A federal case over wine labeling is headed back to court for the fourth time in four years. The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs filed notice in Federal Court it seeks to submit evidence in a dispute considered a proxy fight over Israeli boycotts: “We are just lawyers.”
A Halifax man banished from Air Canada as a safety risk because he bickered with a flight attendant has won his day in Federal Court. A judge ordered the Canadian Human Rights Commission to investigate the passenger’s claim of discrimination: ‘They asked him to step outside.’
Federal employees awarded paid Covid furloughs took an average of almost $10,000 in salary and benefits while off work, says the Parliamentary Budget Office. Total costs were $1,269,900,000 for employees who were neither sick nor working from home: “We’ve made sure to take care of our employees.”
Labour arbitrators in separate rulings have recognized National Day for Truth and Reconciliation as a paid holiday even for workers who aren’t federally regulated. The decisions affecting thousands of workers relied on common wording in union contracts: ‘It should have been recognized as a paid holiday.’
Even obnoxious speech is protected by freedom of expression, the Supreme Court has ruled in a 5-4 decision. The judgment comes ahead of cabinet’s reintroduction of a bill that would threaten bloggers and Facebook users with $70,000 fines for hurtful online comments: ‘Everyone can manifest their opinions however unpopular, distasteful or contrary to the mainstream.’
The federal definition of “fully vaccinated” will remain at two Covid shots for the time being but may change this winter, says Dr. Theresa Tam, chief public health officer. Tam’s remarks followed a recommendation that provinces consider third shots for some five million pensioners: “Do you foresee that becoming the new definition of fully vaccinated?”
Cabinet has given itself 60 days to finalize a multi-billion dollar settlement with Indigenous families over discriminatory welfare programs dating from the 1960s, says Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller. The promise came after a federal judge lamented the “extraordinary proceeding” was ongoing for fifteen years: “I don’t think there is any intention to want to reduce any amounts.”
Hazing. Vandalism. Bad marks and raucous protest. This was the campus misconduct of a Toronto student leader who put Quebec tuition protesters to shame. He might have wound up in the penitentiary, but instead became prime minister.
Professor Martin Friedland reveals this wonderful hidden anecdote of Canadian politics, a profile of Billy King, class of 1895. All his classmates called him Billy. Only years afterward did he transform himself into a national leader with four names, William Lyon Mackenzie King.
He was the kind of scholar who double-spaced his thesis so he could pad it out to 45 pages, without bothering to footnote his sources. He was the type of Kappa Alpha frat boy who’d dream up Halloween pranks.
“Who in the hell would have thought that Billy King would have done what he has done,” a classmate wrote in 1925. “It really makes a man doubt a lot of things.”
Friedland’s University of Toronto: A History is an encyclopedic work of interest mainly to alumni, but in chronicling King’s hijinks he uncovers a gem. Of all the exhaustive works ever published on King and his era, none spent any serious time profiling Billy on campus.
He was trouble. At 18 King landed at the U of T and started off on the wrong foot. He was caught vandalizing college property and fined $15: “He at first refused to pay, but did so when told he would be unable to write his final exams until the fine was paid.”
King was also involved in a wicked hazing incident – details are sadly lost to history – that resulted in the university president turning the hoses on sophomores. In Animal House fashion, a vendetta was born. “One student recalled there was now a feud between the class and the administration, ‘and in the final year came the blow-off,’” writes Prof. Friedland.
The blow-off followed the hiring of the chancellor’s son-in-law as lecturer at almost double the pay of others. “Nepotism,” charged the student paper The Varsity: “If the university is intended as a Home for the Helpless, let the fact be known.”
King personally disliked the man; he’d given Billy a 65 on a history paper, killing his chance of a renewed scholarship. In 1895, King led the class in a walkout. It was an extraordinary protest at a university so buttoned down they didn’t permit dancing on campus till 1896.
King led “the largest mass meeting in the history of the University,” recounts Friedland; 700 packed a hall to hear King flay the administration. A newspaperman recalled that King “electrified his hearers by his denunciation of the age-old cult of tyranny.”
The students refused to attend classes, and denounced the U of T administration with the fervor that only students can muster. “My blood fairly boiled,” King wrote in his diary. The result? The university created a students’ council in 1900, and King discovered he had a knack for leadership.
“My ambition may carry me into political life,” he confided. He would serve twelve terms in Parliament, and never again spoke of his years as the hell-raiser on campus.
By Holly Doan
The University of Toronto: A History, by Martin Friedland; U of T Press; 778 pages; ISBN 9781-4426-15366, $39.95
The Department of Finance spent $53,445 to ask thirty-two people what they thought of Minister Chrystia Freeland’s first budget, records show. Freeland polled poorly with seniors who complained the finance minister spent like she had “a money tree some place.”
Liberal MPs yesterday said they endorsed censorship of legal internet content providing there is “proper due process” for Facebook users, bloggers and publishers targeted by complaints. Cabinet has proposed to appoint a chief censor, the Digital Safety Commissioner, to investigate anonymous complaints over content deemed hurtful: “We need a public due process system to manage takedown.”
Islam is the nation’s fastest growing religion, Statistics Canada figures showed yesterday. The Muslim population as a portion of the entire country has more than tripled since 1996 but remains outnumbered 9 to 1 by Catholics: “It can influence important demographic factors such as marriage.”
Aid to Canada Student Loan borrowers averages $8,000 per year including $6,000 in repayable loans and the balance in grant money, says a federal review of the program. Cabinet in its election platform promised more aid for students: “Three quarters of borrowers, 74 percent, agreed their student loan and grant were adequate.”
Cabinet will not demand that federally-appointed judges show proof of vaccination, the Privy Council Office said yesterday. A deadline to have other appointees to quasi-judicial tribunals and commissions disclose their medical status has been extended for a month: “The judiciary is independent.”
Canada’s largest “clean energy” utility is paying publicists thousands a week to plant industry-friendly messages on Facebook, blogs and other media. Hydro-Québec yesterday would not comment on the publicity campaign aimed at countering Indigenous critics: “No monies will ever be transferred for citizens to engage in grassroots communications to legislators.”
Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault yesterday said he does “not have a secret agenda” as a longtime Greenpeace activist. A cabinet colleague predicted emission targets will bring the greatest economic upheaval since the Industrial Revolution: “It is going to take so much hard work from all of us.”
