Auto executives yesterday said billions more in subsidies are needed to meet cabinet’s electric car mandate. Subsidies to date total more than $150 billion: “There is clearly no turning back at this point in time.”
High level amateur athletes including future Olympians in Canada typically earn less than the minimum wage and carry credit card debts, says in-house Department of Canadian Heritage research. “Money is a significant barrier,” said the report.
Avalanches are the “deadliest natural hazard in Canada,” says a Department of Public Safety report. More people die in avalanches than earthquakes, floods, hail, icebergs or volcanic eruptions, it said, though mountaineering is statistically less risky than taking a bath or eating a meal: ‘Avalanches kill more people annually than all other natural hazards combined.’
The Conservative Party last night in a byelection upset toppled a longtime Liberal stronghold in Toronto-St. Paul’s. The win ended a Liberal monopoly of Toronto ridings that narrowly re-elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s minority government three years ago: “Send Justin Trudeau a message.”
Ottawa media last night mistakenly proclaimed the Liberal Party as victors once again in a Toronto byelection. “A win’s a win,” said Paul Wells, pundit and Trudeau author, while one news agency formerly owned by the Toronto Star published a now-deleted headline announcing a Liberal win before all ballots were counted: “The Trudeau team will show new spring in its step.”
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s department confidentially polled Canadians on resentment against “the rich” before announcing an $18 billion hike in the capital gains tax, records show. Freeland, a millionaire, within days of receiving the pollsters’ report began characterizing critics as having “rich friends.”
Public support for immigration quotas is falling sharply, says a federal report. The Department of Immigration memo said a third of Canadians nationwide and a clear majority of Ontarians complain there are too many immigrants: “This is the most concern about the rate of immigration to Canada that we have seen in nearly 20 years.”
The Commons justice committee has published 78 petitions and reports documenting vulgar anti-Semitism from universities to elementary schools. It follows testimony from witnesses who said campuses now lead the nation in “Jew hate.”
More than a tenth of young drivers have operated a vehicle after using marijuana, says a Department of Public Safety report. Researchers acknowledged Parliament’s 2018 legalization of recreational cannabis countered years of progress in reducing impaired driving rates: ‘It is significant.’
The Department of Natural Resources in an internal memo acknowledges cabinet’s 2019 promise to plant two billion trees within a decade was faked. “Two billion trees” was picked as an inspirational slogan and should not be taken literally, it said: “I can’t give an exact date on when the two billion trees will be planted exactly.”
The Public Health Agency in an in-house memo says it introduced the $59.5 million ArriveCan app because it feared ordinary Customs forms were infected with Covid. The Agency’s own doctors at the time said there was no evidence paper spread the coronavirus: “We were told we could catch Covid from touching documents.”
Tax write-offs jumped 55 percent last year to more than $4.3 billion, records show. The Canada Revenue Agency gave no reason for the surprising increase: “It really has the appearance of an Agency without accountability.”
Cabinet sees “potential” in a Department of Employment scheme to build Canada’s biggest database using payroll information on 31 million tax filers. “Government departments and agencies could then access the information when they need it,” said a Briefing Binder: “It would impact every employer and every worker in Canada.”
Loblaw Companies and its subsidiaries pocketed more than $10 million in federal subsidies since 2019, records show. New Democrat Alexandre Boulerice (Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie, Que.), the MP who requested the figures, protested that taxpayers who can’t afford to shop at Loblaw still have to pay for it: “Enough is enough.”
Boston’s transportation system.
The Big Dig.
Scheduled to complete in 1998
for $2.6 billion.
Completed in 2007
for $14.6 billion.
Bostonians will continue to pay
until 2038.
The City of Ottawa learned the lesson,
chose a light rail instead.
“On time and on budget.”
Phase 1 missed
only three deadlines.
Phase 2 costs ballooned
by only 35%.
And mechanical testing confirms:
On sunny summer days,
when the breeze is light and
the birds are singing,
the system will actually function.
By Shai Ben-Shalom
