A Commons bill would strip cabinet of powers to pull “physical currency” from circulation without Parliament’s approval. Conservative MP Ted Falk (Provencher, Man.), sponsor of the bill, said Canadians must “retain control over their own finances.”
Governor General Louise Arbour, 79, yesterday became the oldest appointee in the history of Rideau Hall. Her oldest predecessor, First World War hero Georges Vanier, died in office at 78: “I am very mindful of the legacy I am stepping into.”
Cabinet granted Chinese state-backed automakers unprecedented access to the Canadian market because “they are very popular across the country,” Industry Minister Mélanie Joly said yesterday. Joly would not answer directly when asked if they used slave labour: “We’re all in favour of affordability.”
Immigration Minister Lena Diab yesterday said she was unsure what became of 800 foreign students identified as fraudsters in a federal audit weeks ago. MPs on the Commons immigration committee protested the slow response: “You don’t know?”
Statistics Canada sold a confidential copy of a hate crimes report to Heritage Minister Marc Miller’s department for “feedback” but denies there was any political interference. The report downplayed anti-Semitism though Jews are the leading target of hate crimes in Canada: “The purpose of this peer review will be for Canadian Heritage to provide feedback in terms of fact or presentation.”
The Privy Council commissioned federal focus groups on cuts to funding for the CBC, Canada Post and other Crown corporations, records show. A pollsters’ report disclosed yesterday found public support for CBC cutbacks: “Asked to identify areas where they felt the federal government could find cost savings, participants suggested a range of actions.”
Federal agencies are late in completing a keyword-searchable database allowing homebuyers to check flood risks on property, the Commissioner of Environment said yesterday. The Department of Public Safety had promised to launch the free service by December 31: “That would be very helpful.”
Companies 100 percent foreign owned still qualify as “Canadian” under Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Buy Canadian Policy, says the Department of Public Works. The definition of “Canadian” is so broad it would apply to foreign-owned corporations with storefront branches here like the Bank of China, records show: “We need to go back to what the Prime Minister said.”
China remains a leading perpetrator of espionage and foreign interference including cultivation of “relationships” with unnamed politicians, says a security report to Parliament. It follows Foreign Minister Anita Anand’s announcement of a “new foreign policy” emphasizing cooperation with the People’s Republic: ‘Threat actors’ goal is to influence Canadian decision makers to align with positions, narratives and policies that promote a positive image of their country.’
The Department of Canadian Heritage is attempting to claw back $99,500 in funding from a Palestinian group over social media posts. The department cited Instagram messages depicting Israelis as homicidal slave masters and a symbol it associated with Hamas terrorists: “Long live the triangle.”
House of Commons administration is keeping files on what Canadians say about their MPs. The “very robust records management system” included social media posts, said the Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms: “We have different categories, if they are misogynistic, etcetera.”
The Privy Council in a newly-declassified 1968 memo estimated Soviet sympathizers and Cold War subversives in Canada far outnumbered actual Communist Party members. The memo named one university, five unions and the United Church as key targets for subversion: “The Communist movement in Canada consists of some 20,000 persons.”
The Royal Canadian Mint
introduces their new collection.
They say Canadian coins celebrate
our nation’s culture and milestones, natural splendour,
technological and athletic achievements.
Things that make us proud.
Browsing the catalogue,
I debate between the 16-gram silver coin featuring
Batman,
and the red, blue, and gold-coloured coin featuring
a Phoenician warrior, also known as
Wonder Woman.
By Shai Ben-Shalom
On Sunday, June 22, 1953 a liquor store clerk named Bill Beatty died from an accidental fall at his Toronto duplex. Beatty was a plain man who died an ordinary death, yet a Globe & Mail editor pushed his obituary up to page four: “As a result of injuries suffered a week ago in a fall from an upper duplex porch at his home, William James Beatty, 54, of 56 Macdonnell Ave., died yesterday afternoon in St. Joseph’s Hospital. Mr. Beatty, it is believed, suffered a dizzy spell from the heat and lost his balance. He never regained consciousness. A veteran of the First World War, he served overseas with the 75th Regiment.”
He was with the 75th. In a city that celebrated Old School Ties and the exclusivity of private clubs, the combat veterans of the Toronto Scottish Regiment were a privileged class of workers’ aristocracy honoured long after the war’s end.
Author Timothy J. Stewart chronicles their story in Toronto’s Fighting 75th In The Great War, an affectionate account of the city regiment that survived the worst battles of the Western front. Survivors were farmers and stock-jobbers, storekeepers and postal workers. One served a term in the legislature; another was art director at Eaton’s.
Toronto, then and now, was a city of neighbourhoods and tight-knit families. The regiment’s list of dead included ten Browns, five Clarks, four Stewarts and three MacDonalds.
“During the 75ths’ three years overseas, more than 4,000 men had worn its Maple Leaf and Unicorn cap badge; more than 917 had died in battle or afterwards of wounds, or were missing and unknown but to God,” writes Stewart, an educator and curator of the Toronto Scottish museum. “An additional 2,300 had been wounded in body or mind. These were staggering numbers.”
The Fighting 75th is a rich tribute, beautifully illustrated, with vignettes culled from thousands of hours of research. Veterans called the regiment the “six bits.” Their march was “Colonel Bogey,” immortalized later as the theme of Bridge On The River Kwai. They sailed to war on April Fool’s Day to endure “appalling conditions” at the Somme, Vimy and Passchendaele, writes Stewart.
The 75th’s first commanding officer was Samuel Beckett, an architect killed in action at Vimy Ridge as he shouted his last words: “There is no withdrawal; come on again!” Their third commander was Colin Harbottle, an ex-bicycle racer who’d served time in Kingston penitentiary for embezzlement. Harbottle was a zealous reformer in wartime; he fined an infantryman 44 days’ pay for stealing a bottle of cognac. When he died of a heart attack while hunting partridge at Muskoka in 1933 old soldiers lined the streets of Toronto, heads bowed.
Historian Stewart documents their stories with genuine warmth and a police reporter’s eye for detail. The Fighting 75th had one Victoria Cross winner, and seven men court-martialed for self-inflicted wounds. One private, Laurence Ramsay, 21, was killed in action in 1918. A friend found an undated letter in Ramsay’s helmet: “Dear Mother,” it read, “Should I fall in action, I wish to leave you this last farewell…I am as good a boy when I write this as that far off day when I left my beloved home.”
Beautiful.
By Holly Doan
Toronto’s Fighting 75th in the Great War 1915-1919: A Prehistory of The Toronto Scottish Regiment, by Timothy J. Stewart; Wilfrid University Library Press; ISBN 9781-77112-1828; $59.99
The national debt is now worth the equivalent of more than $33,000 for every man, woman and child in Canada, Budget Officer Annette Ryan said yesterday. Sustainability of Canada’s finances is a concern if interest rates rise or growth shrinks, she said: “The economy still remains tenuous.”
