Hoteliers yesterday said they’ve won federal approval for a pilot project to fill labour shortages with new immigrants. Earlier cuts to hiring of temporary foreign workers left the industry with critical shortages, said the Hotel Association of Canada: “It’s very real.”
Top tax rates for high-income earners have become a competitiveness issue, the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada yesterday told the Commons finance committee. Seven of ten provinces – all but Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario – now tax top earners at 50 percent or more: ‘It’s the overlooked part.’
The Commons health committee yesterday considered regulatory curbs on the sale of caffeinated alcohol. The debate followed the March 1 death of a Québec schoolgirl: “We’ve been complaining about these products for 6 or 7 years.”
Federal Court managers say they have disciplined an employee for editing a plaintiff’s Wikipedia page amid ongoing legal proceedings. Administrators did not say if the misconduct was directed by a lawyer in Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould’s department.
“Disciplinary measures were taken against the employee,” Daniel Gosselin, chief administrator of the Courts Administration Service, said in a statement. “The measures taken took into consideration the employee’s wrongdoing”; “I would like to confirm the employee is not an officer of the Court” – meaning a judge, court clerk or lawyer, said Gosselin (original emphasis).
The Court would not name the Wikipedia editor, or detail what discipline was taken. Federal employees on duty are restricted from using government computers for anything but official business under a Treasury Board Guideline On Acceptable Network And Device Use.
The Court confirmed on December 21, 2016 a courthouse computer was used to edit a Blacklock’s Reporter Wikipedia page. The edits occurred within 90 minutes of the release of a Federal Court cost award against Blacklock’s in a copyright case. The decision was not publicly accessible at the time.
A judge ordered Blacklock’s to pay $65,000 in costs after unsuccessfully suing the Department of Finance for breach of the Copyright Act. The department had knowingly distributed password-protected news stories without payment or permission.
Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould in a letter to Blacklock’s said Court staff must operate “at arm’s length from the government”, and declined comment on the incident. Access To Information memos indicated Department of Justice staff were puzzled by the Wikipedia edits. “Who could have made the change?” wrote one staffer.
“Christmas Came Early”
Records indicated a Department of Justice lawyer, Alexandre Kaufman, received the cost award at 1:32 pm and within minutes emailed it to 22 people including two Ottawa bloggers, a media columnist for the Globe & Mail, two private law firms, two government communications officers, the University of Western Ontario and several federal attorneys.
“Christmas came early,” Kaufman wrote in his emails; “Please enjoy”; “A most interesting read”; “For your reading pleasure”. The Wikipedia edits occurred in the same time period that Kaufman was blitzing commentators with email messages that continued from 1:51 pm to 7:01 pm that evening, and resumed the next morning.
The Courts Administration Service is exempt from the Access To Information Act and would not release details of the Wikipedia editing. “We strive to be exemplary in everything we do,” the Service wrote in its latest Annual Report; “Judicial independence is a cornerstone of the Canadian judicial system.”
A 2017 Department of Justice memo Judicial Independence And The Courts stressed “courts must be independent”, including routine business matters. Administration is a “pillar of judicial independence”, including “administrative decisions that bear directly and immediately on the exercise of judicial function, e.g….direction of court staff,” said the memo prepared for a Deputy Ministers’ Committee on Governance.
By Staff 
The Department of Natural Resources says it’s still calculating costs to homeowners from a plan to mandate energy retrofits of existing properties. One federal researcher told the Senate energy committee it could average $35,000: “There will be a cost analysis done on that.”
The Department of Canadian Heritage in an Access To Information memo estimates its $10 million-a year journalism fund would create 80 jobs. A total eight daily newspapers have folded in Canada in the past decade: ‘They noted the challenge.’
The Auditor General is citing the Department of Transport for poor oversight of a Crown corporation, the nation’s only federally-owned coal terminal. Management at Ridley Terminals Inc. of Prince Rupert, B.C. hired and spent in breach of the Financial Administration Act: “This is the problem with big government.”
The Commons has passed a bill mandating Australian-style plain packaging of tobacco. MPs noted no similar restrictions apply to marijuana: “The tobacco industry has few options left.”
Just enough snow
to cover roads
with slime.
I listen to the radio,
weighing my options.
Innes Road bumper to bumper.
Rockliffe a parking lot.
Riverside brought to a halt.
Montreal Road a bottleneck.
On 417, a crawl.
On the bridges, chaos.
Easy to choose when informed.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
Employers yesterday appealed to the Senate social affairs committee to permit random workplace drug testing under a bill to legalize cannabis. The Supreme Court five years ago ruled companies could not randomly test employees without cause or consent: “Are we ready?”
A federal whistleblowers’ investigator yesterday told the Commons government operations committee the number of allegations of government wrongdoing increased 81 percent last year. Public Sector Integrity Commissioner Joe Friday said he had to hire more staff: “We will be hitting a wall.”
A European trade pact cost Canadians more than half a billion dollars in higher prescription drug fees, the Parliamentary Budget Office yesterday reported. Health Canada managers earlier acknowledged higher drug prices, but stopped short of detailing figures: “I think we’re stuck with it.”
Members of the Commons industry committee yesterday questioned the fairness of treatment for authors and publishers under the Copyright Act. The Association of Canadian Publishers said licensing fees fell 89 percent under a provision of the Act that permits free photocopying for educational purposes: “We are suffering real time damage.”
The Commons trade committee yesterday recommended Canada charge the GST on sales by internet vendors. Tax-free status for eBay sellers and other foreign electronic retailers is unfair to Canadian business, said the committee chair: “There has to be some sort of responsibility.”
Police have all the tools they need to enforce new federal regulations permitting home cannabis cultivation, a Liberal MP yesterday told the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee. The testimony by MP Bill Blair, former Toronto police chief, was contradicted by law enforcement: “You are one of the only police officers to tell us that.”
