Cabinet will miss its target of making the nation PCB-free — by 32 years. Environment Canada confirmed it is again extending its deadline for removal of industrial electrical equipment with high levels of toxic polychlorinated biphenyls: “By 2025 you can bet there will be people who still won’t meet that deadline.”
Tax Court testimony has revealed new details of a fraud ring that falsified millions of dollars in claims. The revelations came in the case of a Toronto-area payroll clerk who unsuccessfully sued Canada Revenue Agency over credits a judge dismissed as unreliable: “Her testimony has no credibility at all.”
Canada’s telecom regulator is raising rates on 1-800 calls from payphones for people who still do that. The charge is the so-called default rate, a toll paid to a payphone provider for toll-free calls that access a long-distance network. There are still 167,000 payphones in service nationwide.
Homeowners face new warnings on indoor exposure to naphthalene under proposed Health Canada guidelines. Regulators noted the chemical most commonly associated with mothballs is used in scores of products: “Indoor air is one area where people may have higher exposures than they expect.”
Railways and shippers await new regulations under first-ever legislation on freight service. Bill C-52 will be signed into law this week, though both railways and shippers fault the legislation: “What is the point?”
Criminologists say they are unsurprised by a ten percent decline in delinquency last year, with youth court caseloads hitting their lowest level since record-keeping began in 1991. The caseload fell in every province and territory, and in almost every category of youth crime: “It is not getting worse.”
Recidivism rates in federal prisons have remained unchanged for more than a decade despite evolving crime legislation, records show. Correctional Service documents indicate 26 percent of new inmates already served time, unchanged from 2000: “The rate is not as high as we’ve been led to believe.”
Parliament is reviewing legislation to tighten scrutiny of funds used to restore and maintain the nation’s forts, canals and other historic sites. Bill C-528 requires that Parks Canada and registered charities keep careful accounting of restoration budgets and donations they receive: “There is no way of defining where your donation is going to go.”
Advocates are protesting a multi-million dollar increase in fees by a federal grain agency. The Canadian Grain Commission has doubled and tripled inspection fees that were frozen since 1991, as MPs broke for summer recess: “What we want to know is why.”
Canada’s banks are now forbidden from mailing unsolicited credit card cheques to customers. It comes more than two years after the Department of Finance said it would ban the practice: “These cheques were ubiquitous.”
A senator says he has now waited two years for a reply to a routine question on government policy, setting a new standard for inertia and “lack of disclosure” in Parliament. “Canadians have a right to know what the government is doing,” said Sen. Percy Downe, who asked June 23, 2011 for details of decentralization — and is still waiting.
Canada is introducing first-ever federal regulations on icewine in a bid to curb counterfeiting. Winemakers praised the initiative though it calls for federal-provincial consensus, and one province — Quebec — is improperly freezing grapes: “Establishing these standards is critical.”
Port officials say coordinated policies, not more federal regulations, have reduced crime. Authorities speaking at a Port Secure conference said they curbed contraband with common-sense precautions. The remarks came as the Canada Border Services Agency proposed new regulations creating cordoned “controlled areas” at ports and airfields.
The Department of Justice has banned six more obsolete models of breathalyzer machines on the advice of forensic scientists. Authorities did not comment on the order, the second in six months. The department earlier cited “human error” as cause for banning certain blood-alcohol instruments.
Official job figures are skewed by counting 300,000 unpaid interns as members of the workforce, says a Liberal senator. “It is almost incomprehensible,” said Senator Grant Mitchell of Edmonton. Statistics Canada confirmed it does not remove free volunteers from its monthly job calculations.
