Blacklock's Reporter

Eight hundred foreign criminals wanted for deportation remain fugitives nationwide, the Canada Border Services Agency said yesterday. About 2,000 were successfully deported since auditors uncovered sloppy record-keeping at the Agency: “I don’t quite understand why we would tolerate this.”

A third of a million foreigners entered Canada after cabinet invoked the Quarantine Act, records show. Foreign visitors included 18,000 China passport holders: “I think staying home this year is probably the right thing to do.”

Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough yesterday said auditors will have to “follow up” with Canadians who claimed to be jobless in applying for $2,000 pandemic relief cheques. The program went 240 percent over-budget. Qualtrough’s department earlier claimed checks were done upfront to confirm applications were legitimate: “It was not abandoning any checks and balances at the get-go.”

Claims for paid sick leave under the Employment Insurance Act increased forty-nine percent even before the pandemic, according to a Department of Employment audit. Staff could not explain the jump in claims, “more than five times the predicted increase.”

A federal bank has doubled its estimate of bad loans due to the pandemic. Accounting by the Business Development Bank follows a warning taxpayers cannot be sure of risks in loans approved by Crown corporations: ‘It is related to economic shock caused by Covid-19.’

Parliament must stop the stigmatization of the forestry industry as environmental Neanderthals, the Commons natural resources committee was told yesterday. MPs have accused U.S.-funded green groups of interference in Canada: “We are not dumb people.”

Former Québec Liberal MP Frank Baylis is being summoned back to Parliament Hill, this time as a witness at Commons ethics committee hearings on federal contracting. Baylis’ firm Baylis Medical Company in the past year received two federal contracts: “Is that how you guys want to play?”

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland in a report says millions in interest-free pandemic loans intended for small business went to operations in “public administration” though rules excluded government organizations. Freeland’s department did not explain the payments worth more than $200 million: “The rules are fairly clear.”

A Liberal MP says he’s sorry after tweeting a profane acronym. MP Adam Vaughan (Spadina-Fort York, Ont.), parliamentary secretary for housing, said he had to look up the meaning of “wgaf” and did not know how it was posted on his Twitter account. “It might have been spell-check,” said Vaughan.

A new wave of pandemic shutdowns may “have a greater impact on the health of Canadians” than the coronavirus, the Commons health committee was told. The remarks followed the Prime Minister’s direction that Canadians again stay home and avoid non-essential travel: “Millions of Canadians suffered.”

The Commons heritage committee has passed a bill to proclaim a paid legal holiday, but only for federally-regulated employees. Private companies that operate under the Canada Labour Code estimated costs at $600 million: “Understand what a paid holiday means.”

MPs have abused free lunch privileges at taxpayers’ expense, the former chair of the Commons government operations committee said yesterday. Legislators debated the ethics of enjoying free food while constituents grapple with a recession and pandemic: “If we’re going to talk about cutting down on costs, let’s go all the way.”

Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna yesterday acknowledged the taxpayer-owned Canada Infrastructure Bank has not completed any projects since it was established in 2017. McKenna said the Bank “absolutely does need to deliver” after receiving $35 billion: “I have high expectations.”

Newly-disclosed records confirm Health Minister Patricia Hajdu used a federal jet eleven times even as her department told Canadians to avoid non-essential travel. Hajdu’s office had previously admitted to only half as many flights, and yesterday had no comment: “Think again and stay home.”