Cabinet yesterday served notice it will eliminate Senate filibusters if re-elected October 21. The “government has withstood procedural obstruction” and proposes to ban the practice, said a report from the Government Representative in the Senate: “Limit purely procedural obstruction.”
The Canada Revenue Agency complains it must “improve the quality” of anonymous tipsters who call a federal snitch line to report tax cheats. Agency research found most taxpayers never heard of the service, and resented the program as an invitation to score-settling by nameless informants: “Don’t rat people out.”
A federal labour board has overturned a suspension given a Customs officer for colourful language on the job. There is no need to “dance daintily around the actual words that were used”, ruled the Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board: “Do you think I’m an idiot?”
The Liberal majority on the Commons ethics committee yesterday voted to block any further investigation of lobbying by SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. “You bet they are powerful,” said one MP: “Powerful men have powerful friends.”
Parks Canada is budgeting $100,000 to select new colours for its trademark green signs as part of a ‘brand refresh’. Replacing thousands of signs would cost another $40 million. The agency yesterday complained too many Canadians only think of parks when they hear of Parks Canada: “The full potential of the brand is not maximized.”
Cabinet yesterday sped final approval of environmental assessment regulations just eight weeks after Parliament passed legislation. Environment Canada said it had to meet a deadline to enact new rules by summer’s end: “We listened to everyone.”
A physician defamed in comments posted on a website RateMDs.com has been awarded $100,000 in costs and damages. An Ontario Superior Court judge described the internet posts as “derogatory and degrading”.
Co-chairs of a charity that received $250,000 in federal election-year funding for civic literacy tweeted “joy” over the Conservatives’ defeat in the last campaign, and said opponents of the carbon tax were “happy to have their grandchildren fry”. The Department of Canadian Heritage approved the grant: “Pay attention to the groups Mr. Scheer is in cahoots with!”
Environment Minister Catherine McKenna in a constituency commentary says the 12¢-a litre carbon tax will create thousands of jobs. The claim was attributed to a study whose author yesterday said there are limits to carbon tax benefits: “It is complicated.”
The Federal Court of Appeal has upheld denial of Employment Insurance benefits to a receptionist fired for drinking off-duty. The woman was employed by a British Columbia First Nation with an alcohol ban: ‘It showed little tolerance.’
Dinners out with a spouse are not deductible, Tax Court has ruled. The judgment came in the case of a Halifax couple who claimed thousands in write-offs “eating by themselves” where they claimed to discuss a family business that never turned a profit: “My wife and I talked about the business so that it would be included for tax purposes.”
One in five taxpayers, 20 percent, tell the Canada Revenue Agency it’s worth the risk to cheat on yearly returns, says in-house research. The Agency rated 13 percent of tax filers as “outlaws”, especially residents in two regions of the country: “I don’t think of tax cheating as a real crime.”
One federal department spent millions a year on new computers while it sold or scrapped near-new equipment at the same time. Auditors at the Department of Fisheries also cited management for pointlessly storing thousands of old hard drives for years, even decades: “Errors were found to be significant.”
A federal judge yesterday approved payment of one of the largest legal bills in Canadian history, a total $62 million in an out-of-court settlement with former Indian Day School students. “This was always a risky case,” wrote Federal Court Justice Michael Phelan: ‘Risk should be rewarded.’
Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien is months late in completing a promised review of federal plans to scoop bank records on some 1.5 million Canadians. Therrien’s office would not explain why it missed a June 21 deadline to report to the public: “Do you think there’s a problem there?”
