A federal survey of pension planners cost the equivalent of more than $150 per brief phone call, according to accounts. The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions paid researchers $41,189 to call 272 executives asking if they were satisfied with the service: “Overall, how effective do you think the Office is?”
Cabinet has approved a 2016 Census questionnaire that will again ask how many same-sex couples have wed a decade after gay marriage was legalized. The last national survey found gay couples accounted for 0.8 percent of families nationwide: “What is the relationship?”
Environmental Canada has been lax in monitoring chemical dumping in the Great Lakes under an agreement signed three years ago, say advocates. Eleven million Canadians draw their drinking water from the lakes: “The federal government is just not paying attention”.
A protection agreement with Chinese investors will have far-reaching impact and should not be repeated with other foreign speculators, says a legal scholar. The Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion & Protection Agreement binds cabinet to a 31-year pact: “It’s a very expansive notion of property rights of foreigners”.
The Conservative chair of the Senate banking committee is defending an exhaustive 15-month study of bitcoin at the expense of other bills to modernize usury laws and lower merchants’ credit card fees. The committee’s bitcoin report was fed to an industry group and Bitcoin Magazine before it was given to reporters or the public: “Another big thanks needs to be given to Irving Gerstein’s former assistant”.
Cabinet is again delaying regulations that would force airlines, cruise ships, passenger trains and ferries to test their drinking water for E.coli bacteria and other contamination. The health department gave no reason for the delay in updating rules from 1954: ‘The cost is small enough’.
Health Canada proposes mandatory reporting of drug shortages by pharmaceutical companies. It follows the 2014 defeat of a Commons bill that would have compelled drug firms to give six months’ notice of planned or foreseeable shortages under threat of $10,000-a day fines: “Shortages are an immediate, pressing challenge”.
Cabinet has enacted new regulations on aquatic pests, with several exemptions. The regulations federalize rules already in place in Manitoba since 1987, and Ontario from 2007: “You really have to wonder if they are taking this seriously”.
Canadians must be prepared to pay more if regulators are to curb imports of sweatshop garments, a Senate committee has been told. The Department of Public Works is conducting an inquiry on “ethical procurement” in federal contracting: “Consumers are a selfish lot”.
An activist
of FEMEN Canada
poses as a journalist,
bares her breasts
in Quebec’s National Assembly.
Security now faces the challenge
of properly identifying visitors
while quickly neutralizing threats like
firearms,
bombs,
nipples.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
Liberal senators have piled more amendments on Bill C-377 as the Senate heads for a final vote on the measure to force disclosure of confidential union records. Opposition lawmakers proposed renewed hearings after complaining witnesses opposed to the bill were given short shrift: “Look at yourself in the mirror”.
An iconic Canadian landscape made famous by Group of Seven artist Lawren Harris has been voted a national marine conservation area. MPs endorsed the designation affecting millions of acres on Lake Superior’s North Shore. The Commons passed the bill in two minutes without debate or objections: “This bill took way too long”.
The Senate has passed into law a bill expanding railways’ oil spill insurance liability over industry complaints of high costs. New requirements prompted by the Lac-Mégantic derailment will see liability rise as much as five-fold for short line railways: “Lac-Mégantic was an important turning point”.
A law requiring that federal whistleblowers report management reprisals within 60 days should be reviewed, says Canada’s Public Sector Integrity Commissioner Joe Friday. It follows a Federal Court judgment that narrowly interpreted the rule in rejecting claims of reprisals by a Natural Resources Canada scientist: “The toughest reprisal cases are those that are subtle”.
The Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal from an Alberta client who complained of being charged too much by their attorneys. The Sweetgrass First Nation paid more than a quarter-million dollars for legal work: “Customers should not have to pay anyone who charges by the hour, whether lawyers or plumbers”.
