Federal agents allowed thousands of inadmissible foreigners into the country under a program that failed four previous audits, says a new Canada Border Services Agency report. Fewer than half of permits issued under a Temporary Resident Permit program followed the rules: ‘They may potentially gain access to health and social services.’
Cabinet in 2024 will launch a public registry naming beneficial owners of all federal corporations, says Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne. The Senate banking committee approved a registry bill without amendment, ensuring its passage into law by Christmas: “We are serious about doing something.”
Federal auditors have recovered about $78 million in unpaid taxes to date as a result of the Panama Papers leak. The Canada Revenue Agency said numerous audits and two criminal investigations are ongoing: “It is very important for the Agency to be perceived as aggressively pursuing tax evaders to maintain the trust in the tax system.”
Visiting the restroom
in a New York restaurant.
A sign above the sink says,
“Employees must wash hands”.
Not being an employee,
I hesitate.
By Shai Ben-Shalom
In 1918 the Imperial War Graves Commission enacted two notable regulations. All dead were to be buried with their units, regardless of rank, near the spot where they fell. And all families of the dead could submit personal messages, to 66 characters, to be carved into kin’s headstones.
The effect was profound: mammoth, manicured battlefield cemeteries with indelible inscriptions. Wilfrid Laurier University Press asks, what did they write? Epitaphs were thoughtful, angry, ironic. They are collected in Canada’s Dream Shall Be Of Them. It is a beautiful, elegant book that will bring a reader to tears.
The epitaphs “were contributed not by the poets or artists we tend to associate with the Great War and modern memory, but by ordinary men and women,” writes Toronto historian Eric McGeer; “They are a window into another world, not a mirror to our own.”
The book is comprised of startling imagery by photographer Steve Douglas and McGeer’s crisp narrative. “Of the identified graves, just under half carry a personal inscription, many of which repeat formulae (‘Rest in peace’, ‘Gone but not forgotten’, ‘Son of…’) of little more than fleeting interest,” writes McGeer. “The number of inscriptions that offer insight into the minds of the bereaved, individually and collectively, comes to about 3,000,” approximately five percent of Canada’s war dead.
Headstone inscriptions were vetted – the Graves Commission reserved “absolute power of rejection or acceptance” on all submissions – though Commonwealth families were given latitude for personal expression. “Shot at dawn. One of the first to enlist. A worthy son of his father,” reads the epitaph of a British soldier executed for desertion. “Another life lost, hearts broken, for what?” says an Australian’s grave.
Canadian inscriptions expressed pride and loss. “Tell my mother I will meet her at the fountain,” reads the gravestone of Private William Rankin of the Royal Canadian Regiment, killed at age 17. “Frank! Jesus calls,” wrote the father of a private killed at 20. Other Canadian families wrote:
Most haunting is the fact few Canadian families would ever their see their hero’s grave. The epitaphs were written for posterity, not personal closure. “The only child of aged parents,” wrote the mother of a 16-year old private killed with the 58th Battalion. The family in six words described the end of the world in faraway France.
Canada’s Dream Shall Be of Them is stunning.
By Holly Doan
Canada’s Dream Shall Be of Them: Canadian Epitaphs of the Great War, by Eric McGeer; photos by Steve Douglas; Wilfrid Laurier University Press; 224 pages; ISBN 9781-77112-3105; $49.99
Cabinet must suspend its “safe supply” drug policy as a killer, says a member of the Commons health committee. Conservative MP Todd Doherty (Cariboo-Prince George, B.C.), choking back tears, told the committee he’d lost a brother-in-law to an accidental fentanyl overdose and was unable to save another brother “who lives on the street.”
More than 29,000 foreign fugitives are at large nationwide, says the Canada Border Services Agency. Management in a report to MPs called it their “wanted inventory” including foreigners convicted of crimes: “I don’t quite understand why we would tolerate this.”
The House affairs committee yesterday dropped further public discussion into how a Waffen SS member was given a hero’s welcome on Parliament Hill. “Cover-up,” said one MP who pressed for public hearings: “What we have is the cover-up coalition at work yet again.”
A former deputy minister of public safety yesterday testified it was “not my job” to warn a Conservative MP he was targeted by Chinese agents. Rob Stewart told the House affairs committee that foreign agents target “many people in Canada” that he never warned: “It was not my job to inform them.”
The size of the federal government’s payroll is worrisome, Budget Officer Yves Giroux said yesterday. The number of employees has increased 26 percent since 2015, by official estimate: “But we haven’t seen similar improvements when it comes to service.”
The Commons ethics committee last night voted to summon Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne for questioning in an investigation of suspected “green-washing” involving federal subsidies. However the committee by a 7 to 4 vote rejected a Conservative request for all records concerning Sustainable Development Technology Canada: “There is a basic question of trust here.”
Cabinet’s two billion trees program will not plant two billion trees, says the Department of Natural Resources “So why is it called the two billion trees program?” asked Conservative MP Michael Kram (Regina-Wascana): “Why not rename it the billion-and-a-half tree program?”
The Department of Environment acknowledges it did not count Canadians’ different rates of fuel use in calculating average costs of new climate change regulations. Conservative MP Dan Mazier (Dauphin-Swan River, Man.) said estimates ignored distinctions like urban versus rural fuel consumption: “There was no disputing they were advised these regulations would increase the cost of fuel.”
Cabinet will fight Alberta’s claim to more than half the Canada Pension Plan, ministers said yesterday. Warning of a drawn out pension fight followed a protest letter from the Prime Minister to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith: “I don’t buy the math.”
A federal labour board will hear the case of a Muslim employee denied a religious exemption from 2021 vaccine mandates. The Department of Indigenous Services denied the waiver after noting vaccines “do not contain any gelatin, pork derivatives or human particles.”
