Federal employees ran up nearly $20,000 in routine parking and traffic violations, records show. The incomplete figures excluded millions in violations by the two largest fleet operators, the post office and Department of National Defence: “All factors of vehicle usage that led to an infraction are examined in the public interest.”
Cabinet yesterday for the third time in two years introduced a bill for oversight of the Canada Border Services Agency. Critics complain the Agency with a $1.6 billion annual budget and 11,500 employees is the largest police force in Canada without an independent oversight board: “We’re not doing something right here.”
Federal legislation is needed to control the craziness of the internet, a cabinet advisor said yesterday. “We are now looking at a whole new alignment of what is online harm,” said Bernie Farber, appointee to a 12-member panel on censorship: “We live in a time of craziness. We live in a time where people will believe whatever they want to believe.”
Inflation already running at the highest rate in 40 years will rise even higher with new calculations, Statistics Canada confirmed yesterday. The agency acknowledged it failed to fully account for the cost of used cars in calculating its benchmark Consumer Price Index: ‘There are steeper price increases for used vehicles than for new vehicles.’
Cabinet’s 2017 creation of two Indigenous departments merely added cost without results, the Parliamentary Budget Office said yesterday. The findings were requested by the Commons Indigenous affairs committee: “Canadians want to make sure that gets into the hands of Indigenous people and doesn’t support a bloated bureaucracy in Ottawa.”
Federal investigators yesterday repeated calls for mandatory Department of Transport licensing in Canada’s most dangerous occupation, commercial fishing. It follows the 2020 disappearance at sea of the Sarah Ann, a fishing vessel on its last run of the snow crab season: “The vessel was never found.”
Federal prisoners who meet their victims face to face are less likely to reoffend, says Correctional Service research. Data showed even hardened criminals “rated as high risk to reoffend” reformed after meeting their victims: “The program shows promise in reducing recidivism.”
The Receiver General last year paid more than $2.2 million in federal pension payments to dead employees, records show. Payments to dormant bank accounts totaled $23.6 million over six years with write-offs as high as 20 percent: “A request may be sent to the deceased member’s financial institutions to return payments.”
Ottawa Interim Police Chief Steve Bell yesterday disclosed he never asked cabinet to invoke the Emergencies Act against a truckers’ blockade. Cabinet repeatedly claimed it was “acting on the advice of law enforcement” when it proclaimed a national emergency over the Freedom Convoy: “Which police agency asked for the Emergencies Act?”
The Canada Revenue Agency paid millions in unrecoverable Covid wage subsidies to tax delinquents and insolvent companies, records show. Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier disclosed the figures in the Commons: “What is the total amount of subsidy received by the companies?”
More critics of Rogers Communications’ proposed buyout of Western rival Shaw Communications yesterday piled on demands to halt the $26 billion deal. The Commons heritage committee recommended cabinet kill the merger: “Media concentration and the erosion of local journalism have worsened dramatically.”
A $175 million annual federal tax intended to help ease housing shortages affects less than two-tenths of one percent of Canada’s shelter stock, the Department of Finance disclosed yesterday. Cabinet had called it an important measure to help families: “We have to make some big assumptions there.”
Federal departments spent nearly $26 million at Amazon.com last year, records show. Expenditures came despite federal research showing the web giant hurt small business in Canada: “The percentage of Canadian online retailers with revenue in a product category falls when Amazon.com expands.”
Consumers face a long run-up of rising food prices at rates much higher than those estimated by Statistics Canada, the Commons finance committee was told yesterday. One economist who last December predicted five to seven percent food inflation said the estimate is already out of date: “I don’t think Canada will run out of food but it will get pricier.”
The Department of Immigration acknowledges public skepticism of Minister Sean Fraser’s claim that foreigners bring net benefit to Canada. In-house research questioned the impact of record high quotas: “Prioritize Canadian workers until Canada’s economy recovers from the pandemic.”
