The Bank of Canada will not disclose cost savings from the wind-up of the Canada Savings Bond program. The Bank earlier hired a consultant at $33.5 million to end the century-old sale of mom and pop bonds worth as little as $100 apiece: “We don’t have a dollar amount to provide.”
A federal judge has upheld a six-year grievance by a Canadian Armed Forces member seeking compensation for injuries. The ruling follows a 2018 federal survey that faulted the Department of Veterans Affairs for poor treatment of soldiers, sailors and air crew.
“Unreasonable treatment,” Federal Court Justice Richard Southcott ruled in the case of an army volunteer denied disability payments for a back injury. The Court ordered the Veterans Review & Appeal Board to reconsider the case after dismissing the claim in 2018.
Gary Crummey, 52, of East Bay, N.S. applied for benefits after suffering a fractured spine in a fall from a rope bridge while training as a peacekeeper in Egypt in 2008. Crummey served with the military from 1983.
Crummey submitted X-rays and a doctor’s report that his injuries were related to military service and likely aggravated by marches and battle fitness testing that required carrying heavy packs over long distances. The Board dismissed the claim as “very speculative”, ruling it “does not have to accept all evidence presented by an appellant if it finds the evidence is not credible,” according to Court documents.
“If a person has experienced more than one-service related incident, each of which could be the cause of the injury under consideration such that a physician cannot identify which of these incidents is the precise cause, surely this cannot be a basis to find the physician’s opinion is lacking credibility,” wrote Justice Southcott.
Crummey could not be reached for comment. The Court noted under the Veterans Review & Appeal Board Act, members are to “resolve in favour of the appellant any doubt in the weighing of evidence as to whether the appellant has established a case.”
The Department of Veterans Affairs in a 2018 in-house survey of the general public found only 15 percent of respondents considered the department’s work as adequate. “There is a strong sense that Veterans Affairs Canada should be doing more,” said the survey report Canadians’ Awareness Of Veterans Affairs Canada’s Benefits And Services. The department paid $102,513 to Earnscliffe Strategy Group to conduct the poll.
“Opinion remains divided over how well Veterans Affairs Canada serves the needs of veterans,” wrote Earnscliffe. “However, more Canadians offer low performance ratings than high performance ratings.”
Data showed 28 percent of Canadians believe the department treats veterans poorly; 32 percent questioned if the department is honest with ex-military; and 39 percent were convinced veterans with medical needs were not getting they help they needed.
The research was prompted by complaints from veterans who “find it difficult at times to navigate the programs and services offered by Veterans Affairs Canada,” said Awareness. The department has had five different ministers in the past four years.
By Staff 
House of Commons administration is being honoured as one of the country’s best employers despite paying out-of-court settlements in staff harassment claims that cost more than $100,000 last year. Neither the Commons nor managers of the Canada’s Top Employers award would comment: ‘It’s a rich fabric of professionals working together.’
The Department of Industry has reassured corporations of no “repercussions for our relationship” in concealing terms of taxpayers’ loans from MPs, senators and the public. The apologetic reference is detailed in Access To Information records. The department did not comment: ‘We let big corporations decide.’
Any free trade pact with Beijing is off the table after the arrest and detention of Canadians in the People’s Republic, says Ambassador John McCallum. “It is certainly not an issue that we are considering right now,” McCallum told reporters: “The Chinese government arrests people to use as bargaining chips.”
Ontario’s public broadcaster TVO seeks a federal injunction against public appearances by a parody of its children’s program mascot, Polkaroo. The character Tokaroo carries a marijuana joint and has bloodshot eyes: “Tokaroo is already famous.”
The Commons foreign affairs committee by a 5 to 4 vote yesterday rejected public hearings on the arbitrary detention of Canadians in China. The committee’s Liberal majority opted instead for a closed-door hearing for fear that “inadvertently things come out”, said one MP.
Federal tobacco tax revenues fell by $117 million in the past four years even as Parliament hiked taxes more than 30 percent. New data are detailed in Health Canada tables disclosed yesterday by anti-smoking advocates: “Are people dealing in contraband tobacco? Yes they are.”
Access To Information records detail hundreds of complaints of long lineups for security screening at an airport dubbed the slowest in the country, Saskatoon. Complaints to the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority described service as “horrific”, “outrageous”, “ridiculous” and “embarrassing”.
