Facebook creeping and federal monitoring of Twitter accounts “means better public policies”, says a senior cabinet member. Treasury Board President Tony Clement defended round the clock government surveillance of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media: “We’re on the verge of Big Brother territory here.”
The Opposition says it’s consulted with constitutional lawyers in drafting a bill allowing random Breathalyzer tests of motorists. New Democrats introduced the measure previously endorsed by a Commons committee. However even supporters acknowledge the proposal is open to legal challenge: ‘This area of law is complex.’
Capital spending in the vehicle industry has fallen to 1980 levels, according to corporate research. However the Canadian Auto Partnership Council said adoption of U.S.-style right-to-work legislation is no solution: “We still think it is possible to compete with Mexico and the right-to-work states.”
Canada’s accountants say media coverage of tax avoidance unfairly maligns tax-paying corporations. The Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada criticized media accounts equating legal tax avoidance with criminal misconduct: “It’s the headlines that are confusing.”
Government of Canada websites must feature blue not because it’s the colour of the Conservative Party but due to its restful qualities, according to documents. Records show federal agencies conducted extensive studies and focus groups in settling on blue as a predominant website colour: “It’s airy.”
Canada Mortgage & Housing Corporation is investigating the “experiences of first-time buyers” amid the biggest run-up in mortgage debt in the country’s history. Home loans have grown ten-fold since 1982 to more than a trillion dollars. “We’re keeping a close eye on what they’re up to,” said Finance Minister James Flaherty.
Regulators must restrict a Bell Canada “data grab” of customers’ online activities, says a Conservative senator. The deputy chair of the communications committee questioned the practice of monitoring, compiling and marketing customers’ internet profiles: “I find what they’re doing disturbing.”
The Department of Foreign Affairs is attempting to buy or lease a new embassy in Brussels, where taxpayers have been billed for five official residences at the same time – two of them vacant. The Belgian realty hunt is the latest by the department, which has made and lost money since being ordered to reduce its $208 million-a year property bill: “I recall some bad publicity.”
Industry Canada is commissioning a survey on factory labour shortages. It follows a Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters’ poll that identified a chronic lack of skilled workers from engineers to welders: ‘It’s the most common barrier to growth.’
The Canadian Transportation Agency is accused of complex, legalistic proceedings “unfriendly” to travellers. A lawyer who pressed a successful claim against Air Canada said proceedings are too time-consuming and adversarial: “Passengers put up with it.”
Railways are endorsing a Transport Safety Board proposal to upgrade thousands of obsolete tanks prone to puncture as in the fiery Lac-Mégantic wreck. An industry group requested new safety standards affecting two-thirds of the 92,000 tank cars used to ship flammable liquids: “The tank cars’ weaknesses have been acknowledged.”
Canadians’ Facebook pages, Twitter exchanges and YouTube videos are to be watched ‘round the clock by a surveillance division of the Department of Public Works. Authorities propose to keep an eye of “top influencers” at blogs and chatrooms. No targeted individuals or groups were named. Documents obtained by Blacklock’s show agencies already spend millions monitoring newsrooms.
VIA Rail passenger service faces certain death outside Québec and Ontario without a new management plan, says the nation’s largest private sector union, Unifor. VIA’s operating deficit is at 33.5 cents per mile: “We shouldn’t fool ourselves.”
The federal agency responsible for watching out for money laundering and terror financing is touting a banner year of 919 disclosures of “actionable” financial deals sent to investigation, and nearly 20 million transactions reported nationwide.
Canada Revenue Agency is facing the loss of a multi-million tax judgment against an oil company because it could not prove it mailed a letter.
The agency was cited by a federal judge after staff of the Calgary Tax Office could not produce a simple date stamp as evidence they’d mailed an assessment under the Income Tax Act.
“Failure to have a date-stamp system strikes me as an example of gross mismanagement,” said MP Murray Rankin, New Democrat revenue critic. Revenue Minister Kerry-Lynne Findlay declined comment.
In reviewing the 2000 tax returns for ConocoPhillips Canada Resources Corp., federal agents concluded the oil giant underpaid its royalties by $4.6 million. Five Canada Revenue officers swore the company was mailed a formal Notice of Reassessment on November 7, 2008.
However Conoco executives in testimony and affidavits said they never received the letter, and unfairly missed a 90-day deadline to file an objection. It was a “vitally important disagreement”, said Justice Douglas Campbell. Conoco filed application asking the judge to quash a decision by the Minister of Revenue that it was too late to challenge the tax bill.
“A thorough search was conducted and no copy of the reassessment was located,” Conoco lawyers told Justice Campbell. In court documents, the company insisted it kept meticulous logs on incoming mail; that its tax director was “well-organized” and had “diligent record-keeping”; and that there was no evidence the 2008 tax bill was ever sent.
“Canada Revenue Agency has not produced an original copy of the assessment, only a print-out marked ‘reproduction’ of a record stored on a Canada Revenue Agency computer,” oil company attorneys noted.
Justice Campbell agreed, concluding tax employees failed to produce “precise evidence” they actually mailed the assessment.
“I would have thought any competent, well-run organization would have a system of being able to verify without need of affidavits the fact that a document as critical as that had been mailed out,” said Rankin, MP for Victoria; “Does this strike you as an example of a competent organization?”
The judge quashed the decision of the Minister of Revenue that Conoco was too late to challenge the seven-figure tax bill, and ordered the Government of Canada to pay the oil company’s legal costs.
Conoco did not comment.
By Tom Korski 
