The cash-strapped Canadian Coast Guard should be managed as an independent agency, the Senate fisheries committee has been told. The appeal follows Access To Information disclosures the agency had to ration fuel due due to funding pressures: “We saw cuts.”
Canada must track foreign purchases of farmland nationwide or see independent producers reduced to serfdom, says a British Columbia trade group. Witnesses at the Senate agriculture committee cited speculation in farmland by corporations and offshore investors: “It truly is the Wild West.”
The Speaker of the Commons will rule on whether cabinet improperly concealed documents detailing the cost of a national carbon tax. A secret Finance Canada memo published by Blacklock’s last November 18 warned a tax would “cascade” through the economy: “Key findings are blanked out.”
Fish farms will be targeted with a first-ever federal audit by the Commissioner of the Environment. The Commons fisheries committee yesterday learned the aquaculture probe will be completed in 2018: “It is a big deal.”
A $64 million-a year Arctic grocers’ subsidy is broken and must be fixed, says Northern Affairs Minister Dr. Carolyn Bennett. The Minister in Senate Question Period yesterday said reforms will be detailed shortly. Northerners pay $14 for a bag of potatoes and $7 a litre for milk despite subsidies, critics noted: ‘They don’t seem to have worked.’
Cabinet should account for benefits and losses attributed to free trade pacts, says the Senate trade committee. Lawmakers noted Canada has seen trade deficits with several partners under agreements signed since 1989: “It’s usually take it or leave it.”
Employees are entitled to an investigation of workplace danger even if the peril is an unpleasant boss, a federal judge has ruled. The Canada Labour Code complaint involved staffers at the foreign ministry: “Exposure to her supervisor constituted a dangerous situation.”
Airline regulators have awarded another four-figure compensation claim to a passenger inconvenienced by poor service. It’s the second large claim approved by the Canadian Transportation Agency since cabinet proposed to introduce a passenger bill of rights: “Canadians will know what their rights are.”
RCMP management is asking cabinet to approve a members’ pay hike, the first in three years. Any increase will result in higher costs to cities and provinces that contract the Mounties for policing, said Commissioner Bob Paulson: “I’m asking for more money.”
Elections Canada proposes to take its first step in going electronic with a complicated scheme for downloading ballots. Critics yesterday described the plan as garbled and problematic: “This doesn’t make sense at all, really.”
MPs critical of a European trade pact fear the agreement will result in higher pharmaceutical prices. A Health Canada official in 2016 testimony at a Commons committee acknowledged drug prices will rise under the treaty: “There is no question about this.”
The Canada Border Services Agency was tough but fair in revoking a cross-border traveler’s Nexus pass for six years over a pair of pants, says a federal judge. Strict enforcement of Nexus rules saw a Conservative senator questioned over an unrelated minor breach of regulations in 2014: “There is zero tolerance.”
Canada ranks 4th behind the United States, U.K. and Japan as a leading target for cyberattacks, says a U.S. security firm. The Department of Public Safety in an Access To Information memo also warned of electronic sabotage: “Who’s going to be responsible?”
Overseas tax collections more than tripled after the Canada Revenue Agency installed a tipsters’ hot line, according to accounts. The previous Conservative cabinet launched the Offshore Tax Informant Program in 2014 on a promise of cash rewards: “The net is tightening.”
The RCMP is short more than 1,000 constables and welcomes older applicants looking for a second career, officials say. Recruitment has fallen to less than half what it was in 2009 with the Mounties accepting cadets as old as 52: “Do I want to be part of this?”
