Cabinet yesterday approved billions more subsidies for battery factories in what the Canadian Taxpayers Federation criticized as a free for all for foreign automakers. Aid totals more than $31 billion for three Ontario plants: “The feds need to draw the line somewhere.”
A federal tribunal yesterday saved General (Ret’d) Jonathan Vance from a summons to testify in a human rights case. Vance last year pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, a first for a Chief of Defence Staff: “He was untouchable.”
The Conservative Party yesterday released an email from a Liberal cabinet aide as proof of double dealing on suspected election fraud by foreign agents, it said. The email was dated only hours before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Conservatives were obstructing a public inquiry: “They don’t want answers.”
An order by Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez to pull all federal ads from Facebook and Instagram will cost the company $11.4 million, less than one tenth of one percent of annual revenues. It comes seven years after newspaper publishers pleaded with cabinet to stop sending ad dollars to Silicon Valley: “Will ministries in the government and members of your caucus stop posting on Instagram and Facebook?”
Higher prices for basic groceries like cabbage and spaghetti are running at three and four times the rate of general inflation, new Statistics Canada figures showed yesterday. Details of price spikes for specific foods followed cabinet’s celebration of the last Consumer Price Index report as “good news for Canadians,” said Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland.
Military recruitment fell 35 percent last year, records show. Volunteers were harder to find amid “Canada-wide labour shortages,” said a federal briefing note: “The Canadian Armed Forces is experiencing a shortfall in personnel.”
Cabinet effective August 1 will eliminate all credit checks on Canada Student Loan borrowers. “It only creates a barrier,” said loan managers at the Department of Employment: “Difficulties affording postsecondary education can be expected to have long term impacts for all Canadians.”
Canadians asking to see public records must first show their birth certificate, driver’s license or other proof of citizenship or residency under new legal requirements enacted yesterday by Treasury Board President Mona Fortier. The ID mandate was never put to public consultation: “No consultations were deemed to be necessary.”
New Democrats will not grant the necessary unanimous consent required to speed any federal legislation to end a strike by British Columbia port workers, Party leader Jagmeet Singh said yesterday. Parliament nine times in the past 50 years has forced an end to Pacific port disputes with emergency legislation: “They should not at all be forced back to work.”
The Office of Elections Commissioner Caroline Simard dismissed 116 complaints of alleged foreign interference in the last two general elections without a single attempted prosecution, records show. Simard’s staff in a briefing note complained investigations were hard: “Investigations into foreign interference will inevitably continue to raise difficult issues.”
The Canadian Space Agency has budgeted $65 million for a space car, according to an internal audit. The cost accounts for more than 40 percent of total moon exploration spending: “Approximately $31 million is awarded in contracts, grants and contributions to the space industry.”
Gender Equality Minister Marci Ien’s department spent nearly $82,000 interviewing Canadians as young as 13 for their opinions of menstruation. Researchers concluded the topic doesn’t come up much: “Canadians were asked how often they find themselves talking to someone about menstruation.”
Cabinet will decide by executive order which private sector employers must conduct business in French, says a briefing note for Languages Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor. A bill containing a first-ever federal French mandate in the private sector was signed into law June 21: “The new Act will come into force by decree.”
Cabinet’s costly $595 million media bailout failed to save jobs and included only “temporary” measures, says a briefing note for Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez. Heavily-subsidized newspapers cut jobs while the only significant growth in media occurred with unsubsidized digital startups, wrote staff.
“Since the beginning of the pandemic 78 news outlets closed including 65 community newspapers,” said the note Federal Support For Journalistic Content. “However in the same period 57 local news outlets have launched: two TV stations, five radio stations, nine community newspapers and 41 online news organizations.”
“Due to government support and a recent boost in advertising revenue some news organizations have experienced some stability and growth,” said the note. “Since the peak of the pandemic closures 16 community newspapers have reopened although overall job losses have continued upwards.”
Subsidies like a 15 percent subscription tax credit were only “temporary,” said the note. The tax credit and a 25 percent payroll rebate worth $13,750 per newsroom employee were originally budgeted to last five years. They are to expire March 31, 2024.
The briefing note is dated March 3. Cabinet released it Friday without comment, only days after the chief lobbyist for newspaper publishers demanded more subsidies. “We have a market failure here,” Paul Deegan, CEO of News Media Canada, testified May 30 at the Senate transport and communications committee.
“We need a solution,” said Deegan. “And that’s why we’ve come to government even though frankly we would like to stay as far away from government.”
News Media Canada publishers cut so many jobs the cost of payroll rebates was less than budgeted, according to an Inquiry Of Ministry tabled in the Commons January 24. Rebates alone were budgeted at $170 million. Actual costs to date are $96.1 million. “The loss of even just one job is a tragedy,” Heritage Minister Rodriguez earlier told reporters.
A senior official in Rodriguez’s department acknowledged April 26 the unprecedented scope of direct subsidies did not save failing media companies. “We have seen a significant decline in journalism,” said Thomas Ripley, associate assistant deputy heritage minister.
“The labour tax credit that’s in place, notwithstanding those interventions we continued to see a decline in news,” Ripley told the Senate communications committee. Records show most publishers double-dipped on federal grants through the pandemic, drawing 25 percent journalism payroll rebates and additional Canada Emergency Wage Subsidies under a Covid relief program now expired.
By Staff 
Revenue Commissioner Bob Hamilton misled MPs in under-reporting the number of Canada Revenue Agency employees implicated in fraudulent claims for pandemic benefits. Hamilton claimed there were “not very many, obviously,” though the Agency now confirms hundreds are under investigation: “I’m afraid ‘not very many’ is not a sufficient answer.'”
