The Commons industry committee has rejected hearings on the impact of a $50 carbon tax on manufacturing. An ongoing Senate investigation has already heard testimony that 13% of factory owners surveyed will move investments out of the country if the tax is imposed as planned: “Why would I come to Canada?”
A human rights tribunal will investigate whether workplace drug bans discriminate against licensed marijuana users. The British Columbia case comes as cabinet drafts 2017 legislation legalizing cannabis nationwide: “We are entering a new era”.
A federal tax credit for transit users has not increased ridership despite costing more than $200 million a year, data show. Ridership is driven by unemployment rates, not the 15% tax credit, said the Canadian Urban Transit Association: “In the past year ridership has remained stagnant”.
Taxpayers who challenge city assessments face a risk of paying even more under a Supreme Court ruling, say a minority of justices. The Court in a 5-4 decision upheld a municipal tax agency’s right to raise an assessment 78 percent after the landowner complained: “The majority is what counts”.
Environment Canada will not require cosmetics companies to submit compliance reports over use of a banned additive. Scofflaws using environmentally toxic micro-plastics may receive a warning, officials said: “The onus would be on the importer”.
Conservative senators were pressured into passing two union bills in 2014 and 2015, says a former caucus member. The first-hand account yesterday in the Senate is the first public confirmation of lobbying to push the bills through Parliament: “That was a choice you made”.
Cabinet within months will introduce an airline passenger rights bill promising compensation for flight delays and lost luggage. Parliament twice rejected similar private bills in the past eight years: “The Americans are way ahead on this”.
More than 1 in 10 manufacturers surveyed will move investments out of Canada if cabinet imposes a 2018 carbon tax, a trade group has told the Senate energy committee. Taxes set at $10 per tonne of carbon emissions will rise to $50 per tonne by 2022: “There is nothing holding anyone here”.
Canada Post’s pension deficit, the largest in the country, is a “big weight” on the Crown corporation’s viability, says the chair of a federal task force. “There is no magic bullet,” Françoise Bertrand yesterday told a Commons committee. A memo earlier described the $8.1 billion pension shortfall as a crisis: “The profit will be quickly lost”.
Railways will be required to install video and voice recorders in locomotives as a safety measure, says Transport Minister Marc Garneau. Rail union representatives cautioned the order must protect employees from management surveillance: “Privacy is the law of the land”.
Cabinet will introduce legislation by July 1, 2017 to restore full environmental protections in the Fisheries Act. Conservative amendments enacted four years ago were “an abuse of process”, said Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc: “I recognize the frustration that people have”.
Hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting pension beneficiaries will now receive federal cheques. Cabinet yesterday enacted regulations promising automatic enrollment in the Old Age Security program. The government previously pocketed more than $1 billion a year in unclaimed seniors’ benefits: ‘Some of these poor souls couldn’t afford food’.
The Department of Natural Resources billed taxpayers the equivalent of more than $600 an hour to have employees attend a seminar on how to write “punch-packing” memos. The spending was disclosed in Access To Information documents: “Why should you attend?”
The Canadian Coast Guard’s icebreaking capacity is so precarious it’s unreliable in icy conditions, a shippers’ lobbyist has told the Senate fisheries committee. The testimony follows Access To Information records indicating the Coast Guard has had to ration fuel: ‘Russia is way ahead of the game’.
Canadian regulators should have a duty of care to companies damaged by unfair trade practices, says an Atlantic exporter. The firm unsuccessfully sued the Canadian Food Inspection Agency for failing to enforce trade terms in a multi-million dollar dispute with Venezuela: “What is the function of the Agency?”
