A federal cap on oil and gas emissions will have “very minimal impact,” a Department of Environment manager yesterday told MPs. The testimony by Assistant Deputy Minister Megan Nichols contradicted her own department’s research that predicted thousands of job losses: “Can you confirm?”
Parliament must be prepared to compensate canola farmers for lost income if a trade war with China persists past Christmas, growers yesterday told the Commons agriculture committee. Losses to date are near $2 billion, said the Canadian Canola Growers Association: “The longer this goes on, the worse it will get.”
Federal managers paid at least $150,000 a year now number more than 9,400, records show. Disclosure of the latest six-figure list follows Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne’s pledge on belt-tightening: “Times have been challenging for many families across the nation, so it’s only normal that from a government perspective we do the same.”
A New Democrat candidate who urged voters to make “a ballot question” of alleged Israeli genocide omitted all reference to past remarks in launching a bid for the Party leadership. Avi Lewis would not comment on 2024 Twitter posts in which he accused Israelis of complicity in one of “humanity’s worst crimes.”
Cabinet proposes to ban the swastika as a terror symbol 80 years after Germany prohibited public display of the Nazi banner. Attorney General Sean Fraser wrote the provision into a new hate crimes bill that would also prohibit bullying of worshippers at churches, temples and other community institutions: “It is important that we do not fail one another.”
Taxpayers lost more than $128.6 million on loan defaults through regional development agencies last year, records show. The “vast majority” of defaults fell under pandemic relief programs: “A loss rate of around 40 percent is anticipated.”
CBC must be more forthcoming in explaining its purpose in newsgathering, says the network Ombudsman. The direction came on complaints of bias over CBC news coverage of gender identity programs in public schools that only featured LGBTQ guests: “It fell short.”
On the shelves,
enzymes
for lactose intolerance;
maltose
for fructose intolerance;
quinoa
for gluten intolerance.
Merlot
for middle management intolerance.
By Shai Ben-Shalom
If they were re-inventing Parliament it might not look like the Texas hold ‘em version we have now, a rectangular chamber of adversaries seated face-to-face, seeking advantage and winner-takes-all. This is the product of “critical thinking,” writes Patrick Finn: “A mode of thinking that is governed by a critical approach to all incoming information that has winners and losers.”
“Our system of government is based on a form of critical thinking first established in ancient Greece,” explains Finn, associate professor at the University of Calgary’s School for Creative and Performing Arts. “Does anyone think it is still working? Or are we continually asking ourselves why this system will not allow us to work together more effectively?”
Critical Condition is an engaging book that challenges the very premise of Parliament, the courts, universities, you name it – the school of “us-versus-them thinking,” as Finn puts it. He depicts the practice as pointless, unproductive, suspicious and mean: “No matter how we disguise it, it reeks of violence.”
“I admit to having enjoyed a few victories of this type myself,” Finn writes. “In one of my lowest academic moments, I once made a fellow student weep and run out of the room when I savaged him for ridiculing the work of James Joyce.”
Critical Condition proposes instead “loving thinking,” a keenly practical alternative despite the moniker that comes with a kick-me sign. It is a consultative system that invites creative problem-solving broadly applied to a unique problem. This is precisely how Canada helped win World War Two, and why townspeople sandbag riverbanks in flood season. No name-calling; no point-scoring, no matter who takes the credit.
“If our leaders were educated to believe that solutions were the goal, and not attacks, defences and victories, then they would be predisposed to find ways to act,” Finn writes. “If we trained all students to view critical quagmires as negligence, then our negotiators would no longer begin with lists of non-negotiable items. Creativity makes no room for the non-negotiable. Great ideas require no protection other than the room to breathe and the right to live.”
“Politicians often speak of issues that will kill a campaign as ‘the third rail,’” writes Finn. “They are referencing the power rail of the subway or train that kills on contact. How did we arrive at a place where critical thought has become the third rail of intellectual life? How did it become this strong?”
“If we want to compete, why not get serious about our competition?” writes Finn. “Let us compete against cancer, against pollution, against civil war, against domestic violence, against poverty.”
By Holly Doan
Critical Condition: Replacing Critical Thinking With Creativity, by Patrick Finn; Wilfrid Laurier University Press; 117 pages; ISBN 9781-77112-1576; $14.99
Industry Minister Mélanie Joly’s department yesterday said it needs private consultants’ help in managing “a fundamental rethink” of relations with the United States. The department has more than 6,000 employees and access to fully-staffed Canadian trade offices in 15 American cities: “The Minister and senior Department of Industry officials require current intelligence and support on U.S. political, economic, technology and trade dynamics.”
Liberal MP Chrystia Freeland (University-Rosedale, Ont.) faces questioning on suspicion she misled Parliament over taxpayers’ financing of Chinese shipyard jobs. “You can grill her,” said one Liberal MP.
Cabinet can’t rely on “creative accounting” to meet its NATO spending target of two percent of GDP, Conservative MP James Bezan (Selkirk-Interlake, Man.) yesterday told the Commons defence committee. Bezan questioned cabinet’s inclusion of the Canadian Coast Guard in its calculations when “they can’t even fine anyone for fishing violations.”
A Vancouver climate think tank denies any conflict of interest in advocating freer Canadian market access for low cost Chinese electric cars. A hearing of the Commons trade committee yesterday questioned where the environmental group received its funding: “We have never received any money from China.”
Taxpayers are funding “far left” activists at Canadian universities, one academic has told the Commons science committee. MPs are investigating criteria for research grants worth $4.5 billion annually: “Is it legitimate for a broad spectrum of Canadian taxpayers to fund left and far left advocacy under the guise of research funding?”
The Commons ethics committee last night adopted a Conservative motion targeting blind trusts similar to one used by Prime Minister Mark Carney to conceal vast stock holdings. “This is very timely,” said Conservative MP Michael Barrett (Leeds-Grenville, Ont.), sponsor of the motion.
