Transport Canada next month will complete a year-long study of mandatory audio and video recorders in all railway locomotives, says a senior official. The research followed a fatal 2012 VIA Rail derailment that killed three crewmen: ‘We will make a recommendation’.
New federal funding for immunization programs should include tracking data on actual vaccination rates, says the Canadian Medical Association. Cabinet’s 2016 budget promises $25 million in new five-year grants: “No one is keeping track of this”.
The tentative Trans-Pacific Partnership offers negligible trade benefits at the expense of foreign reach over intellectual property, former BlackBerry CEO Jim Balsillie has told the Senate trade committee. The testimony follows sharp criticism of the pact by Unifor and Ford Motor Co. of Canada: “We keep getting fooled in these agreements”.
The Canada Border Services Agency is faulted for “outrageous” misconduct by senators pressing for new oversight of the customs service. A Senate bill would see appointment of an inspector general to investigate complaints at the Agency: “The pendulum has swung too far”.
Thousands of employees at 60 of Canada’s smallest federally-regulated airports face RCMP background checks under new security measures. Similar regulations at larger airports have seen employees fired without charge or trial for public marijuana use or consorting with alleged criminals: ‘Vulnerabilities could be exploited’.
A 2016 budget pledge of $200 million to clean up contaminated mines and industrial sites is a fraction of funds needed, say advocates. Remediation costs nationwide are put at more than $4.7 billion, according to a Finance Canada memo earlier obtained through Access To Information: “Costs are revised, generally upwards”.
The sponsor of a Senate bill to repeal property requirements for appointees says the initiative isn’t personal. Senator Dennis Patterson was ordered to repay $950-an hour legal fees he billed the Senate to clarify his own qualifications for appointment in 2009: “I’m not going to be a senator forever”.
Easter greetings to our friends and subscribers. Blacklock’s pauses for today’s federal holiday, and will return tomorrow — The Editor
Government lawyers do not have a constitutional right to golf weekend getaways, says the Federal Court of Appeal. The ruling ends a six-year battle by attorneys who complained that being on call the occasional Saturday breached their Charter rights: ‘There is no right to do as you please in all circumstances’.
A private bill mandating prominent labeling of added sugar in baby food, yoghurt and all other processed foods has been re-introduced in the Commons. It follows a Senate committee warning of an “obesity crisis” in Canada with per capita sugar consumption now at 151 pounds a year: ‘Ethically it is hard to oppose this’.
MPs have voted in principle to comply with a Supreme Court order sanctioning a union in the RCMP. One MP, a former Mountie, lamented the passing of police traditions under the bill permitting collective bargaining.
“Personally I believe the RCMP should not be unionized,” said Conservative MP Jim Eglinski (Yellowhead, Alta.), a 35-year Mountie; “There is not unanimous agreement within the RCMP as to becoming unionized; there is a group within the organization that wants to go that way.”
Bill C-7 An Act To Amend The Public Service Labour Relations Act complies with a 2015 court order that struck down an RCMP union ban as unconstitutional. The ruling followed years of appeals by the Mounted Police Professional Association of Canada. MPs yesterday passed the bill on Second Reading and referred it to hearings of the Commons public safety committee.
“I did not join up for the $4,800 a year but rather for the pride of serving our great country,” said Eglinski, who joined the force as a 19-year old constable in Williams Lake, B.C. in 1968; “We were all proud to serve, and we gave much to it in long hours without overtime. We got the job done with basic equipment, by doing it with pride. In those days some of our cars didn’t have radios.”
Bill C-7 allows 28,000 RCMP members to create the largest police union in the country, but with restrictions. Disciplinary and staffing decisions by management under an RCMP Code Of Conduct are exempt from arbitration; strikes are disallowed; and disputes are to be arbitrated by the same panel that hears other public employee grievances, the Public Service Labour Relations & Employment Board.
MP Eglinski lamented the loss of the Mounties’ traditional non-union grievance process that saw disputes raised through a Division Staff Relations Representative program. “There was a program I feel at one time worked extremely well,” he said; “We voted for those people and they represented us.”
“They argued for us; worked on discipline matters, internal matters, promotional matters; and when government listened to them, we were at the top level of Canadian police forces,” Eglinski said. “We did not say that we had to be number one; we just wanted to be at the top and to be fair. However things have gone down drastically.”
“Canada’s internationally-acclaimed police force should not be at the bottom of the pile,” he said. “It should be at the top.”
RCMP recruitment has fallen to 861 new cadets last year, less than half the 1,783 recruits accepted in 2009, by official estimate. Police earlier confirmed they have accepted cadets as old as 52.
The Mounties spent an average $1.2 million a year on national recruitment in the period from 2007 to 2015, according to accounts tabled in Parliament.
By Staff 
Air Canada is free to send maintenance jobs to the U.S. under cabinet amendments to a 1988 Act that privatized the airline. The changes follow a 2015 ruling by a Québec judge that Air Canada broke the law in transferring jobs to Duluth, Minnesota: “It’s unbelievable”.
Cabinet’s promised repeal of a bill sanctioning secret borrowing is winning praise in the Senate. The 2016 budget pledges to “enhance transparency” in federal spending.
“That’s exciting,” said Senator Wilfred Moore (Liberal-N.S.), sponsor of a private bill to abolish the practice. “This is positive, and we’ll just continue to be vigilant and stay on top of it and hopefully see it through.”
The previous Conservative cabinet in a 2007 omnibus budget bill amended the Financial Administration Act to allow Ministers to borrow funds by executive order without first seeking the consent of Parliament. Critics including now-retired Conservative senator Lowell Murray tried four times in six years to repeal the amendment.
“Nobody picked it up in the House or the Senate when it was introduced,” said Senator Moore. “Lowell just about blew a gasket. He said, ‘They can’t do that; they’ve taken out their responsibility to go to the people to get approval to borrow the money.’”
“I’ve tried twice with my amendment; they wouldn’t even let him get it to committee,” said Moore. The Nova Scotia Senator this year again introduced Bill S-204 An Act To Amend The Financial Administration Act that would strip cabinet of unilateral borrowing authority.
Cabinet in last Tuesday’s budget Growing The Middle Class promised unspecified changes to the Act: “In 2016-17 the government will propose legislative amendments to require parliamentary approval of government borrowing to enhance transparency and accountability to Parliament,” the budget said. Finance Minister Bill Morneau did not comment.
“The government included restoring parliamentary approval for borrowing plans as part of its election platform commitments,” said David Barnabe, finance department spokesperson. “Further details will be available once implementing legislation is introduced.” No deadline was set.
“We’ll have to wait and see what’s in the bill,” said Senator Moore. “I expect there will be more in it than just what was said in the budget itself.”
Finance department officials earlier defended the measure as reasonable, saying lawmakers could always learn of borrowing after the fact with the annual release of Public Accounts. “We borrow from financial markets and so financial markets, in essence, give us a limit on that credit card,” Dan Calof, then-acting director of Finance Canada’s markets division, earlier told Senate hearings.
By Dale Smith
Environment Canada is being pressed to calculate the per capita cost of any carbon tax. Cabinet in its 2016 budget said carbon pricing “will be a key element” in reducing greenhouse gas emissions: “We need to let the people of Canada know”.
Federal agents are proceeding with a plan to track all international air passenger arrivals including Canadians returning home from vacations abroad. The monitoring will be in place by September 30 at a cost of $10.7 million a year to airlines and the Canada Border Services Agency: “We will be requiring that airlines provide us with passenger manifests”.
