The Public Health Agency in an internal memo worried about pandemic litter. Staff complained of the “environmental impact” of Canadians throwing away used masks, though the Agency itself landfilled millions prior to the outbreak of Covid-19: “With hindsight, would I have liked it to have been different?”
Canadians struggling with rolling lockdowns and foreign travel bans made 6,570,000 visits to national parks last summer, says Parks Canada. Staff at the Prime Minister’s Office feared Covid chaos as city people headed for the woods, according to internal emails: “Parks Canada is delighted.”
The UK enhances
the range of weapons
and radar capabilities
of its Typhoon fighter jets.
France improves
its ballistic missiles’ tracking system
and develops the European Patrol Corvette
– a new class of military ships.
The U.S. builds
nine Virginia-class attack submarines,
the most advanced
in its nuclear fleet.
Canada won’t be left behind.
In a bold move,
DND relocates thousands of employees
from downtown Ottawa
to its new headquarters,
15 kilometres away.
When the process is completed,
the former Nortel campus
will host no less than
9,446 workspaces.
Boosting national defence.
Next on the list:
resolve the shortage
of parking spots
the move created.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
We Charity’s Kielburger brothers face jail as hostile witnesses if they don’t testify on conflicts of interest in their dealings with cabinet, the Commons finance committee was told yesterday. “There are precedents,” said Philippe Dufresne, the Commons law clerk: ‘Historically there has been authority to bring an individual into custody.’
Police in Hamilton have dropped a criminal investigation into theft of millions of pandemic masks imported from Shanghai by the Department of Public Works. There were no leads and no suspects, the department said: “The products were not recovered.”
Labour Minister Filomena Tassi must investigate Canada Labour Code breaches at one of the nation’s largest federal mail distribution plants, a member of the Commons health committee said yesterday. Canada Post was cited by a federal inspector for failing to promptly report Covid-19 cases: “It is completely unacceptable to see a Crown corporation break the law.”
The Department of Public Works in self-congratulatory internal emails said it was “very proud” of doing a great job on pandemic management, “a great story for us.” The messages were exchanged as Covid deaths nationwide approached 9,000: “We’re everybody’s government!”
Cabinet will consider subsidizing any green project, “anything really” that appears feasible, Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan said yesterday. His remarks followed federal auditors’ complaints of difficulty in tracking actual costs and benefits of green subsidies: “We’re willing to look at anything really, you know, if it seems like it’s a good idea.”
A Québec company received a quarter-billion pandemic contract to supply ventilators that repeatedly failed testing, internal records show. Cabinet justified the sole-sourced contract on a claim of “extreme urgency.” First deliveries of rebuilt devices are scheduled this week, eleven months after the contract was approved: “It was an emergency situation.”
The Department of National Defence is so dysfunctional “it’s like pushing a rock uphill,” a former military ombudsman yesterday told the Commons defence committee. Gary Walbourne in 2018 abruptly quit his $203,000-a year post after complaining his office lacked independence: “I knew it was a hit job.”
China’s ambassador to Canada yesterday dismissed a parliamentary vote condemning his country for genocide. Evidence of atrocities are “lies spread by a very few certain people due to anti-China intentions,” said Ambassador Cong Peiwu: ‘Those kinds of claims are lies of the century.’
Senate Speaker George Furey hosted a VIP salon supper for three Liberal-appointed senators the same day the Prime Minister lamented “difficult lessons about inequality” in a speech to the United Nations. The meal was catered from a French restaurant that sells $13 Martinis: “There are still tough times ahead.”
Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne yesterday dismissed a consumers’ petition opposing email billing by telecom companies. The decision followed a 2020 CRTC ruling that customers at Koodoo Mobile were not entitled to paper bills: “I don’t see a commitment to the consumer here.”
The Department of Public Works concealed a multi-million dollar heist of pandemic masks, according to internal records. Millions of surgical masks vanished from an airport warehouse at Hamilton, Ont. after the Prime Minister and local authorities announced the delivery: ‘We are not comfortable with publicly divulging the location.’
Canada’s federal whistleblower protection law is “nearly entirely dormant,” the International Bar Association said yesterday. Cabinet to date has ignored a 2017 recommendation from MPs to strengthen the law targeting disclosure of wrongdoing: “Whistleblowers are essential for credible law enforcement campaigns against corruption.”
