The Department of Health yesterday said it’s worried about the nation’s food supply. Farmers have complained delays in allowing migrant workers into Canada may upset fruit, vegetable and greenhouse production: “Food security in particular is a topic of great concern for the government.”
MPs yesterday complained hurriedly-announced federal pandemic relief programs have strings attached that disqualify Canadians they were intended to help. Cabinet has yet to spell out regulations for billions in Covid-19 relief: “It makes no sense.”
The Department of Industry in an Access To Information report claims self-regulation of the internet is “inadequate” and warns Parliament must police content. The 2019 memo predates a January 29 proposal to create a first-ever national registry of internet news websites: “Those words scare the hell out of me.”
A pandemic wage subsidy for small business will be expanded to include large corporations, cabinet said yesterday. Subsidies for just five percent of the nation’s workforce would cost $11 billion: “These costs keep climbing.”
A federal biometric program to compile a fingerprint database on visa applicants has gone millions over budget, according to the Department of Immigration. Auditors found the program also identified few criminals: “Will the use of biometrics be used for mass surveillance?”
Federal regulators in an embarrassing admission yesterday said they mistakenly published confidential records of two telecom companies on a CRTC website. The Commission asked that any internet users who downloaded the secret data immediately identify themselves: ‘Release would provide competitors with invaluable information.’
A Crown bank tapped by cabinet to issue pandemic relief credit says it is overwhelmed. The admission follows complaints loan applicants to the Business Development Bank of Canada have been buried in paperwork: “So far it is pretty bad.”
Two Ontario MPs are donating their 2020 pay raise to the Salvation Army and a local women’s shelter. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation urged all parliamentarians to follow suit in donating a $2.5 million pandemic pay raise to charities: “People are losing their jobs.”
The Public Health Agency for the first time is acknowledging “imminent shortages” of pandemic supplies. The Agency did not explain why it ignored a 2011 auditors’ report to stock up: “Yes, there are imminent shortages or issues in the hospitals.”
A second wave of Covid-19 infections could be much worse than current rates, suggests federal research into Canada’s last major pandemic. The Public Health Agency has acknowledged successive waves may see the pandemic continue into next winter: “It’s definitely months — many months.”
Canada may see three million unemployed by Labour Day, fully fifteen percent of the workforce, says the Parliamentary Budget Office. It would be the highest jobless rate since the 1983 recession. The Bank of Canada would not comment on whether a deep recession is already underway: “It’s just a number.”
The leader of the largest group in the Senate is accused of political score-settling in the midst of a pandemic. The chamber rejected oversight hearings on federal pandemic programs after Senator Yuen Pau Woo (B.C.) refused to allow ex-Liberal Caucus members a seat on committees: “I control the largest group.”
Google Street View
takes me places.
It’s my first visit to the city.
Wide roads, bustling with cars,
trams,
pedestrians.
Modern high-rise buildings,
tall enough to impress,
not so tall as to intimidate.
Cleanliness.
I zoom into stores’ showcases,
wonder about the bikes
along the sidewalks
(so many of them are unchained!)
A young couple
is standing by the counter
at the ice cream and doughnut shop.
They seem to be talking to each other,
perhaps discussing the selection.
A beauty salon, or a spa,
offers hair removal, massage, yoga.
In a narrow alley,
potted plants in front of every door.
Small restaurants advertise their menus
in colourful pictures.
It’s partially cloudy,
but the sunlight is bright.
I see a woman
holding an umbrella
to protect from the rays.
On the walls of the YMCA –
an illustration of Noah’s Ark, with
silhouettes of people and animals
saved from the catastrophe.
It’s a nice, ordinary day,
in Hiroshima, 2014.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
A feared shortage of pandemic supplies comes nine years after federal auditors specifically warned the Public Health Agency to stock up. A 2011 audit noted the Agency spent nearly twice as much leasing warehouse space than it did buying needed supplies: ‘It is an insurance policy.’
MPs yesterday questioned an airport loophole in a quarantine rule that allows international arrivals to immediately board domestic connecting flights. Health Minister Patricia Hajdu suggested passengers carry masks in case they’re stricken with the coronavirus mid-flight: “You can’t go to the grocery store but you can sit beside someone on an Air Canada flight from Toronto to Vancouver?”
