A Senate committee yesterday cleared a bill mandating federal restrictions on sports betting ads. Professional leagues including the Canadian Football League and NHL oppose the measure: “Tens of thousands of Canadians’ lives will have been devastated through problem gambling.”
A cabinet-appointed watchdog assigned to investigate Canadian corporate ethics overseas is merely an advisor whose work has no legal weight, a federal judge has ruled. The decision came on union complaints targeting use of Bangladeshi labour by Mark’s Work Wearhouse: “The issue of a living wage and how to determine it remains under active consideration.”
The Leaders’ Debates Commission in a report to Parliament says it will not define “journalism.” The agency twice cited by the Federal Court for attempting to enforce arbitrary definitions concluded it had no business trying to “legally define what constitutes journalism.”
A long-promised investigation of contracting at Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty’s department has confirmed widespread irregularities. Verification was “missing” for two-thirds of audited suppliers who claimed Indigenous ownership in seeking preferential contracts: “Sixty-eight percent of cases had missing or incomplete verification.”
It is irresponsible for MPs to suggest cabinet is “cooking the books,” Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said yesterday. Opposition critics ridiculed Champagne’s announcement that the traditional spring budget and Fall Economic Statement will be replaced with a fall budget and Spring Economic Statement: “Are you guys going to be cooking the books?”
Privacy Commissioner Philippe Dufresne yesterday said he was never consulted on a telecom bill that would allow cabinet to secretly cancel Canadians’ internet accounts. Opponents have expressed alarm over the proposal: “We need to make sure by protecting national security we are not doing so at the expense of privacy.”
A federal labour board has upheld the firing of a Department of Employment staffer who pocketed the Canada Emergency Response Benefit while on the payroll. Evidence showed the employee claimed jobless benefits while working as a call centre operator assisting other Canadians seeking $2,000-a month CERB payments: “He was repeatedly dishonest.”
Ridicule and skepticism regarding UFOs are discouraging Canadians from reporting suspicious activity, says cabinet’s $393,000-a year science advisor. Dr. Mona Nemer in an internal memo said she preferred the phrase “unidentified aerial phenomenon.”
One year on the job, a political appointee named Senator for Alberta over elected nominees says the position is a “huge burden” that takes a toll on health and well-being. Senator Kris Wells made the comment at a budget committee hearing: “This job requires a lot of us.”
Opposition MPs on Friday pledged to block a bill granting cabinet extraordinary powers to target internet users in the name of public safety. Conservative MP Leslyn Lewis (Haldimand-Norfolk, Ont.) said Bill C-8 An Act Respecting Cybersecurity “as it stands would allow the government to deprive individuals of essential services without ever seeing the evidence.”
Taxpayers oppose Prime Minister Mark Carney’s promise to raise defence spending to 5 percent of GDP, says in-house Privy Council research. “Almost all reacted negatively” in federal focus groups, said a report: “Many believed 5 percent of GDP was far too high.”
The Department of Veterans Affairs has revoked a quota on wreaths honouring war dead. MPs had questioned the cutback as mean-spirited: “Many ridings have dozens of cenotaphs that request wreaths for Remembrance Day.”
Federal programs to have immigrant health care workers fill nursing shortages showed “mixed” results, says new Department of Immigration data. Figures indicate a quarter of immigrants let into Canada as prospective nurses were not hired: “This study reveals a mixed picture.”
At the edge of the parking lot,
in a crack between pavement and curb,
a seedling.
Only about three inches tall, but
I can tell it’s a maple.
It will never grow to its full potential, and
may be chopped to the ground
next time the gardener mows.
Still,
I appreciate the vitality,
the struggle to be noticed in a place
where everything gets suppressed
between a rock and a hard place.
Until then,
there is a seedling.
By Shai Ben-Shalom
When Idle No More protestors shut down the country’s main rail line and besieged the Prime Minister’s Office, Canadians were heard to mutter: Why can’t we solve Indigenous issues? Author Christopher Alcantara finds one answer in Negotiating The Deal, a step-by-step recounting of the maddening process that passed for land claim settlements. It was not really a process at all, and more of a game to drive mice crazy.
Alcantara documents a made-in-Canada fiasco called In All Fairness, the system developed by Parliament to settle claims by Indigenous people who never signed colonial treaties but lived here for millennia and clearly had legitimate demands. Only in 1973 did the Supreme Court recognize such claims, prompting then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau to marvel: “Perhaps you had more legal rights than we thought.”
The idea was to replace “undefined and highly ambiguous Aboriginal rights” with “specific, defined treaty rights.” It seemed a tidy process. Government would come to terms on land transfers, taxing powers, municipal planning, grants and resource royalties.
Why did it so often fail? Perhaps a lack of “trust relationships,” writes Alcantara. The mystery is that it ever worked at all.
Consider this: In 2006 the Inuit of Labrador signed a treaty for 72,520 square kilometres of land, a five percent royalty on one of the world’s richest nickel mines at Voisey’s Bay and $296 million in federal loans and grants. The deal took 28 years to finalize. By comparison, India took three years to negotiate independence from Britain.
“There is no consensus as to why some groups have been able to achieve settlements and why others have not,” writes Alcantara. There was one common trap. Negotiators hired by Parliament and the provinces were paid by the hour and never punished for failure.
In a “deductive approach,” Negotiating The Deal recounts the process. First, a group like the Inuit of Labrador must prove they a) are an identifiable group, b) live on the land and c) have been there a long time. Then they submit a statement of intent to all governments. Then everybody must sign a framework agreement detailing what is up for negotiation. Then they reach agreement-in-principle, leading to a final agreement, with ratification votes all ‘round.
What could go wrong? Everything, which leads to a second trap. Politicians were in charge. In the case of Labrador Inuit, the entire process dragged through the terms of eight premiers of Newfoundland and Labrador. When the Inuit submitted their initial land claim in 1973 – everyone agreed it was an eloquent and well-researched document – subsequent talks lasted 13 years. As Professor. Alcantara notes, a “motivated” political leader can at any time “unilaterally alter a mandate to speed up or delay the process.”
By Holly Doan
Negotiating The Deal: Comprehensive Land Claims Agreements In Canada, by Christopher Alcantara; University of Toronto Press; 208 pages; ISBN 9781-4426-12846; $24.95