A taxpayer who went years without filing a return has escaped penalties despite getting a call from the Canada Revenue Agency. The Federal Court ruled auditors failed to do their homework under a so-called Voluntary Disclosure Program: “The decision is best described as sparse.”
The Prime Minister’s Office yesterday would not divulge what gifts it gave former governor general David Johnston a month before unilaterally appointing him Debates Commissioner for the 2019 election. One of Johnston’s predecessors asked that a mountain be named for him. Others sought millions for namesake foundations, according to Access To Information records: ‘The personal gift is presented on behalf of the PM’.
The Department of Foreign Affairs in an Access To Information memo says an unnamed Canadian corporation has been federally blacklisted for unethical practices. The sanction was imposed only once, said the memo: ‘When a company is not collaborating, it may lead to consequences.’
Federal lawyers are attempting to curb an investigation of alleged systemic discrimination at a government office that claims the best record on employment equity, according to Court files. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ordered the probe last November 29: ‘Racism, harassment and discrimination are prevalent.’
The National Energy Board is offering employees free driver training courses at taxpayers’ expense. Damage claims involving drivers of Crown vehicles across all federal departments and agencies last year cost more than $17 million: ‘This includes awareness of traffic laws.’
Newly-appointed Attorney General David Lametti in a paper written as a McGill law professor defended blatant music piracy as ethical “whatever the law”: “Everyone is doing it,” he wrote. Lametti yesterday did not comment.
“Everyone is doing it, and it is not necessarily theft, piracy or even wrong,” Lametti wrote in a 2011 paper The Virtuous P(eer): Reflections On The Ethics Of File Sharing. “It may be beneficial to one’s emotional and social development, and thus justified, ethical and virtuous.”
MPs are conducting a statutory review of the Copyright Act to curb costly theft blamed for billions in losses. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce in a submission to the Commons industry committee called Canada a world leader in online copyright theft.
Lametti published the paper as director of McGill’s Centre for Intellectual Property Policy. “Listening to music helps to inspire new forms of music,” he wrote. “In some cases, blatant copying is part of the picture”; “I am mindful as well of a powerful argument that copyright rights, and the stringent enforcement of them, actually stifles creativity.”
Neither Lametti nor the Prime Minister’s Office would discuss the remarks. Lametti in a separate 2005 Montreal Gazette commentary complained of those who “kowtowed to copyright rights-holders”, adding: “No work is truly original in the abstract. All artists borrow a little bit.”
“If you are in the habit of sampling music in order to decide what music you will later purchase, this practice is ethically justifiable,” Lametti wrote in Ethics Of File Sharing: “If you do purchase, you should be able to expect, whatever the license agreement, that you can make a copy”; “My strong ethical intuition is that one should never put up a digital barrier or fence around music, whatever the law might allow” (original emphasis).
Composers and distributors contacted yesterday by Blacklock’s would not criticize Lametti by name. One executive speaking on condition of anonymity said Lametti’s appointment appeared to be an election-year expediency: “The Liberals needed a guy from Québec.”
“Creators Are Being Hammered”
“Intellectual property protections are the only way creators are properly compensated,” the Songwriters Association of Canada said in a statement. A stronger Act affects “our ability to make a middle-class living”, it said.
The Department of Industry in a 2018 Study Of Online Consumption Of Copyrighted Content: Attitudes Toward And Prevalence Of Copyright Infringement In Canada found 26 percent of Canadians surveyed admitted to illegally accessing music, e-books and software. Asked why, respondents replied it was easy to do (39 percent); “It’s only fair” (26 percent); “It’s what everyone does” (24 percent); and “I should be able to share my content with whomever I choose” (19 percent).
“Creators are being hammered from all sides, from minimizing streaming income to piracy,” Damhnait Doyle, vice-president of the Songwriters Association, said in testimony last June 7 at the Commons heritage committee. “Everybody is getting paid in the music industry. They are. The only people not getting paid are creators.”
“The middle class of creators has been eviscerated at this point,” said Doyle. “I know only one musician in Toronto who’s bought a house in the last ten years. Most cannot pay their rent, let alone go to the dentist.”
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce in a November 5 submission to the Commons industry committee said the current Copyright Act is “insufficient to deal with these new threats”: “Canada is now one of the highest consumers of global web streaming piracy,” said Scott Smith, senior director of intellectual property policy with the Chamber. “The economic harm caused by online piracy is all too real.”
Lost royalties total $12 billion in the period from 1999 to 2018 according to Music Canada, a trade group.
By Staff
