The Ukrainian Canadian Congress yesterday said it awarded commemorative medals to families of 11 Canadian war casualties who volunteered to fight in defence of the motherland. Volunteers who join Ukraine’s foreign legion are disqualified from Canadian veterans’ benefits: “Our community is eternally grateful.”
Parks Canada yesterday disclosed it left more than a half million acres of dead pine standing as a known fire hazard in a national park prior to a wildfire that burned Jasper, Alta. last July. The agency did not undertake any controlled burns in the park a year prior to the disaster, according to Access To Information records, then blamed losses on climate change: “In 2023 there were zero prescribed burns.”
The Department of Canadian Heritage paid $68,640 for research that asked CBC journalists if they were the subject of hurtful remarks by conservative politicians or rival media, according to Access To Information records. The study did not name names: “50 percent said that opposition political parties were a source.”
New Democrat interim leader MP Don Davies (Vancouver Kingsway) yesterday said his caucus “will strategically use the balance of power it holds” to pass reforms in the 45th Parliament. Davies in his maiden speech to the Commons 17 years ago advocated for proportional representation: “Respect the fact Canadians have chosen a minority Parliament.”
Liberal-appointed Senator Yuen Pau Woo (B.C.) yesterday had no comment after endorsing a Gaza fundraiser with an anti-Israel protest group that picketed MPs’ offices and swarmed a fellow senator’s car. “Desperate times,” Woo wrote on his Twitter account.
Banks owe customers a duty of care to save them from fraud but not the consequences of their own mistakes, a British Columbia tribunal has ruled. The decision came in the case of a depositor who mistakenly transferred $2,000 to the wrong account: “What the Banks’ duty of care was for mistaken e-transfers is outside common knowledge.”
U.S. President Donald Trump yesterday said Canada will “have to be able to take care of itself economically” without free trade. Trump made the remarks after bantering with visiting Prime Minister Mark Carney about statehood: “That’s just the way it is.”
Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre yesterday said he is “very eager” to return to Parliament. Caucus members expressed no support for selecting a new Conservative leader for the fifth time in 10 years: “If you told me we would get 41 percent of the vote and still not win, I would have said you’re crazy.”
First Nations utilities are so inadequate more than a third of Indigenous people on-reserve use bottled water to brush their teeth, says a report by Indigenous Services Minister Patricia Hajdu’s department. Cabinet had promised to eliminate all boiled water advisories by 2021: “One in five judge the water to be less safe to drink than it was five years ago.”
The Department of Canadian Heritage paid $50,000 for a schoolchildren’s video depicting settlement of the Prairies as an exercise in anti-Black bigotry. The point was “educating Canadians about disinformation,” said a project summary released through Access To information: “The Canadian government did not want them.”
A new federal program promising honesty in contracting will “promote ethical business practices,” says a Department of Public Works briefing note. The initiative followed the ArriveCan scandal that saw two federal managers suspended, a leading contractor raided by police and a $59.5 million charge for taxpayers: “The trail behind you is deleted.”
Auditors are faulting a $157 million military contractor for poor service. The contractor is a former subsidiary of Brookfield Asset Management previously chaired by Prime Minister Mark Carney: “This had a negative impact on Canadian Armed Forces morale.”
The Canadian Tourism Commission yesterday said it is hiring U.S. publicists to encourage Americans to vacation here. The Commission made no mention of Justin Trudeau’s February 1 appeal for a cross-border travel boycott: “The United States is Canada’s largest source of international tourism.”
Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly privately praised the United States for taking “a hard stand on drugs” after President Donald Trump threatened 25 percent tariffs in the name of border security, records show. The comments were at odds with cabinet’s public statements and were scripted in notes for a Mar-a-Lago conference: “We are pleased the incoming U.S. administration also takes a hard stand on drugs.”
Canadians should welcome illegal immigrants from the United States in the name of humanity, Amnesty International said yesterday. The U.S. counts nearly 11 million illegal immigrants including hundreds of thousands in border states: “We are calling on Canada to be a leader.”
