The Senate yesterday opened debate on a bill mandating disclosure of foreign agents paid to lobby federal public office holders. The bill follows testimony from a former national security advisor that Chinese agents posed a clear threat: “Foreign influence and interference is real.”
The Department of Environment has finalized new terms of a federal fuel standard expected to further raise the cost of fuel. An environmental advocacy group yesterday said it was told of the proposal at a confidential briefing: “At the end of the day politicians have an obligation to the public to tell them the straight goods.”
Federal agents have intercepted just one shipment of suspected slave goods from China since issuing an advisory against suspicious imports more than a year ago. MPs on the Commons foreign affairs committee yesterday expressed astonishment at the low rate of inspections: “I am a bit stunned by that response.”
Federal employees have filed more than 7,000 complaints of workplace violence and harassment since Parliament passed an anti-harassment bill, records show. Cabinet four years ago said the bill would curb inappropriate behaviour from sexual violence to Twitter gibes: “It’s going to apply to any activity linked to work.”
Canadian consumers quickly overcame fears of Covid and adapted to pandemic precautions, federal data show. Bank of Canada researchers said lockdowns, not public anxiety, were to blame for the worst economic impacts: ‘Canadians were adapting to restrictions and becoming more familiar with new ways to consume.’
Parliament should raise taxes on real estate investors and use the money to subsidize affordable homes, the Commons finance committee was told yesterday. The submission by an ex-Toronto city planner follows disclosures CMHC identified the number of Canadians who own second properties: “We know Canada’s housing system is broken.”
Cabinet must regulate the internet in Canada to curb Russian disinformation, says Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly. A federal ban on Kremlin-funded TV is not enough, said Joly: “My mandate as foreign minister is really to counter propaganda online.”
The self-described “national voice of Canadian journalists” breached its own ethics code in reporting on a pipeline protest, records show. The Canadian Association of Journalists said it would not correct misleading statements that accused police of illegal conduct: “Accuracy is the moral imperative of journalists.”
Freedom Convoy truckers posed a threat to “social cohesion,” a Department of Public Safety manager testified at the Commons transport committee. Ryan Schwartz, acting director general in the department’s cybersecurity branch, said protesters’ use of the internet was disruptive: ‘It can cascade across social media platforms and be used to incite certain responses.’
Quarantine hotel rooms for cross-border travelers cost taxpayers up to $139 a night, according to records. The Public Health Agency as late as February was contracting for thousands of hotel rooms every month: “This is not a success story.”
Authorities must prioritize benefits claims by the neediest veterans, says Veterans Ombudsman Colonel (Ret’d) Nishika Jardine. Tens of thousands of former soldiers, sailors and air crew remain on waiting lists for disability benefits.
“Understand who is the person applying for this benefit,” said Jardine: “Does this person have a family doctor? Is this person in financial difficulty? Do they have access to the public service health care plan?”
The Department of Veterans Affairs in 2021 counted a backlog of 41,541 claims from veterans citing disability as a result of service. Wait times for the initial review of first-time applications averaged more than 300 days. Petitions for reassessments averaged another 140 days, with 340 days for further review.
“Which veterans need a decision faster than other veterans?” Ombudsman Jardine told the Commons veterans affairs committee. “A veteran who has a full pension, access to the public service health care plan and has secured a second job after they have left the Canadian Armed Forces may not need that decision as quickly as the veteran who does not have a pension, who cannot qualify for public service health care, doesn’t have access to rehabilitation programs but was broken by the Canadian Armed Forces and has walked out the door with their little baggie of three months’ worth of medications for a condition that is related to their service, and they have to wait.”
Jardine noted the department did prioritize veterans over 80 or those who “self-identify as having a life threatening condition” but made few other attempts to prioritize claims according to need. “It is the thing that disturbs me the most and it is the reason for my comments,” said Jardine. “We can get lost in the statistics and the numbers and how many weeks and how long.”
Veterans Affairs Minister Lawrence MacAulay on Friday told the Commons his department was doing its best. “We recognize more needs to be done,” said MacAulay, who earlier remarked that veterans’ paperwork was so onerous “I mightn’t be great at it myself.”
“You know this difficulty,” MacAulay testified at 2020 hearings of the veterans affairs committee. “You know about filling out forms. I mightn’t be great at it myself.”
“But the thing is you need the people that know how to fill out the forms,” said MacAulay. “The problem that you have with the forms is there’s something missing, something vitally important that could be missing, and you have to make sure that it is all there.”
Conservative MP Frank Caputo (Kamloops-Thompson, B.C.) told the committee Friday that claimants “are all veterans who have unique circumstances.” Proposals to ease the backlog date back five years.
“You can’t really tell a check box on a form that you are broken, and conversely a check box on a form can’t see that you’re broken,” said MP Caputo. “That’s one of the biggest problems I really see with this.”
By Staff 
Taxpayers are collecting no interest on sweetheart export loans to China that run to 2045, documents disclose. Loans deemed in the “national interest” were approved by successive cabinets dating back decades: “I was taught that being a Canadian meant our nation stood for something.”
Repeated cabinet claims that most Canadians see net gains paying a carbon tax are untrue, a Parliamentary Budget Office report said yesterday. The finding came as Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault again claimed all but “the richest among us” are better off paying carbon taxes: “Most households will see a net loss.”
Proposed reforms drawn from We Charity investigations yesterday survived a vote in the Commons ethics committee. Liberal MPs lost a bid to bury a report recommending tougher conflict of interest laws: “Ensure Canadians have a chance to see this.”
Authorities yesterday contradicted a Toronto Star story claiming Ottawa police recovered loaded shotguns from Freedom Convoy truckers. No charges have been filed regarding loaded shotguns, said the police chief: “Were loaded firearms found, yes or no?” “No, not relating to any charges to this point.”
