The Bank of Canada has commissioned research on an “early warning model” for a housing collapse, according to Access To Information records. The Bank would not disclose findings, censoring virtually its entire 26-page file: ‘A housing bust probability is elevated.’
MPs are accused of meddling in a Health Canada proposal to ban a common pesticide. Environmental groups complained they were put on the “B-list” to testify at the Commons agriculture committee: “The thing smacks of political interference.”
MPs are summoning a senior Transport Canada official to answer a critical audit on motor vehicle safety. The Commons public accounts committee twice cancelled hearings after Deputy Transport Minister Michael Keenan failed to attend for questioning on complaints the department is too close to auto lobbyists: “It’s a question of accountability.”
Health Canada should consider doubling the retail price of cigarettes under a plan to halve the number of smokers by 2035, says the Canadian Cancer Society. Cigarettes currently cost about $12 for a pack of 25: “We’re not even close to reaching the limit.”
A federal labour board has dismissed a complaint by a prison guard fired after allegedly smuggling drugs to inmates. The decision follows Parliament’s 2015 passage of a Drug-Free Prisons Act: “It is doubtful that there is a prison in the world that is drug-free.”
Cabinet would consider expanding a multi-million dollar ethanol fuel mandate, says an Environment Canada document. Staff did not comment. Critics have described the ethanol regulation as a farmers’ subsidy with little environmental benefit: “The policy has failed to deliver value to Canadian taxpayers.”
A marijuana-fueled property rights protest has been dismissed by the Federal Court of Appeal. The judgment came in the case of a British Columbia trade school that objected to a licensed grower next door: “It is not for the courts to second-guess the policy choices made by Parliament.”
Cabinet has no count of dual Canadian citizens. The Department of Immigration in a Senate tabling said it has no estimate of how many residents carry two passports, or live abroad: “We want to make that information public.”
The Department of Natural Resources is commissioning an $85,000 survey of how many electric cars are on the road. Testimony at the Senate energy committee indicated Canada will not meet greenhouse gas emission targets even if sales quadrupled: “If there’s demand for plug-ins, there will be plug-ins.”
Commodity prices and not foreign speculators are the cause of rising farmland values, the Senate agriculture committee has been told. Legislators are reviewing whether to monitor foreign farm purchases nationwide: “The agriculture market as an industry became a lot sexier.”
I’ve heard
Jim Crow is still dancing
to amuse the Whites.
He’s the woman in Thailand,
hands in ice water
16 hours a day,
peeling shrimp.
At Walmart,
$10 a platter.
He’s the man in Bangladesh,
working the textile machine
with a thousand others
in an ill-constructed facility
built for half that many.
The midnight-blue polo shirt by Joe Fresh is a steal;
$16 at Loblaws.
He’s the child in the underground tunnels
of Congo’s mining industry
– no protective gear –
carrying rocks and washing the cobalt ores
for less than $2 a day
to power lithium-ion batteries in electric cars, laptops, and
smartphones.
I look at my old BlackBerry.
A touch-screen would be nice, and
iPhone 8 is coming this fall.
Black History Month is over.
Back to work.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
The Red Cross is being hired on a $1.8 million federal contract to monitor human rights in Canada Border Services Agency detention facilities. The Agency detains more than 6,000 people a year. The Red Cross will ensure federal employees are complying with the law: “We should be doing our own job, really.”
Corporations cannot invoke Charter rights to evade administrative penalties, says the Federal Court of Appeal. The ruling came in the case of a small Québec trucking company fined $9,000 for shipping injured livestock: “I apply the law.”
A Senate bill banning the capture and display of whales, dolphins and porpoises could damage marine research, says the Department of Fisheries. Legislators cited intense lobbying over the bill; one Senator said he’d received nearly 1,000 emails: “What is driving this?”
A monetary theorist has lost a legal bid to pay off old debts with a promissory note. Court of Queen’s Bench in Alberta blamed the failed scheme on a U.K. website and “preposterous” reading of a Library of Parliament report: “As Milton Friedman observed, There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.”
