A federal initiative to harmonize labeling of hazardous chemicals, underway for five years, has seen the first regulations detailed. The program won’t be fully enacted till 2019: “There is a long transition period for this”.
The defence department is contracting for mass credit checks on all 90,000 civilian and military staff, the largest background check of its kind. The defence employees’ union called it an invasion of privacy: ‘We have members who peel potatoes; they’re going to sell secrets?’
Health Canada has lost a bid for blanket immunity under the Privacy Act for alleged breaches of personal information on 43,000 people. The Federal Court of Appeal said the department should face claims of liability over what staff dismissed as a paperwork error: “That is nobody’s business”.
A federal anti-terror agency has been cited in Court for the second time in weeks for arbitrarily fining businesses. The latest ruling followed a seven-year court battle by an Ontario realtor: “We are left in the dark”.
The federal Public Health Agency will spend nearly a million dollars on spot tests for contaminated meat at supermarkets in three provinces. Authorities said the audit was not intended as a check on slaughterhouse inspectors: “The Americans have been in the business of collecting this data for a while”.
Cabinet is expressing wariness over the constitutionality of a DNA privacy bill, says its Commons sponsor. The worry came as author of the bill, Senator James Cowan (Liberal-N.S.), was cited by the American Society of Human Genetics for his advocacy against genetic discrimination: “This is a real problem”.
Needle-in-haystack searches for money laundering are prompting a federal agency to more narrowly target investigations, say Access To Information records. The Financial Transactions & Reports Analysis Centre said it will use “demographic factors” in attempting to track criminals, typically involving cash transactions with $100 banknotes in certain cities: “These trends have important implications”.
A costly Public Safety plan to curb teenage smoking and drug abuse has been rated a failure by federal consultants. Researchers concluded teenagers were just as likely to smoke and drink regardless of the $1.56 million awareness program: “It is questionable”.
An Alberta company singled out by Health Canada says it will attempt to overturn a federal ban on commercial production of medicinal opium poppy. API Labs Inc. of Lethbridge said it’s hired an Ottawa lobbyist to press the case for poppy in the name of agricultural diversification: “We expected the federal government would support innovation and small business”.
Cabinet for the first time will automatically enroll deserving pensioners in the federal Old Age Security program effective November 1. The initiative follows disclosures that successive governments pocketed more than a billion a year in unclaimed benefits: “I can’t imagine what the government’s motivation would be for keeping that money”.
A “Made In Canada” campaign to promote homegrown manufacturers has been dropped two years after it was launched by cabinet. The industry department identified the patriotic appeal as top priority only a year ago, according to Access To Information records: “So what’ s been done?”
A Supreme Court ruling that expands the scope of workplace injury claims beyond a scientific standard of proof will benefit thousands of Canadian employees, say analysts. The Court upheld benefits claims by British Columbia lab workers diagnosed with breast cancer: “It’s very difficult to get compensation for those who develop life-ending illnesses”.
Health Canada has quietly passed amendments to drug laws that permanently ban all commercial production of opium. The initiative appeared to target a single company, endorsed by Alberta’s NDP government, that sought to grow opium poppy for pharmaceuticals: ‘It was establishing the groundwork to create a poppy industry in western Canada’.
The honourable premier had a nightmare:
His chief advisor could no longer advise him.
Waking up in sweat,
he realized this was a dream:
His iPhone was still next to him, ready as always
to answer his question:
“Siri, how shall I handle today’s crisis?”
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
The Supreme Court in a far-reaching judgment today expanded the legal standard on workplace health and safety liability. The ruling came in the case of British Columbia lab employees who suffered a mysteriously high rate of cancer though no “causal” link to workplace conditions was proven: ‘It was ordinary common sense’.
