A bipartisan Senate bill proposes to ban food and beverage marketing to children under 13. The sponsor, Senator Nancy Greene Raine, said national regulation is needed to restrict manipulative ads targeting minors: “Canadians expect us to enact laws that protect our children”.
Regulators must be careful in licensing the sale of so-called “Frankenmeat” developed by genetically blending different species, says a cattle industry group. MPs yesterday opened hearings on first-ever federal licensing of an engineered species, made-in-the-lab salmon: “You have to be very vigorous”.
Railways would be subject to first-ever environmental assessments under a private bill introduced in the Commons. The New Democrat bill would see rail freighting of dangerous goods regulated by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act: “Rail is under-regulated”.
A court has granted a city the right to appeal the tax assessment on a 77-storey building that doesn’t exist. The phantom building had been assessed at $7.5 million: ‘It’s inexplicable’.
The navy is commissioning research on adjustment of crew shifts to automation. Cost pressures are likely to see greater use of computerized technology, analysts said: “Modern navies are experiencing a personnel crunch”.
Federal agencies are telling Parliament they have no research on the impact of a proposed carbon tax. A cabinet memo earlier obtained through Access To Information estimated a tax of $50 a tonne or more is required to meet climate change targets: “We have to find out”.
Cabinet plans broad reforms to the way it issues billions in contracts, according to an Access To Information memo. It follows a critical report that described current practices as inefficient and archaic: ‘It is a rule-infested quagmire’.
An information commissioner has ordered Newfoundland & Labrador to release billing records for more than a thousand doctors under Access To Information. The province’s medical association says it may challenge the disclosure: “I’m certain that this will go to court”.
The Department of Employment proposes to interview poor Canadians to gauge effectiveness of federal aid programs. The initiative follows a Senate motion to investigate a guaranteed annual income program: ‘They know the answers already’.
Weekly newspapers are appealing for more taxpayers’ subsidies and new tax credits. The Department of Canadian Heritage currently pays millions in annual grants to corporate owners of weekly chains: “It does make sense to us”.
MPs have called up final debate on legislation to repeal two Conservative union bills. The Canadian Labour Congress had said delays in repeal slowed union drives: ‘It was a back-door, sneaky approach to governing’.
Canadians are denied lower-cost air travel because of federal limits on foreign ownership, says the chair of a Canada Transportation Act review panel. Current law limits foreign investors to 25 percent ownership in any Canadian commercial airline: “It’s difficult enough”.
Cabinet was asked to recall Parliament this past summer to force an end to a Canada Post contract dispute, says Labour Minister MaryAnn Mihychuk. The post office said it never asked for back-to-work legislation. A similar bill was struck down as unconstitutional: ‘Both sides thought the government would rush in’.
Environment Canada is testing municipal wastewater for dozens of chemicals including a soap additive targeted for a nationwide ban by the Canadian Medical Association. The department has acknowledged some sewage plants may be in breach of the Fisheries Act: “Wastewater systems have to deposit somewhere”.
MPs have defeated a bill banning replacement workers in strikes or lockouts in federally-regulated work sites. New Democrat supporters cited one of the longest ongoing strikes in the country, at Atlantic Canada’s largest daily newspaper, as justification for the bill: “Any readers that are left will have lost the quality paper of old”.
