Canadian diplomats billed taxpayers more than $1.7 million on gardening and swimming pool maintenance at missions abroad, documents show. Foreign Minister Stéphane Dion in a report to Parliament described the work as “vital”.
Health Canada is funding $400,000 in research on the incidence of childhood asthma due to air pollution. It follows a 2016 finding that more Canadians die from diesel exhaust than from walking into traffic: “We know there is a connection”.
Canada pushes
for an extradition treaty
with China.
A problematic agreement.
The Chinese may want to know
that sending a woman back to Canada
means she will be treated fairly by the police,
by the court;
that drinking water will be provided
in her First Nations reserve;
that her meals will include
fresh produce;
that her kids won’t be taken away
to a residential school;
and that her name won’t become an entry
in the list of missing and murdered
Aboriginal women.
Or she may be better off
in China.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
Blacklock’s Reporter today pauses for Remembrance Day observance with gratitude to all who honoured our country. Thank you for your service — The Editor.
Nearly 90 billion litres of raw sewage and untreated wastewater have been dumped in waterways by municipalities in the past year, says Environment Canada. “No studies have been done or are ongoing regarding the impact,” the department wrote in notice.
A Crown corporation has again spent public funds on pro sports tickets despite a 2015 cabinet directive to halt the practice. Staff at Farm Credit Canada billed taxpayers for 28 game tickets to see the hometown Saskatchewan Roughriders: “This is public money”.
A federal contractor is threatening to sue the public works department after being publicly blacklisted for tax evasion. The company is the third to unwittingly breach a little-known 2015 policy in which firms that plead guilty to tax offences are banned from public works for 10 years: “We’re going to sue”.
Federal agencies continue to spend million a year on taxis, almost all of it shuttling between offices in Ottawa, according to accounts. Staff at Environment Canada booked only $20 worth of bus fares compared to $14,447 on cabs, though the department officially encourages taxpayers to cut greenhouse gas emissions by using transit: “There is a bit of irony”.
The foreign ministry solicited more than a quarter-million dollars from corporations to sponsor Canada Day banquets at a trade mission in Mumbai, say Access To Information memos. Staff even sought cash from a subsidiary of SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., though a federal ethics code forbids soliciting donations from companies “charged, convicted or sanctioned for bribery”.
The Department of Canadian Heritage in confidential memos warns that wolves are at the door of the nation’s largest daily newspaper chain, and its competitors are not far behind. The 2016 memos were obtained through Access To Information: “What is happening to Postmedia papers will now happen to the Globe & Mail and the Toronto Star in five years”.
Federal aid for social housing declined nearly eight percent last year, a cut of $17.7 million, according to accounts. The data follow remarks from the Minister responsible for Canada Mortgage & Housing Corp. that even additional funding will fail to meet demand: “Our aim is to hold the government’s feet to the fire”.
The Canada Revenue Agency must pay $25,000 in compensation for mistreating a longtime employee. A federal labour board ruled management was unfair and reckless in its dealing with a tax auditor made to wait days at his desk for instructions and denied permission to attend a Christmas party before he was finally fired in 2015: “The injury to his dignity and self-esteem was tremendous”.
A small-town pizzeria has won a Tax Court judgment against false claims it failed to pay the GST. The Court cited Revenu Québec for high-handed misconduct over a two-year audit that began with a take-out pizza: “This case highlights a serious flaw in our judicial system”.
Canada is being duped on climate change initiatives as polluting Chinese factories dump product here, says a Conservative MP. The remarks came as the Commons trade committee opened hearings on unfair trade practices by Chinese steel mills: “I can’t believe you’re not thinking about this”.
The Commissioner of Official Languages is spending nearly a quarter-million dollars on private investigators to probe bilingualism complaints. The office has 27 investigators on staff: ‘This is to handle 500 complaints?’
