Chinese police are a law enforcement “partner” just like the FBI, the Mounties said yesterday. However details of a confidential partnership agreement with Beijing cannot be disclosed “without their permission,” said a Deputy Commissioner.
The operators of Canada’s largest private TV news network yesterday said losses are running at $40 million a year. “There is fear,” said an executive with Bell Media Inc.
Heritage Minister Marc Miller yesterday would not say who in his office recommended a Canada Summer Jobs grant for an anti-Semite. Internal records confirm payment to a constituent in Miller’s riding who fantasized about shooting Jews: “I would strongly recommend as the Member of Parliament for downtown Montréal that the money be clawed back.”
Canadian universities, unions and medical professions must confront anti-Semitism, the Senate human rights committee said yesterday. A committee report specifically denounced anti-Jewish discourse in professions: “It was deeply sad.”
The Commons by a 164 to 153 vote yesterday confirmed Prime Minister Mark Carney’s nominee as Budget Officer. Annette Ryan, 55, a former assistant associate deputy finance minister, acknowledged she knew Carney when both studied at Oxford in the 1990s but denied any partisan leanings: “Will you commit to never censoring or watering down a report at the request of the government, bureaucracy or Prime Minister’s Office?”
Canada Post yesterday said it will cut 30,000 jobs through attrition after reporting a “seismic” pre-tax loss of $1,569,000,000 last year. “Some changes will raise concerns,” CEO Doug Ettinger wrote in an Annual Report to Parliament: “Change is never easy, especially at Canada Post.”
Auto executives yesterday warned cabinet concessions to Chinese automakers undermine Canadian jobs. Cabinet on March 11 granted Chinese battery electric cars low-tariff access to the Canadian market with an initial quota of 49,000 vehicles this year, rising by 6.5 percent annually: “It is a major mistake.”
The Canadian Human Rights Commission in a report to the United Nations said it’s upset by anti-Black bigotry. The federal agency made no mention of mistreating its own Black employees, prompting censure by the Treasury Board and a public apology by the Chief Commissioner: “There needs to be a swift and complete overhaul of the Commission’s senior management.”
Enlistment is up in the Canadian Armed Forces, according to figures released yesterday by Defence Minister David McGuinty. Recruiters noted it still takes more than four months to process an application to join the Army, Navy or Royal Canadian Air Force: “We’d like to bring that down to 30 days.”
A federal judge yesterday dismissed an attempt by two ArriveCan executives to challenge an internal report on alleged wrongdoing. The two former Canada Border Services Agency managers, Antonio Utano and Cameron MacDonald, were ordered to pay a combined $41,709 in costs.
A Nova Scotia wind farm run by friends of the Liberal Party required $206 million in public financing since no private lender would touch it, says the CEO of the Canada Infrastructure Bank. Ehren Cory said the costly venture was deemed too risky: “Private lenders alone were unwilling to provide the required financing.”
Foreigners in Canada on temporary permits will number more than two million this year even with quota cuts, records show. Prime Minister Mark Carney imposed cuts after complaining the “system isn’t working.”
A total 110,561 electors signed a Commons petition demanding that floor-crossers face byelections. The petition that closed Friday, sponsored by Conservative MP Lianne Rood (Middlesex-London, Ont.), was the first of four targeting defections in Parliament: “End the practice of MPs rejecting the will of the electorate.”
About a quarter of federal managers say they feel pressured to hire favoured candidates, says a biennial survey by the Public Service Commission. Figures showed more managers also resort to inside appointments rather than openly posting vacancies: “They are based on ‘who you know.'”
A federal judge has awarded a Saskatchewan prisoner more than $75,000 in damages and costs after he was pushed into a cell door by a guard. “The Charter is a very important law in Canada,” wrote Justice William Pentney, a former Deputy Minister of Justice: “The use of force violated your right to security of the person.”
