The Senate has given Second Reading to a bill mandating greater disclosure by the Canada Revenue Agency. Senators described the Agency as ineffectual and untrustworthy: “There is something wrong at the Agency.”
Finance Minister Bill Morneau yesterday said cabinet has fully costed its decision to nationalize the Trans Mountain pipeline, but would not disclose figures when asked 12 times by members of the Senate national finance committee. “I don’t have the exact number in my head,” said Morneau.
The chair of the Senate transport and communications committee yesterday accused the CBC of over-reaching its Broadcasting Act mandate as a de facto internet newspaper. The remarks came as cabinet launched a review of the 1991 Act: “I don’t know how you guys handle that.”
Environment Minister Catherine McKenna yesterday said cabinet is still calculating the cost of oil and gas company subsidies one year after the Auditor General cited officials for concealing records. “Difficult things are difficult,” McKenna told the Commons environment committee.
A former Bank of Nova Scotia employee in a Federal Court lawsuit alleges he was fired for legally growing cannabis at home. The Federal Court of Appeal earlier ordered the Canadian Human Rights Commission to review a similar complaint over Bank policy: “The government is rushing to get cannabis legalization in place without wanting to talk about the details.”
Newspaper publishers yesterday blamed federal advertising policy in part for the loss of 16,500 journalism jobs in the last decade. Federal agencies tripled their spending on Facebook ads last year even as Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly lamented the state of local media: “We’ve lost over 20 percent of the newspapers in Saskatchewan over the past two years.”
Canada Post secretly commissioned six separate studies and reports on postal banking, according to an Inquiry Of Ministry tabled in the Commons. The research was conducted over a five-year period: “The six reports looked at whether or not postal banking had potential.”
The Canada Border Services Agency searches thousands of iPhones, laptops and other electronic devices annually, say Access To Information records. A disproportionate number of inspections occur in British Columbia. The Agency did not explain why: “These are personal things.”
Small business start-ups create more than a quarter-million jobs a year but suffer a high attrition rate, says new Department of Industry research. Data show 30 percent of new retailers and 33 percent of restaurants fold within three years: “If a business starts small, its potential for future growth is very limited.”
Cabinet will again delay enactment of a new food safety law until 2019, nearly seven years after Parliament passed the bill. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency did not account for the unusual delay: ‘It’s highly complex, to say the least.’
Health Canada proposes to more than double fines for improper pesticide use after concluding current penalties are too paltry. Fines on corporations for very serious violations of federal law are as little as $4,000: “That’s really concerning.”
The Government of Canada spent more than a million dollars on the malicious tax prosecution of a family-owned restaurant, say Access To Information records. Department of Justice spending totaled $946,622. It did not include the cost of an ongoing appeal of a Court ruling that cited auditors for “high-handed, reprehensible and malicious” conduct: “A million dollars is an awful lot of money to spend on a court case.”
A labour arbitrator has ordered Canada Post to compensate rural and suburban mail carriers for pay inequity. Canada Post was found to pay rural carriers – mainly women – $15,000 to $20,000 less per year than male counterparts for comparable work: “Okay, let’s test this.”
Federal consultants propose a ban on new suburban development within 300 metres of rail lines. Authorities said 1,252 people have been killed or seriously injured on the tracks in the past decade: “The numbers speak for themselves.”
The Commons has rejected a private Conservative bill to compel Industry Canada to disclose terms of all taxpayers’ loans and guarantees to private corporations. Federal aid for business totals $5.5 billion this year, by official estimate: “My God.”
