Cabinet is refusing to say how much it lost on a failed $200 million venture to build a vaccine factory in Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos’ Québec City riding. A factory executive earlier told MPs the company “spent all those monies” it received: “Wow. That’s great.”
Drafting a federal ban on replacement workers has been “messy” but will result in a bill to be introduced this fall, Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan said yesterday. The bill is a condition of New Democrat support for cabinet in the minority 44th Parliament: “This is one of the most monumental changes to collective bargaining in Canadian labour history.”
The Privy Council yesterday in breach of federal law imposed an arbitrary 38-year seal on confidential files dating from the Mulroney era. No reason was given. “It’s easier to hide,” Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard earlier told MPs.
The Commons yesterday by a vote of 176 to 145 passed a private bill exempting most farm operations from carbon tax charges. The tax cost farmers $122 million last year, according to the Department of Finance: “The carbon tax is punitive.”
The labour department after years of review will ban the hiring of children for dangerous work in the federally-regulated private sector. Injuries involving child labour in Canada are rare but not unprecedented: “It is vital and it’s more than symbolic.”
Federal debt servicing charges this year are up 80 percent from pre-pandemic levels in 2020, budget documents show. “We are investing,” Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland told the Commons.
Upkeep of the Prime Minister’s 16-room lakeside residence is costing taxpayers almost $20,000 a month, records show. Expenses disclosed by cabinet carry vague budget line items like “snow and ice control” and “pest removal.”
Cabinet proposes to assume regulation of payday loans with a cap on borrowing rates. Parliament in 2007 transferred regulation to provinces where interest charged on two-week loans runs from 200 to 500 percent: “Many lower and modest-income Canadians rely on high interest, short term loans to make ends meet.”
Air passengers face millions in new security fees under cabinet’s 2023 budget. The mandatory Air Travelers Security Charge will increase by a third: “This is a tax on the flying public.”
New aid for Ukraine puts federal spending in the region at $8 billion, according to budget documents. Cabinet yesterday pledged another $2.4 billion loan for Ukraine though the country defaulted on its foreign debts last July 21: ‘Canada has helped by paying pensions and delivering essential government services to Ukrainians.’
Cabinet is proposing to grant itself wide powers to ban advertising of sugary foods to children. Advertisers have estimated any ban would cost a billion a year: “What about yoghurt? Fifteen grams of sugar, 18 maybe. Would that be considered acceptable, unacceptable? Would that be on the list?”
The Department of Environment yesterday promised to cut costs at its next climate change conference. Delegates at the last United Nations meeting spent a fortune on air fares and booked a hotel with a disco, camel rides and room rates up to US$1,270 a night: “Be consistent when you fly around the world as the Prime Minister does, preaching to everyone about the environment.”
Walmart Canada saw shrinking profits on groceries last year, the company CEO last night testified at the Commons agriculture committee. There was no profiteering on food inflation, he told MPs: “I know our customers.”
MP Han Dong (Don Valley North, Ont.), now threatening to sue media for libel, eight years ago as a Liberal member of the Ontario legislature helped pass a law restricting libel suits. The free speech law was to “preserve the democratic rights we enjoy in this country,” Dong said at the time.
Public school books should be rewritten to remove stereotypes about Muslims, federal Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia Amira Elghawaby said yesterday. Elghawaby was earlier director of an advocacy group that wrote a booklet for schoolchildren that identified the Red Ensign as a hate symbol: “Education is very, very critical.”
