Blacklock's Reporter

Privy Council President Bill Blair yesterday refused to name underlings he blamed for mishandling a “top secret memo” on Chinese espionage in Canada. Blair was repeatedly asked for names after acknowledging his own department was responsible for the error: “Who was supposed to print this off and show it to you?”

Taxpayers are owed more than a half billion in overpayments to federal workers due to Phoenix Pay System mistakes, according to records. One department began writing off excess payments to dead staff: “Employees are to acknowledge their debt.”

Cabinet must address “housing injustice” with new laws and policies, says the Federal Housing Advocate. Marie-Josée Houle in a report to Parliament faulted current programs as a “sorry disappointment” with tent cities surrounded by urban wealth: ‘I visited a shelter not far from a sparkling new luxury condo building.’

Airlines cannot blame factors they “should have known about” to deny passengers compensation for poor service, federal regulators said yesterday. The Canadian Transportation Agency itemized excuses it would no longer accept under Air Passenger Protection Regulations: “People are tired.”

The Department of Finance says its budget forecasts “should not be viewed as a prediction of the future,” according to a letter to the Parliamentary Budget Office. The admission follows cabinet’s raising of its debt to GDP ratio in what Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland had called “a line we will not cross.”

A federal Covid vaccine death and injury compensation program has paid out nearly $7 million in claims to date, records show. The Department of Health said it anticipated $75 million in claims by 2026: “The benefits outweigh the potential risks but it is still a drug.”

Federal employees with disabilities are routinely harassed by managers, says a Treasury Board report. Workers complained needling and “public humiliation” were commonplace four years after Parliament passed Bill C-81 An Act To Ensure A Barrier-Free Canada: “Incidents of harassment occurred routinely.”

A 2021 heat wave that broke an all-Canadian temperature record was the result of a high pressure system, the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society confirms. “Climate change was not the sole cause of this event,” wrote scientists.

Federal regulators yesterday invited public comment over labeling of imported goods from “contested territories.” It follows a long running Federal Court feud over labeling of Israeli wines: “This is a matter of particular sensitivity and importance to the organized Jewish community in Canada.”

Three times as many Department of Employment staff were investigated as were reported fired for defrauding pandemic relief programs, says a federal briefing note. The disclosure follows confirmation of widespread fraud investigations at the Canada Revenue Agency: “We know in times of crisis the risk of fraud is heightened.”

More than a quarter of Atlantic startups that receive federal subsidies fail within five years, says a federal briefing note. The disclosure follows a 2020 audit that faulted the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency for failing to conduct risk assessments on companies applying for taxpayers’ aid: “Once a project is funded the Agency has limited control.”

Snooping by public employees is the worst kind of privacy breach, a Commissioner has ruled. The warning came in the case of an employee of the Town of Hafford, Sask. caught browsing through property records: “Even worse is when an employee snoops and uses the information for potential personal gain.”

The Department of Industry spent $76 million since 2016 in recycling government-issue computers for use by schools and charities, says an internal audit. It was better than throwing them away, wrote auditors: “These results represent a significant second life for equipment.”

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault’s department says it does not know the extent of ecological damage caused by an all-Canadian contaminant, road salt. Tonnes are used annually, mainly in Ontario and Québec, though federal researchers have rated it a bigger environmental threat than fracking: “Freshwater ecosystems have shown increasing chloride concentrations.”