There will be no federal budget until the fall, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said yesterday. Cabinet in the meantime will table a Ways And Means Motion proposing a multi-billion dollar income tax cut once Parliament resumes May 26, he said: “I could not be clearer than that.”
Cabinet yesterday said it welcomed any opposition MP who wants to vote with the Liberal caucus in the minority 45th Parliament. New Democrat leader Don Davies earlier expressed outrage over floor crossing and sponsored a private bill to ban the practice: “The only people who have the right to determine which party represents them in the House of Commons are the voters themselves.”
Attorney General Sean Fraser yesterday dismissed questions regarding his competence. Opposition MPs depicted Fraser as a serial bungler who mismanaged two previous portfolios, housing and immigration: “It really doesn’t bother me too much.”
Solving the nation’s housing crisis will be slow and complex, Housing Minister Gregor Robertson said yesterday. The former Vancouver mayor, the fifth federal housing minister in six years, told reporters he was uniquely qualified: “I am here to leverage my history.”
Rough sports are suitable for Saturday morning TV providing there’s a viewer advisory, national broadcast regulators ruled yesterday. The decision followed complaints Sportsnet Central broadcast a bloody mixed martial arts match at 9:30 in the morning: “As a formal sport, mixed martial arts may appear to an uninitiated watcher to be something of a free for all.”
Liberal MP Shafqat Ali (Brampton-Chinguacousy Park, Ont.), a former realtor once cited for attending Parliament by videoconference from a men’s toilet, yesterday was named President of the Treasury Board. The Board presidency previously rated a senior position has seen eight appointees since 2019: “The Member of Parliament was literally using the washroom while participating in a sitting of the House of Commons, the cathedral of Canadian democracy. I can’t believe I actually just said those words.”
The Department of Foreign Affairs yesterday said it would not discuss self-published commentaries by Neil Macdonald, a former CBC-TV reporter now writing as husband of Canada’s Ambassador to Vatican City. Macdonald mocked Pope Francis’ funeral after attending the mass as a VIP, complained Canadians don’t work hard enough and proposed a boycott of exports to the United States: “It is easy to mock.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday appointed nearly a third of his cabinet from the Greater Toronto Area but said they would represent all Canadians nationwide. Appointments left one senior minister west of Winnipeg: “We are governing for all Canadians, all regions.”
Five veteran ministers have been fired from cabinet after Canadians “voted for big change,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said yesterday. The firings included ministers who’d spent a decade in cabinet: “Big change, not small change; they voted for big change.”
The Department of Veterans Affairs has asked statisticians to calculate when the last Canadian survivor of the Second World War is likely to die, Access To Information records show. Statistical tables were compiled in planning for a national tribute: “The last surviving Second World War veteran is projected to pass away between 2034 and 2038.”
Diplomat Neil Macdonald, husband of Canada’s Ambassador to Vatican City, in an election commentary ridiculed Conservative voters as “rumpy-Trumpy” and questioned whether Hitler had worse media relations than Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre. The Department of Foreign Affairs yesterday had no comment: “Fanboys in Alberta thought becoming the 51st state was a super-keen idea.”
Results are pending in three more judicial recounts in federal ridings with narrow outcomes in April 28 balloting. A Superior Court ruling that gave Liberals a win by a single vote in suburban Terrebonne, Que. was the closest call since 1963.
The federal government in pre-election focus groups shopped various slogans to persuade Canadians to support a cap on oil and gas emissions, according to in-house research by the Privy Council Office. Depicting energy companies as hugely profitable corporations that could afford clean technology was most popular, said a report: “Asked whether they had seen, read or heard anything about the federal government’s action on this front, only a small number indicated they had.”
Privacy Commissioner Philippe Dufresne yesterday called this a “pivotal time” for fundamental rights in Canada. Dufresne avoided all mention of his 2023 dismissal of privacy rights under pandemic mandates: “At a time when the personal information of Canadians is being collected, used and shared at an unparalleled pace and volume on a global scale, effective privacy protection requires more than the status quo.”
A federal judge has dismissed a class action lawsuit by RCMP members who complained that monitoring of police radio calls breached their Charter right to privacy. The case followed a 2017 New Brunswick investigation into organized crime: “An individual choosing to share personal information while at work in a work-related communication channel does not translate into having an objective expectation of privacy.”
