The $675 million-a year Public Health Agency of Canada was “caught flat-footed” by Covid-19 though it was created by Parliament for pandemic preparedness, the Canadian Medical Association said yesterday. Doctors confirmed medical supplies have been rationed after the Agency ignored repeated warnings to stock up: “They feel betrayed.”
Doctors and nurses yesterday appealed to the Commons health committee to have Parliament invoke the Emergencies Act. Only extraordinary federal powers can stem the tide of Covid-19, MPs were told: “A national crisis requires national leadership.”
Parks Canada has fallen $134 million behind in necessary repairs to national historic sites, says an internal report. The agency previously failed three federal audits in sixteen years for inadequate care of heritage properties including replacement of vandalized plaques: “There is very little in here for anybody in management to be proud of.”
A fifth of the Senate yesterday petitioned cabinet for subsidies to encourage jobless students to work on the farms this spring. The Department of Health has acknowledged it worries about “food security” due to shortages of migrant labour: “Students should learn more about the nature of agricultural work.”
Governor General Julie Payette has donated her $6,900 pay raise to charity but will not name the beneficiary. Payette won the raise as part of an across-the-board $2.5 million increase for MPs and senators April 1: “One cannot choose when hardship comes.”
Hope faded yesterday that Parliament will pass a $71 billion wage subsidy bill before Easter. Rebates are already too late for more than a third of small employers surveyed, said the Canadian Federation of Independent Business: “They will not be able to access it.”
The Department of Social Development yesterday advised seniors’ groups to transfer federal funding for bocce courts and ukulele lessons to pandemic relief programs. “We’re providing new flexibility,” said Seniors Minister Deborah Schulte.
MPs yesterday appealed to the Correctional Service of Canada to prevent any pandemic parole of convicts. Wardens count twenty of 14,000 inmates who have tested positive for Covid-19 to date at prisons in British Columbia, Ontario and Québec: “Anxiety is at an all-time high.”
An Ontario senator is recommending colleagues bang pots and pans at home after the Chamber voted itself into adjournment for a month. Senator Donna Dasko (Independent-Ont.) called it a symbolic call-out to doctors and nurses fighting the pandemic: “It’s a wonderful way to connect with people.”
A cabinet proposal to regulate plastic as toxic now makes no sense, a plastics manufacturer told the Commons finance committee. The Department of the Environment prior to the pandemic said it would list plastic along with asbestos and mercury as toxic under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act: “Masks, ventilators, hoses, intravenous bags, that sort of thing.”
More federal aid for corporate media is untenable amid mammoth pandemic-related job cuts in other industries, says Opposition Leader Andrew Scheer. A publishers’ lobby that earlier won a $595 million federal bailout complained of crashing advertising revenues: “There’s a lot of hurt out there.”
Canada Day may be cancelled, says the Department of Canadian Heritage. Public health officers have warned July 1 would coincide with an expected second wave of pandemic infections: ‘The top priority is health.’
Cabinet has replaced top management of the Crown-financed Canada Infrastructure Bank only nine weeks after MPs ordered an audit of all federal infrastructure spending. The Prime Minister gave no explanation: “If they know, they aren’t telling us.”
Any new pandemic relief bill must include the rollback of a fifty percent increase in the carbon tax, say Conservative MPs. House leaders are negotiating a return of Parliament into emergency session to pass a $71 billion wage subsidy bill: “We don’t believe it makes any sense.”
The federal prison system says it is considering release of some inmates due to fears of Covid-19 infection. Wardens have already suspended all public visits and temporary leave for 14,000 convicts “unless medically necessary”: “They don’t even know what is happening.”
