A Conservative bill to grant school boards nearly $200 million in new annual tax rebates faces defeat in the Commons. MPs yesterday rejected the bill on a voice vote, and deferred a formal recorded vote till October 19: “Do the right thing”.
Cabinet contemplates a “clean-up” of the way it awards billions in contracts, according to Access To Information documents. The Treasury Board in a 2015 memo complained current practices are slow, costly and pointlessly complex: “Policy is outdated and has not been renewed since the late 1990s”.
The public works department faces trial on allegations it broke the law in awarding a multi-million dollar Canadian contract to a foreign company. The Seafarers International Union described the case as disturbing: “The government is charged with ensuring the law is enforced”.
Two abandoned Nova Scotia vessels have cost more than $1.2 million in salvage and cleanup costs, according to Federal Court documents. MPs have proposed tighter regulation forcing ship owners to pay: “Wow, are these boats going to be here forever?”
Taxpayers are stuck with 75 percent of the cost of a 2017 hockey tribute after private fundraisers failed to find enough sponsors, records show. Organizers propose to install a hockey-themed monument near the Prime Minister’s Office: “The impact of the project is not diminished”.
Federal agencies have spent the equivalent of nearly $60,000 a week on polling and focus group interviews, new accounts show. MPs had criticized the practice in the last Parliament: “We need a really big basket”.
The Department of Agriculture is spending $61,000 to research food labels as MPs consider tightening regulations. Authorities should know which consumers read labels and why, the department said: ‘Many question why government should resist providing consumers with more information’.
Alberta RCMP are issuing a $100,000 contract to control rodents at a national police dog kennel best known for its annual Name The Puppy contest. Exterminators are to be on the lookout for rats – Alberta claims to be mainly rat-free since 1951 – though mice are a greater menace, the Mounties said: “It’s a never-ending battle”.
Property rights are not absolute, the Supreme Court of Prince Edward Island has ruled. Municipalities are entitled to restrict “tasteless or even ghastly” property fixtures that affect land values, the Court said: ‘Pretending is generally not a good way to deal with a municipality’.
Canada must adopt aggressive control measures to stem the spread of the mountain pine beetle, says a Department of Natural Resources scientist. The beetle is blamed for destroying thousands of acres of forest in its eastward migration from British Columbia: “It’s a numbers game”.
If your name happens to be
Justin Trudeau, Justin Bieber, or
Justin Timberlake,
everyday Canadians
would be thrilled to take your picture
and
have a selfie with you.
For those less popular,
like the Environment Minister on an official trip to
Europe,
there is always a photographer for hire
– $6,600 for two weeks –
to be paid in full
by the same everyday Canadians.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
A federal watchdog counts hundreds of financial institutions that have failed to comply with regulations on reporting large cash transactions, say Access To Information records. Courts earlier cited the Financial Transactions & Reports Analysis Centre for imposing arbitrary five-figure fines on small business for technical breaches of the law: “We are left in the dark”.
The Senate is launching an investigation of foreign ownership of farmland. Hearings of the agriculture committee follow 2013 Access To Information memos in which regulators complained Canada has no central registry to track offshore ownership: “It could shape Canada”.
Federal statisticians have identified the warmest community in Canada. More than two-thirds of respondents, 68 percent, told researchers they have a strong sense of neighbourliness: “It’s a good feeling to live like this”.
Fish farming regulations are not stringent enough to protect wild species, says a study commissioned by the Atlantic Salmon Federation. The research rated aquaculture rules in Atlantic Canada the lightest of any region in the country: “No jurisdiction is meeting the bar”.
