Federal departments and agencies have filed so many legal challenges to block disclosure of public records the Office of the Information Commissioner has increased spending on lawyers, the Commons ethics committee was told yesterday. “Some government institutions now routinely violate this law on a daily basis,” testified Commissioner Caroline Maynard: “Canadians don’t trust governments.”
Complying with New Democrats’ demands for passage of a pharmacare bill in eight weeks “is going to be challenging,” Health Minister Mark Holland said yesterday. The estimated $11 billion annual cost raised questions of “fiscal reality,” Holland told reporters: “There’s not enough money?”
Inflation worries are driven in part by media, complains the Bank of Canada. The central bank yesterday in a consumer survey said Canadians who follow the news “have a worsening outlook on the economy.”
There is insufficient evidence to justify corruption charges against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the SNC-Lavalin Group scandal, says an RCMP memo. The Access To Information memo obtained by the group Democracy Watch concluded then-Attorney General Jody Wilson Raybould was undoubtedly pressured to quash a criminal prosecution of the federal contractor but that proof of criminality was lacking: “It should be emphasized the conclusions reached in this report do not translate to the absence of a criminal offence.”
Oil executives must acknowledge liability for costs of climate change, New Democrat MP Charlie Angus (Timmins-James Bay, Ont.) yesterday told the Commons natural resources committee. “You knew,” Angus told a visiting CEO from Suncor Energy: “Your industry knew increasing production and increasing the burning of fossil fuels is destabilizing the planet.”
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland again missed key forecasts in her own budget, says the Parliamentary Budget Office. Analysts warned the deficit is up this year, not down, and is now 16 percent higher than Freeland predicted: “Has the government lost control?”
The Department of Canadian Heritage seeks a bigger budget to monitor internet “disinformation.” Millions more are needed to keep up surveillance on internet users who promote incorrect “political beliefs,” it said.
Cabinet’s $191,000-a year “inclusion” advisor has avoided public events since October 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas terrorists. Amira Elghawaby, Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia, wrote in 2021 Toronto Star columns that MPs should “call out Israel’s actions, not only Hamas’ rockets” and dismissed Canadian history as “Judeo-Christian storytelling.”
Cabinet in scripted remarks at Rideau Hall expressed unequivocal support for Israeli victims of terrorist attacks. Governor General Mary Simon avoided all mention of Hamas, Gaza or Palestinians: “Our country supports you and stands firmly with you.”
Indigenous Canadians combined account for more economic output than three provinces, says Bank of Canada research. Findings were drawn despite data gaps like the fact Statistics Canada does not track the employment rate on First Nations reserves: “Official statistics may thus understate the extent of Indigenous economic activity.”
Canada will now “collaborate with provinces” after the Supreme Court struck down landmark 2019 federal regulations on impact assessments, says Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault. Five provinces opposed regulations subsequently ruled unconstitutional: “Tell me, what will the power of a minister or federal cabinet be?”
Bovine Respiratory Disease;
the most common illness of beef cattle in the
world.
Calves lose appetite;
develop fever;
experience breathing difficulties.
In some feedlots,
more than half will die.
Luckily, antibiotics help.
A veterinarian can advise on the right
treatment.
IKEA says its meatballs are free of
antibiotics.
If it means
animals were treated but
no drug residues were left at the time of
slaughter,
how is that different than any other
meat?
If it means
animals were never given these
medications,
what did they do
when a cow got
sick?
By Shai Ben-Shalom
Justin Trudeau, friend of Indigenous people, is descended from “Indian” fighters. A street plaque in southeast Montréal once commemorated the 1662 exploits of Etienne Trudeau in a local skirmish with First Nations.
Prime Minister Trudeau shed a tear for Chief Poundmaker, yet in 2019 cut short Grassy Narrows protesters who crashed a Liberal Party fundraiser with the remark: “Thank you for your donation!”
Juxtaposition is a recurring theme. The Prime Minister says often, “No relationship is more important to Canada than the relationship with Indigenous peoples.” Yet he will not name any First Nation as representative of the Queen. It is hardly ground-breaking. A Cree man was named Lieutenant Governor of Alberta in 1974.
Such contradictions are commonplace, historian Donald B. Smith writes in Seen But Not Seen. Smith recalls a deputy superintendent of the Department of Indian Affairs who ruled over 100,000 Treaty Indians yet “had no close Indigenous friends.” He quotes the Anglican bishop of Toronto in 1891: “Not a man in a thousand is apt to give a spontaneous thought to the Indians all year round.”
Overtly racist and homicidal anti-Indigenous outbursts are uncommon in Canadian history. We know enough to say the right thing. No less than John A. Macdonald as a 24-year old lawyer defended a Tyendinaga Mohawk at a murder trial in Kingston. As prime minister he appointed a Mohawk woman to a civil service position and had “mixed views of Indigenous peoples,” writes Smith. Here is Macdonald speaking in 1880. But for the arcane language, the sentiment is Trudeauesque:
“We must remember they are the original owners of the soil of which they have been dispossessed by the covetousness or ambition of our ancestors. Perhaps if Columbus had not discovered this continent, had left them alone, they would have worked out a tolerable civilization of their own. At all events, the Indians have been greater sufferers by the discovery of America and the transfer of it to a large white population.”
Seen But Not Seen is a meticulously-researched and beautifully written documentary of the great contradiction of our national life. The same prime minister who hailed Indigenous peoples as original owners of the soil would call them savages and cut their food ration. “Without any doubt Canada has treated the Aboriginal peoples badly and continues to do so today,” says Smith. “Writing as historians, we must record this.”
Seen But Not Seen presents striking bookends to this fact.
On the one hand, famed writer Stephen Leacock in 1941 mistakenly claimed First Nations in pre-Confederation Canada were “too few to count.” In fact they numbered 175,000 in the West alone. “Their use of the resources of the continent was scarcely more than that by crows and wolves,” wrote Leacock.
On the other hand, Professor Paul Wallace of Toronto in 1946 published The White Roots Of Peace, a history of the Iroquois Confederacy so profound Wallace was made an honourary member of the Mohawks of Akwesasne. His book remains in print to this day. “The White Roots Of Peace acted as a counterbalance to the contemporary image of North American Indians as ‘bloodthirsty primitives’,” notes Seen But Not Seen.
The yin and yang continues.
By Holly Doan
Seen But Not Seen: Influential Canadians And The First Nations From 1840s To Today, by Donald B. Smith; University of Toronto Press; 488 pages; ISBN 9781-4426-27703; $24.71
Federal managers hid an ongoing police investigation from auditors reviewing the ArriveCan app, Auditor General Karen Hogan yesterday told the Commons public accounts committee. MPs ordered the audit a year ago and were never told of the RCMP probe: “There are allegations regarding identity theft, fraudulent forged résumés, contractual theft, fraudulent billing, price fixing, collusion, all with senior bureaucrats.”
Canada’s chief bank inspector yesterday warned of “significant payment shock” facing homeowners with a quarter trillion in fixed payment mortgages charged at variable rates. Homeowners at risk are no longer paying anything against the principal of their loans, said Superintendent of Financial Institutions Peter Routledge: ‘Mortgagors will have to make it up.’
