporters: “We were called racists.”
The Department of Employment says it tripled spending on consultants in a single year to $311 million because “no employee was available,” according to an internal report. The department has more than 34,000 employees: “What is the rationale?”
Canadians face more than a quarter billion a year in higher costs for heating and cooling after Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson’s department yesterday adopted California efficiency standards for essential home appliances. Costs will be “passed on to consumers.”
Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre yesterday questioned why a public registry of foreign agents approved by Parliament 10 months ago is still not in operation. The Department of Public Safety did not comment: “Find out who is a bad actor.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday promised a one-stop permit system for energy projects called the Major Federal Project Office. It followed Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre’s proposal Monday for a one-stop permit system called the Rapid Resource Project Office. Carney said his Project Office was better: “I do things.”
A yearly surtax on the wealthiest Canadians would raise tens of billions but have an unpredictable “behavioural response,” the Budget Office said yesterday. New Democrat and Green MPs have advocated a wealth tax on multi-millionaires and billionaires: “It is easy and wonderful to say to people we are going to tax the wealthiest and we are going to do this, do that.”
The Government of Canada is such a poor landlord it rates worse than New Zealand, population five million, in managing federal buildings for taxpayer savings, says a Treasury Board report. Managers spend some $10 billion a year without proper oversight, it said: “Property assets continue to deteriorate at an accelerating pace.”
