Joe Volpe, former Liberal cabinet minister, has been ordered to pay nearly $384,000 in costs over a failed defamation suit. Volpe’s troubles started with a series of articles in his newspaper Corriere Canadese, the nation’s only Italian-language daily: “Parties are not free to abuse the judicial system without the threat of costs.”
A public outcry yesterday prompted the Commons industry committee to convene emergency hearings on a Rogers Communications blackout that affected customers nationwide. The committee will meet Friday to schedule testimony on why service to some twelve million Rogers subscribers was disrupted for days: “This is deeply upsetting and unacceptable.”
Taxpayers have a “very low” probability of seeing millions used to finance a foreign loan program, records show. A total $64,292,000 was termed repayable though there is little chance it will be ever be repaid, officials admitted: “The likelihood of the department being reimbursed is very low.”
Transgender men have an unfair advantage in women’s competition, says a briefing note by the federal department that funds amateur sport. The Department of Canadian Heritage has sidestepped public comment on allowing biological men to compete as women: ‘Transwomen are physiologically stronger.’
CBC producers helped “carefully craft” questions posed by voters to then-Opposition Leader Erin O’Toole in an election campaign broadcast, an Ombudsman’s report said yesterday. “They worked with each of the four participants to make sure their questions were focused and phrased effectively,” wrote Ombudsman Jack Nagler.
Taxpayers have lost millions in benefits paid to undeserving claimants under a Canada Pension Plan program, says a federal audit. Management of payments appeared to be a “continuous shuffling of files,” wrote auditors: “Reassessment is very complex work.”
A broken hip at an army soccer game qualifies as a service-related injury, a federal judge has ruled. Attendance at the game was mandatory, noted the Federal Court: “He jumped to field a ball, twisted in the air, landed awkwardly on his left leg and fell to the ground.”
The Department of Social Development spent more than $660,000 preserving French in the Yukon, records show. The territory is home to 85 unilingual francophones, according to Census data: “I understand the importance of being able to grow up, work and live in one’s own language.”
A car rental company that once settled a million-dollar federal claim for false advertising has been ordered to refund a British Columbia driver who rented a faulty SUV. Enterprise Rent-A-Car Canada Co. had blamed the driver for problems with the vehicle: “Enterprise does not dispute this claim and agrees to pay it. There is no indication that it has.”
A federal agency invested millions in a green energy firm accused of profiting from slave labour in China, records show. The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board disclosed in its latest filings it holds shares in a company named in a human rights report: “We are responsible for anything that is in our portfolio.”
The Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery is in breach of federal sanctions against the Kremlin. Cabinet would not comment on Gallery dealings with a blacklisted entity, the official Russian news agency Itar-Tass, in breach of Special Economic Measures Regulations: “The Russian propaganda machine must answer for its lies.”
The Department of Employment granted dozens of permits to foreign “massage therapists” working as migrant labour in Canada, records show. Employers were not checked for links to human trafficking: “The department does not conduct criminal investigations.”
A Loblaw Companies Ltd. manager suspended without pay for declining to wear a Covid mask is not entitled to damages for constructive dismissal, a judge has ruled. No mask, no pay, said the Court: “He refused to do so.”
The federal Privacy Commissioner is being asked to determine if the Freedom Convoy bank freeze complied with an Act of Parliament. Committee testimony from bankers suggested the blacklisting of convoy sympathizers may have breached the Privacy Act, said an MP: “What was the information shared?”
You caught me
surfing the web.
I only wanted to read
the top stories.
It’s not my fault
they were topless.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, writes for Blacklock’s each and every Sunday)
