The Commons yesterday by a 179-151 vote passed a private bill to ban plastic waste exports. Conservative MP Scot Davidson (York-Simcoe, Ont.), sponsor of the bill, called the trade a “shameful practice.”
Public health authorities never asked for $150 million field hospitals ordered from SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., the Commons government operations committee was told yesterday. No province asked for the mobile units, either. None have been used to date: “Who requested them?”
A bill to legalize bookmaking in Canada last night faced new hurdles at Senate banking committee hearings. First Nations casino operators testified the bill must be rewritten to have Parliament recognize their local authority: “It all falls short.”
Cabinet spent the equivalent of more than $80,000 for every vote it received in a failed 2020 bid to win a seat on the United Nations Security Council, records show. Access To Information accounts disclosed yesterday by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation detailed millions in staff costs: “Send the message that Canada is back.”
Canada’s best known natural gas fixture, the Centennial Flame on Parliament Hill, will be made “carbon-neutral” due to climate change, says the Department of Public Works. The old gas flame emitted 38 tonnes of carbon emissions annually, it said: “The department has not been purchasing carbon credits.”
Auditor General Karen Hogan yesterday said she didn’t want to dwell on “why things were as bad as they were” at the Public Health Agency prior to Covid. Members of the Commons public accounts committee faulted Hogan for what one MP called a “very timid” exoneration of the Agency in a pandemic that killed more than 25,000 Canadians: “I focused on continuous improvement.”
The Commons today is expected to pass a motion compelling disclosure of uncensored records of an RCMP raid at a federal lab. Two Chinese scientists were suspended, then fired in an incident the Public Health Agency has refused to discuss with MPs: “These concerns were serious.”
Union executives yesterday petitioned the Commons industry committee to speed passage of a private bill to rewrite federal bankruptcy laws. The United Steelworkers said it feared the bill to grant preference to pensioners in corporate insolvency claims will be lost with an expected election: “Please let’s move.”
Senators last night balked at a bill to strip ex-Governor General Julie Payette of her lifetime pension after she quit amid a workplace harassment probe. Senators questioned whether Payette would sue to keep her benefits: “It’s simply a disgraceful situation.”
The Department of Employment paid more than $9 million in pandemic relief to dead people. Cheques were directly deposited into accounts of Canadians who passed away before the pandemic broke out: “Grieving people have no inkling who they should call.”
Filibustering Conservatives yesterday said there is little chance Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault’s YouTube regulation bill C-10 will pass into law before Parliament adjourns for the summer and an expected election campaign. “It is a disaster,” said one MP.
A federal agency budgeted $56,000 for videos, flyers and webinars to counter what it called “disinformation” by media and patient groups over drug price controls. Staff vowed to “push back more aggressively,” according to Access To Information records disclosed by Conservative MP Tom Kmiec (Calgary Shepard): “Industry has been sucking Canada for decades.”
Cabinet yesterday said nearly $34 million in federal contracts were awarded to a consultant that once hosted a VIP retreat near a Chinese internment camp. The disclosure follow a Commons vote condemning China for crimes against humanity: “I am thinking of the million people detained in camps that the Chinese call re-education centres.”
The head of federal cybersecurity yesterday disclosed his personal accounts have been hacked. Scott Jones, head of the Canadian Centre for Cybersecurity, said data breaches have impacted virtually everyone in Canada: “There is a tremendous amount of information available on each citizen, about all of us, on the web.”
The Privy Council Office has appointed a mental health advisor after nearly a third of employees rated the office as “psychologically unhealthy.” Cabinet said the advisor assists staff troubled with “work-life balance.”
