Cabinet yesterday wrote numerous loopholes into Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s promised crackdown on foreign real estate speculators. “We’ll crack down on the predatory speculators that stack the deck against you,” Trudeau said in an August 24, 2021 campaign speech. “No more foreign wealth parked in homes that people should be living in.”
A Toronto man accused of waving a Nazi flag at the Freedom Convoy has filed a $1.5 million defamation lawsuit against his accuser. Ontario law restricts libel claims if allegations, even if untrue, “relate to a matter of public interest.”
Indigenous smudging ceremonies do not breach a 2008 prison smoking ban, a federal judge has ruled. The decision came in the case of a convict who complained he was irritated by fellow inmates’ symbolic burning of sage and sweetgrass: “Smudging is a ceremony that is used to pray.”
A large number of Canadians, 44 percent, fear climate change will affect “food security,” says in-house research at the Department of Health. Canada is a net exporter of food with federal analysts predicting an increase in the number of frost-free days would actually boost production: “What worries you the most about climate change?”
A costly CBC libel has resulted in seven figures’ worth of legal bills for taxpayers, records show. The payouts follow a network story that falsely accused a Montréal businessman of links to organized crime: “A journalist must not exaggerate or mislead the public.”
Transit ridership nationwide remains far below pre-pandemic levels despite high gas prices and heavy subsidies, Statistics Canada data showed yesterday. Transit operators have petitioned Parliament for even more subsidies to offset losses at the fare box: “The pandemic has dramatically reduced ridership.”
A federal fund intended to direct industrial polluters’ fines to conservation instead let millions sit unused in an account managed by Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault’s department, say auditors. Proceeds in the Environmental Damages Fund include the largest fine ever levied, on Volkswagen: “The program’s annual closing balance is steadily increasing.”
The number of Top One Percent taxpayers in Canada has remained virtually unchanged since Parliament introduced a 33 percent federal tax rate, records show. Introduction of the highest tax bracket followed the 2012 Occupy Movement: ‘Even if you took away 80% of their income and spread it across all the rest of the 99% you really wouldn’t move the needle.’
One federal department suspended employees without pay under its vaccine mandate though virtually its entire workforce, 99 percent, had a Covid shot, says an internal audit. Cabinet has yet to disclose the total number of staff targeted under the now-disbanded mandate: “The mandates weren’t a law.”
The Canada Revenue Agency has spent more than $116 million on carbon tax paperwork, records show. Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier in a report to Parliament said 330 employees are now assigned to collecting the fuel charge and processing rebates: “What are the annual costs?”
Trade Minister Mary Ng avoided any questioning by senators over sweetheart contracting in her first committee appearance since being censured in an ethics report. Members of the foreign affairs committee made no mention of Ng’s breach of an Act of Parliament though she invited senators to ask anything they liked: “Wonderful.”
The Canadian Transportation Agency yesterday would not release raw data on complaints filed against the worst airlines. The regulator instead rated carriers based on complaints per flight with one discounter topping the grievance list: “They’re never going to get on top of this.”
The runaway freight train that caused Canada’s deadliest postwar rail disaster passed four safety inspections on its final trip, records show. Details of the 2013 Lac-Mégantic wreck are cited in Québec Superior Court documents: “Defects were immediately corrected on site.”
RCMP prepared for a costly month-long Freedom Convoy siege in Ottawa even after cabinet invoked the Emergencies Act, records show. Internal memos indicate police booked more than a million dollars’ worth of hotel rooms and cross-Canada charter flights: “We may have urgent, last-minute requirements.”
Contracting at Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez’s department is haphazard, says an internal audit. Investigators said millions were spent with little oversight: “By its nature procurement is inherently exposed to certain fraud-related risks.”
