A cabinet bill to restrict hunting rifles faces months-long delays that will drag into next spring. Opposition MPs yesterday voted 6 to 5 to block attempts to rush the bill through the Commons public safety committee: “We’re going to hold this legislation back until April at the earliest.”
Green Party leader Elizabeth May in a private email to cabinet wrote she was sad a caucus colleague opposed the Emergencies Act. MP May also thanked Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino for “being so good at your job!”
The Department of Justice yesterday acknowledged Russia had no involvement in the Freedom Convoy. False claims of large amounts of foreign funding and disinformation by Russian agents were not supported by any proof, government lawyers wrote the Public Order Emergency Commission: “There was no evidence.”
Trade Minister Mary Ng yesterday apologized but would not resign after admitting she directed sole-sourced contracts to a longtime friend and CBC-TV pundit. The Minister’s misconduct was an inexcusable breach of the Conflict Of Interest Act, said the Ethics Commissioner: “There is simply no excuse.”
Cabinet yesterday said it did not know the names of 11 federal candidates allegedly targeted by Chinese Communist agents in the 2019 election. The House affairs committee to date has been unable to uncover any new evidence regarding claims of campaign meddling: ““I don’t have this supposed list of 11 candidates.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “believes in free speech, but” is upset by social media content that is “difficult to counter,” he said. Trudeau’s remarks follow a proposal to regulate legal internet content deemed hurtful: ‘The problem arises when disagreements are built on wrong facts.’
Only two Freedom Convoy sympathizers were intercepted at the border under the Emergencies Act, according to secret cabinet committee minutes. The Canada Border Services Agency claimed it needed emergency powers to keep out American neo-Nazis: “It is unclear police have these powers under common law.”
Governor General Mary Simon’s office and other federal staff misled the Commons government operations committee over true costs of a junket to Dubai, say MPs. One aide who claimed she dined on ordinary airplane food yesterday admitted the menu included Beef Wellington: “You got caught red-handed.”
Canadians have “considerable cynicism” about cabinet’s annual ritual of Budget Day promises, says in-house research at the Department of Finance. Pollsters observed what they called “estrangement from the budget” for some taxpayers: “There was considerable cynicism.”
A maximum 10-year federal prison sentence for gun running has never been imposed, records show. Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino proposed to increase the maximum to 14 years to send a message to organized crime, he said: “That measure ends up being a little bit meaningless.”
RCMP privately ridiculed a claim by Mark Carney that the Freedom Convoy was seditious. Carney in a Globe & Mail column appeared to pull the definition of “sedition” from an online U.S. dictionary, not the Criminal Code: “It would be a stretch.”
A Manitoba credit union called police on a depositor who was not “deemed illegal” but liked the Freedom Convoy in his Facebook posts, records show. And an unnamed bank reported one customer’s credit card purchase of a gas mask. The incidents are detailed in documents on the scope of an Emergencies Act account freeze: “It won’t come as a surprise.”
Privacy Commissioner Philippe Dufresne in an Ottawa speech said Canadians have a “fundamental right to privacy” but made no mention of vaccine mandates. The Commissioner gave no deadline for his ruling on Privacy Act complaints that governments had no right to require disclosure of medical information as a condition of employment or use of public services: “Privacy is one of the key challenges of our time.”
The federal bank inspector is maintaining a steep “stress test” on new mortgage buyers amid a dramatic rise in loan rates. Calls to eliminate the test were understandable but risky, said Peter Routledge, Superintendent of Financial Institutions: “We see great risk in speculating on the mortgage cycle.”
Canada rates among the worst in concealing federal books from taxpayers’ scrutiny, says the Parliamentary Budget Officer. “In comparison to other G7 countries Canada was among the last to publish their financial accounts,” Yves Giroux wrote the Commons government operations committee: “Because they can, just because.”
