The Mounties in 1979 destroyed evidence on Nazi collaborators and suspected war criminals in Canada, newly-released records show. The misconduct was “similar to the destruction of police files on Nazis in South America,” said an internal federal report.
The Treasury Board is advising federal managers to avoid use of Liberal Party red in public service announcements. However the Board to date has not explained why it allows the Liberal 2025 election slogan “Canada Strong” in taxpayer-funded promotions: “It literally violates the Treasury Board rules.”
Airport screeners have bypassed a low-tech security check with the click of a button, according to evidence in a Federal Court hearing. The Court was told of one security guard who circumvented checks on airport employees “for the purpose of reducing the workload for herself.”
The Commons today takes up Second Reading of a bill compelling the Canada Revenue Agency to report yearly on all tax convictions and estimate of revenue lost to tax avoidance. The bill drafted by Senator Percy Downe (P.E.I.), a frequent critic of the Revenue Agency, passed the Upper House by unanimous vote last March 12: “If you hide your money overseas, your chances of being caught are very low.”
The world had more colour then,
The people had more to lose
And even more to live for.
But maybe the system has always been this myth.
Polished silver, laughter,
And the smell of tobacco smoke.
A nation rolling on iron ribbons
Towards something almost within reach.
Movement inured to privilege.
T Shirts as fig leaves.
In a nation that asks for handouts
To renovate a home on Sussex Drive.
Our end of the bargain is
At odds with this age.
Its eulogy heard in
The long wail of the train whistle.
By W.N. Branson
A quarter-century after a federal health minister declared tobacco was socially taboo, it so happens about 5.7 million Canadians still smoke. The Department of Industry still grants patents for improved cigarette rolling machines, and for many Indigenous Canadians cigarettes are “an important industry that helps to provide the needs of life,” writes journalist Jim Poling, Sr.
In Smoke Signals Poling documents tobacco’s role in the Canadian experience, and its long circuitous journey back to the First Nations peoples who first cultivated it. The result is a fascinating social history.
Once offered to 16th century European explorers as “a sacred plant linked to the spiritual world,” tax-free tobacco is today again “a central part of Native life,” says Poling. He is thinking not of healing circles but cigarette bootlegging.
Bonuses for executives in Housing Minister Gregor Robertson’s department averaged almost $20,000 each last year despite a housing crisis, records show. The department in a memo said high bonuses proved housing was “a Government of Canada priority.”
The internet was a winner since “we don’t have to throw a lot of cash in at this to make it happen,” then-Industry Minister John Manley told a confidential 1995 cabinet meeting called to discuss the worldwide web, newly-declassified records show. Two ministers advocated censorship of content: “The private sector is going to pay for virtually all of it.”
A Crown ferry service promises to buy Canadian next time after leasing its last new vessel through a Chinese shipyard. Management said it had a “very clear direction” not to charter another Weihai ferry: “They would ideally be built in Canada or at the very least would maximize Canadian content.”
Most First Nations are in breach of a federal law and Federal Court ruling that mandate disclosure of financial records, new Department of Indigenous Services figures show. “The law is still in effect,” said Senator Clément Gignac (Que.), who expressed frustration with federal managers’ lack of enforcement: “Did you comply?”
A federal agency 104 years after Alexander Graham Bell’s death is faulting the inventor of the telephone for his views on genetics. Revisionism by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board followed a 2019 directive by then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to review some 2,200 designations for offending omissions: “In Canadian history colonialism, patriarchy and racism are examples of ideologies and structures that have profound legacies.”
Housing Minister Gregor Robertson’s department has quietly dropped its longstanding promise to target a minimum 500,000 housing starts annually as the minimum required to restore affordability. The department is no longer focused on “housing unit counts,” it said.
Industry Minister Mélanie Joly yesterday told reporters she will soon have “good news” on investment in Canada by multiple American companies but would not discuss details. Joly five months ago similarly claimed an unnamed automaker had secret plans to export Canadian-made cars to the Middle East, without result: “What I have done in the United States is attract investment.”
Attorney General Sean Fraser yesterday declined comment on Access To Information records showing a Liberal appointee directed government employees to help Crown prosecutors in ongoing criminal cases. Fraser earlier told MPs a justice system free of political taint was one of “the most beautiful things about the country.”
The Procurement Ombudsman yesterday faulted Rideau Hall for breaking federal rules in awarding a five-figure IT contract. Ombudsman Alexander Jeglic has repeatedly complained of irregularities that see insiders “using the system.”
