Unions will gain rights to intervene in cross-border trade disputes, says cabinet. Labour has sought amendments to the Special Import Measures Act allowing unions to file unfair trade complaints: “Unions have the right to participate.”
An information commissioner has upheld a complaint over $2.50 in excess charges for processing an Access To Information request. Disputes over fees to obtain public records are “a permanent point of tension,” said Saskatchewan’s commissioner.
VIA Rail has won a three-year federal funding commitment to cover ongoing deficits. The Crown railway’s operating shortfall, currently $280 million a year, is projected to continue for at least another decade as management attempts to revamp the service: “Why can’t VIA make money?”
Canada’s first government bond program sold directly to consumers is ending in its 100th year. The Canada Savings Bond introduced as a patriotic loan program in 1917 is no longer worthwhile, said the Department of Finance: ‘I remember a woman who subscribed for a $1,000 bond and had it framed.’
Cabinet is abolishing a costly tax credit rated a failure despite billions in expenses. The 15 percent Public Transit Tax Credit will end effective June 30: “There has been a lot of debate over how useful it is.”
Federal contractors should be covered by whistleblower protection, the Commons committee on government operations has been told. Witnesses yesterday complained of an active federal blacklist of contractors who report wrongdoing.
“The system is set up to attack the whistleblower,” said Don Garrett, owner of D.R. Garrett Construction Ltd. of Hope, B.C. “There’s a 3-D process: it’s deny, delay and eventual destruction of the whistleblower, and I’ve lived it.”
MPs are conducting a statutory review of the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, the first since the law was introduced in 2007. Limited protections under the Act do not apply to federal contractors or 895,000 employees who work in federally-regulated industries – both deficiencies that should be corrected, witnesses said.
“I have lost my bonding status and my business is bankrupt,” said Garrett, a longtime plumbing contractor who complained the Department of Public Works concealed evidence of hidden asbestos on a 2008 job at the Kent penitentiary in Agassiz, B.C. “I was put out of business by the federal government,” he said.
“I was treated as a problem,” said Garrett, who said his company was placed on an “unofficial blacklist” after he challenged authorities. “Every effort was made to deny what happened and to punish me,” he said; “Where do I turn to now?”
Conservative MP Kelly McCauley (Edmonton West) described Garrett’s account as a “horror story”; “How do we protect private contractors working for the government so they can blow the whistle without having their lives ruined or seeing their companies blackballed?” said McCauley.
Duff Conacher, co-founder of the advocacy group Democracy Watch, gave MPs a 21,000-name petition appealing for whistleblower protection for contractors, federally-regulated employees, the RCMP and military. “Everyone needs to be protected including suppliers to the government,” said Conacher.
“Such protection is needed, not just for public sector workers but federally-regulated employees,” said Conacher; “You cannot have open government if whistleblowers are not protected fully and effectively.”
Conacher complained under the current Act there are no financial penalties against wrongdoers, and no method to name offenders. “You can hide people who are employed by the public who have done wrong,” said Conacher. “That’s just a bad idea.”
MPs have heard repeated testimony describing the Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner as weak, indifferent and ineffectual. The Office was earlier cited by the Federal Court of Appeal for breaching a whistleblower’s right to procedural fairness. The ruling came in the case of a Department of Employment claims investigator fired after complaining staff were awarded bonuses to disqualify legitimate employment insurance applications.
By Tom Korski 
Canadian steelmakers say cabinet must account for carbon emissions in combating the dumping of subsidized steel from polluting Chinese mills. Executives yesterday told the Commons trade committee a federal carbon tax would put Canadian plants at even greater disadvantage: “What happens with our competitors in China?”
Ninety percent of Syrian refugees let into Canada are unemployed, by official estimate. Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen said provinces must meet welfare costs for Syrians unable to find work: “Now there is a problem.”
Canadian cyber security enforcement is weak and police are considered ineffectual, says a Department of Public Safety report. The review of public and industry comments recommended stricter laws: ‘There is a lack of faith in law enforcement.’
Air Canada is in Federal Court to block release of what it claims are confidential records under the Access To Information Act. The case follows a 2015 lawsuit by Porter Airlines Inc. to prevent Transport Canada’s publication of safety audit reviews: “This is a highly competitive industry.”
French-speaking people are less financially literate than Anglophones, says the Canada Revenue Agency. Staff in an Access To Information report made the claim in attempting to explain the fact few Francophones follow the Agency on Twitter: “French Canadians discuss taxes less than English Canadians.”
Skeptical MPs are challenging the Canada Revenue Agency to sharpen its practices following a critical audit. The Commons public accounts committee yesterday examined findings the Agency spends months, even years processing tax disputes: “Taxpayers have no way of knowing how long they have to wait.”
Environment Canada is again researching methods to stop contamination from road salt. The department stopped short of reviving a 1995 proposal to list the substance as toxic.
“Environment Canada is such a wimpy organization,” said Kevin Mercer, founder of the watershed protection group Riversides. “If somebody says boo, they cower. The department is a shell and it’s an embarrassment.”
Canadian salt miners including K+S Windsor Salt Ltd. and Sifto Canada did not respond to interview requests. Industry and municipalities had protested earlier federal attempts to list road salt as a toxin under the Environmental Protection Act.
The Department of the Environment yesterday in a notice said it would spend $70,000 on research for municipalities to protect “salt vulnerable areas” including farms, forests and fish habitat. Environment Canada in 2015 urged that municipalities take voluntary steps to limit salt damage, such as storing all salt under protective cover.
“A comprehensive scientific assessment by Environment Canada determined that in sufficient concentrations, road salts pose a risk to plants, animals and the aquatic environment,” said the notice Guide For Management Of Salt Vulnerable Areas. The guide would promote “mitigation of impacts of road salts” on freshwater supplies, species at risk, aquatic life and natural habitat.
“The fact of the matter is all you have to do is look at the U.S. Environmental Protecton Agency which not only classified road salt as an environmentally toxic substance, but set limits for its usage,” said Riversides’ Mercer. “That’s more than Environment Canada ever got around to doing.”
Environment Canada in 1995 placed road salt on a “priority substance list”. Federal research in 2001 concluded salt posed a risk to “plants, animals, birds, fish and lake stream ecosystems and groundwater,” but stopped short of listing road salt as toxic. “Measures should be considered to reduce the overall use of chloride salts,” the department wrote sixteen years ago.
Ontario is the heaviest user of road salt in the country at more than 1.8 million tonnes annually, followed by Québec (1.5 million tonnes). Prairie provinces and British Columbia use the least road salt on a per capita basis.
Natural Resources Canada in a confidential 2013 report rated road salt a greater environmental risk than shale gas fracking. Salt was among “the largest risks to groundwater” alongside municipal landfills, industrial waste and fertilizer run-off, said the report Shale Gas Development In Canada: An NRCan Perspective.
By Jason Unrau
A Conservative bill introduced in the Commons would deny cabinet billions in federal revenue from any carbon tax mandated on the provinces. The private bill strips 5 percent GST collections from carbon taxes on fuel: “This is not fair.”
Federal regulators should sponsor a bigger “sustainable and responsible” seal hunt to restore Atlantic cod stocks, says the Commons fisheries committee. MPs acknowledged there is no Canadian scientific data confirming seals are to blame for declines in groundfish populations: “They don’t eat vegetables.”
