Liberal leadership candidate Mark Carney yesterday promised to hike the defence budget at least 44 percent in four years without cutting any social spending or raising taxes. Carney’s campaign did not explain where it would find the extra billions: “We have our own priorities.”
Canada is too dependent on U.S. pipelines and power grids, Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said yesterday. Wilkinson said Canadians were left shaken by a threatened 10 percent U.S. tariff on oil, natural gas and hydroelectricity exports: “Perhaps in some areas we are too dependent on infrastructure in particular that flows only through the United States.”
Parks Canada cuts its fire preparedness budget 23 percent a year before a disastrous wildfire burned Jasper, Alta., says an internal report. The Agency had boasted of spending millions to mitigate losses before fire destroyed 358 buildings in Jasper and left 40 percent of residents homeless: ‘It is one of the most fire prepared and resilient communities in Canada.’
A Parks Canada manager yesterday had no comment after issuing an internal email confirming a “new purchasing program” with Amazon Business. Tamara McNulty, senior director of procurement, announced the initiative 48 hours after the Prime Minister urged the public to buy Canadian: ‘When did Jeff Bezos take out Canadian citizenship?’
About half the money improperly billed by a handful of federal subcontractors identified in a 2024 investigation has now been repaid, says a Department of Public Works briefing note. Managers said seven suppliers referred to the RCMP agreed to pay the balance but would not say when: “How concerned are you this could be a widespread problem?”
A Québec constable who announced on Facebook he would not ticket people under the province’s Covid curfew has been banned from policing for a year. A provincial Police Ethics Tribunal noted thousands of Facebook friends shared the protest message: “He wanted to help and support these people, not ‘destroy’ them.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau only 36 hours after pledging to lead a Team Canada fight against American tariffs yesterday offered numerous concessions in exchange for a 30-day reprieve from U.S. President Donald Trump. No legal text of an agreement was detailed: “We work together.”
Parliament must deploy the Army and Customs agents to intercept U.S. gun runners at the border, Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre said yesterday. “Let’s stop the gangsters and gun smugglers,” he told reporters. “I want to protect Canadians from criminals.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Chief Science Advisor spent more than $300,000 on travel from Tokyo to Oslo, records show. “Science can be everywhere,” Dr. Mona Nemer earlier told MPs: “I believe in science diplomacy.”
Federal archivists face a Federal Court challenge from B’nai Brith over their concealment of a decades-old blacklist of Nazi fugitives let into Canada after the Second World War. “History still needs to be fully told,” the group wrote a federal judge.
Cabinet in a briefing note says plans to introduce digital ID for Canadians in contact with federal agencies would be strictly optional. A program to have pensioners, Employment Insurance claimants and tax filers use digital identification has been under development for six years at a cost of more than $6.4 million: ‘It would be offered on an optional basis.’
Managers of the Canada Pension Plan, largest in the nation, yesterday would not comment on whether they’ll follow Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s directive to buy Canadian. Almost half the fund’s $675.1 billion is invested in the United States, from shares in American fast food chains to ownership of Dallas apartment buildings, San Diego shopping malls and industrial parks in Florida: “Now is the time to choose Canada.”
Parliament will not be recalled to manage a multi-billion dollar U.S. trade war, says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Commons trade committee members including Liberal MPs had rated parliamentary hearings a priority in a 2019 tariff dispute: “It is insane that in this great crisis, Parliament is shut down.”
The cost of the federal payroll is nearly $85 billion a year including police and military, says the Treasury Board. The agency in a briefing note calculated 1,700,000 current and former public employees are now enrolled in the federal Public Service Health Care Plan: “Yes, it is worrisome.”
Cabinet must repeal its signature climate program, the consumer carbon tax, says former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney. Campaigning for the March 9 Liberal Party leadership, Carney said the tax was not working: “We have to win this election.”
