Prime Minister Justin Trudeau yesterday rejected any scheme to require that Canadians prove whether they’ve been vaccinated for Covid-19. The issue is too divisive, he said: “There are a broad range of reasons why someone might not get vaccinated.”
A federal proposal to tax “extreme wealth” would raise one million dollars next year, the Parliamentary Budget Office said yesterday. It would take more than a decade to see more serious revenues, analysts said: “Revenues generated by this new measure will gradually increase over the next few years.”
Jesse Moore, millionaire CEO of a company in Africa that received taxpayers’ funding in the name of Third World development, has a six-figure salary and $633,000 in stock options, according to accounts. The federal agency that bought shares in Moore’s company yesterday refused comment: “I could do whatever I wanted to do.”
Not even a pandemic dimmed “March Madness” spending by federal agencies last year, records show. Managers approved millions in expenses marked “miscellaneous” in the dying hours of the fiscal year last March 31: “That’s a problem.”
Cabinet will introduce 2021 regulations to curb Twitter and Facebook posts deemed hurtful or offensive, says Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault’s department. Hate speech is already forbidden under 1970 amendments to the Criminal Code: “We want to protect Canadians online.”
A federal labour arbitrator has overturned the firing of a CBC-TV reporter for breaching the network’s code of conduct. The dismissal followed an angry tweet about Don Cherry: “Some employees and some opinions are deemed more acceptable than others.”
An Alberta woman disqualified from seeking election as a First Nations band councilor for failing to detail her ancestry has lost her appeal at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. The election dispute was beyond the scope of the Human Rights Act, the Tribunal ruled: “The Tribunal finds itself in an unusual situation.”
Corporate lawyers in New York including Hillary Clinton donors hosted a 2019 campaign fundraiser for Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller, newly-released records show. Miller yesterday did not comment: “All aspects of the law were faithfully adhered to.”
The Department of Employment confirms one manager and an employee were implicated in serious wrongdoing, and disclosed an “integrity and security office” had misused government credit cards. The department yesterday would not name people involved in the fraud or indicate if police were called: ‘What sort of financial checks are in place?’
The Department of Foreign Affairs yesterday issued a rare advisory warning Canadian companies to beware of importing slave-made goods from China. “Due diligence is essential,” said the department.
More than a third of Canadians say they’ve worn masks in public, according to in-house federal polling. Researchers found people were confused by conflicting advice from the Public Health Agency in the first months of the pandemic: “It can be with a Kleenex.”
Liberal MP Omar Alghabra (Mississauga Centre Ont.), newly-appointed transport minister, yesterday had no comment on a bailout of the airline sector as exasperated unions appealed for quick aid. A cabinet panel a month ago warned of an “urgent need of targeted assistance to avoid collapse.”
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland in a report to Parliament predicts “uncertainty with regards to government spending” in 2021. Cabinet has borrowed at the rate of a billion dollars a day: ‘I propose to increase the borrowing limit.’
A law mandating disclosure of federal records “could soon be beyond repair,” Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard said yesterday in a report to MPs. Maynard accused cabinet of weak leadership in complying with the Access To Information Act that dates from 1983: “Canadians are fed up.”
Canadian media coverage of the pandemic is unsatisfactory, says the Chinese embassy. Diplomats said they were unhappy with reporters and commentators who are “not so friendly.”
