Most Canadians say they pay too much for what they get from governments and consider tax cheating commonplace. In-house research by the Canada Revenue Agency also found few think cheaters will ever get caught: “Rich people have an easier time tax cheating than middle class Canadians.”
Cabinet in a report to Parliament acknowledged it has not expropriated a penny in Russian assets in Canada despite 20 months of sanctions. The only property in Canadian custody, a Russian cargo plane, is still being ‘evaluated.’
Only one vessel in the navy’s costly submarine fleet has been to sea in years, records show. Maintenance and refit costs for submarines are more than $3 billion: “The government budgets approximately $325 million per year to conduct regular and cyclical maintenance.”
I open the cupboard,
reach for a mug.
My mind –
ahead of me –
sees coffee in it.
I hesitate.
In a moment of clarity
I return it to the shelf,
revoke its destiny,
choose another.
Because I can.
By Shai Ben-Shalom
The Commons public accounts committee yesterday by a unanimous 10-0 vote ordered the Auditor General to investigate the original taxpayers’ endowment used to bankroll the Trudeau Foundation. Parliament awarded the Foundation $125 million subsequently used in part to buy stocks in China: “We are asking for an investigation.”
One of the nation’s leading computer scientists says he refused a six-figure payoff from Chinese agents in what was an obvious “recruitment strategy” targeting Canadian academics. Professor Benjamin Fung of McGill University detailed the scheme in testimony at the Commons science committee: “I asked them, ‘What do you want me to do?”
Canadians consider federal anti-trust enforcement “lacklustre” and “ineffective,” says a Department of Industry report. The anti-trust Competition Bureau has acknowledged failures in permitting consolidation in key sectors like grocery retailing: “Large corporations are gaining too much control.”
Critics yesterday ridiculed a federal sales tax holiday on new rental construction as a “limousine Liberal measure.” Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland introduced a GST holiday bill that dropped cabinet’s 2015 promise to link the tax break to construction of “affordable rental housing.”
The president of the Canadian Labour Congress yesterday petitioned MPs for a 25 percent windfall tax on corporate profits. Proceeds should go to low income families to buy food, Bea Bruske testified at the Commons finance committee: “Use the revenue to fund an extension of the existing grocery rebate program.”
Bank of Canada management including Governor Tiff Macklem would face tighter public scrutiny under a private bill yesterday introduced in the Senate. Critics have demanded Macklem be fired over erratic forecasts: “The Bank is not above Parliament.”
The Canada Revenue Agency claims a typical taxpayer waited only nine minutes on the phone to speak with an agent this past tax season. The Agency earlier admitted to faking customer service data: “Monkeying around with these departmental results reports to play with the numbers to make it look good will come out. We will find you.”
Federal airport rents will top a half billion next year, by Department of Transport estimate. Airport operators have called rents a straight charge on passengers: “The more expensive we are for aviation in Canada, the more expensive it is for Canadians.”
More than half of foreigners ordered out of the country remain in Canada, new figures show. The Canada Border Services Agency had pledged to increase its deportation rate: “Everyone ordered removed from Canada is entitled to due process before the law.”
Cabinet will not direct a pending public inquiry into foreign interference to delve into activities by Indian agents, Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc said yesterday. LeBlanc said he considered India’s alleged involvement in the shooting of a Surrey, B.C. activist to be a police matter: “I am not going to answer questions about what the RCMP investigation is looking into.”
David Johnston in three months as cabinet “rapporteur” on Chinese interference awarded millions in sole-sourced contracts to favoured consultants, records show. Payments included fees to a publicist to “identify columnists and key opinion leaders” to promote Johnston: “Actual expenditures for the Independent Special Rapporteur have not yet been finalized.”
