Fresh-cut flowers for the Prime Minister’s home and other official residences are costing $63,000 a year, according to the National Capital Commission. Financial records tabled in Parliament documented the previously-undisclosed spending, typically doled out in $5,000 contracts unreported in Public Accounts: “We’d appreciate the Prime Minister spending more on flowers”.
Cabinet’s income splitting tax program does little for 85 percent of Canadian families and will cost billions this year, says the Parliamentary Budget Office. The analysis follows confidential Department of Finance memos that concluded the scheme puts Canada out of line with most OECD countries: “This will only make things worse”.
A federal code upholding current wireless exposure limits as biologically safe will be studied by the Commons health committee. The new radiofrequency guidelines come amid claims that exposure to cellphones, Wi-Fi’s, baby monitors and other wireless products may cause illness: “Canadians might be ahead of the regulator”.
Cabinet is accused of allowing its Taxpayer Bill Of Rights to languish as it searches for a new ombudsman to fill a 2014 vacancy. The post has been empty since former ombudsman J. Paul Dubé resigned last June: “We still have more work to do”.
A motivational speaker who advises clients not to listen to news media has received tens of thousands of dollars in contracts from Employment Canada, according to newly-released records. Payments included $13,703 for services delivered on the same day, last March 31. Employment Minister Pierre Poilievre did not comment.
Darci Lang, a Regina businesswoman who co-produces a yearly bridal fair with her husband Darren, was awarded $33,037 in untendered contracts as a motivational speaker last year. Blacklock’s was unable to reach Lang despite repeated attempts.
The employment department did not explain the purpose of Lang’s speeches. In blogs and videos posted on YouTube, Lang urges audiences to manage “negative” people and ignore media. “If you have a company where your employees are required to drive a lot, I recommend that you buy those drivers stacks of motivational CDs to listen to while they drive,” Lang wrote in one commentary. “So often people say they listen to the news while they drive. How can we create a motivated group of employees when all we listen to is how terrible the world is?”
Lang wrote in another blog entry, “I think every Canadian newscaster should end every newscast like this: ‘You have just heard how the other half of the world lives in fear, war and famine. Now, I want you to turn off your radio, turn off your TV and go into your life in Canada and be so grateful for what you have.’ Some of the happiest people I have met lived somewhere that was not as great as Canada.”
Financial records tabled in the Commons indicate Employment Canada also paid $4,200 to Independence Inc., a Winnipeg consultant, for “coaching for a senior advisor to the assistant deputy minister”. And $13,263 was paid to another motivator, Michael T. Chase, for services including a speech entitled Putting Clients First.
Know Any Complainers?
Payments to Lang’s Regina company XL Enterprises Inc. were the largest of their kind for motivational speeches last March 31; again on May 7; October 16 and last December 5. “Have you ever met anyone who complains?” Lang asks in one YouTube video posted on her website.
“I’m sure you agree with me, a negative person can bring down the whole community,” says Lang, who urges listeners to accentuate the positive: “I don’t think the customer is always right. I think ten percent of the time they are cranky and unreasonable. But where do we give our power? Who do we talk about?”
“Imagine for me that you held a magnifying lens out in front of you in your life, and imagine that you had a choice what you focused that magnifying glass on – what I like to call the 90 percents, the positive aspects of your life, or the not-so-positive 10 percent,” Lang says; “What do you do with people that are unhappy? Here’s what I’ve learned. I’ve learned I can’t change them; I can only change me.”
Employment Canada offered no explanation on why Lang was hired, or who she was expected to motivate. Lang is a former tuxedo rental store owner and 1997 Saskatchewan Woman Entrepreneur Of The Year. Her company organizes a yearly Most Incredible Bridle Show in Regina, “a day full of the latest in wedding trends, fashions and supplies,” described by the Regina Leader Post as “the biggest wedding show in Saskatchewan”.
By Tom Korski 
A Winnipegger fined $800 by Canada Border Services Agency for carrying a home-cooked meal through airport customs has had her penalty dismissed by a federal tribunal. The latest ruling comes amid allegations of racial profiling in a separate case before the Federal Court of Appeal: ‘I had no idea it was forbidden to bring food into the country’.
Canada’s telecom complaints commissioner is hailing a federal settlement in a dispute that saw telecom customers unwittingly charged up to $40 a month for “free” trivia text features. Rogers Communications Inc. agreed to issue refunds it estimated may total $5.42 million: ‘It impacted thousands of customers’.
Rogers Communications is breaking no federal rule by offering subscribers exclusive NHL broadcasts unavailable to other telecom providers, say broadcast regulators. The CRTC dismissed complaints of preferential treatment from rivals Bell and Telus: “We won’t stop”.
Senior government officials say irreplaceable cabinet papers are at risk and should be electronically digitized for safekeeping. The Privy Council Office noted numerous records were damaged when a water pipe burst in its Ottawa building: ‘Older documents may contain information with sensitivity’.
Industry Canada awarded a contract to an English chauffeur specializing in tours of the Downton Abbey castle of TV fame, according to accounts tabled in Parliament. Officials offered contradictory explanations for the billing to taxpayers.
Department of Industry records show a $4,218 contract was awarded to British Heritage Chauffeur Tours which promises “tailor-made luxury tours” by Jaguar sedan with “chauffer guides who are second to none”. The tour company’s specialty is private visits to “England’s finest houses, palaces and castles” including Highclere Castle, film set of the Downton Abbey television series.
“Let them come and explain this,” said MP Judy Sgro, Liberal industry critic, who requested the accounts in the Commons. “Does this meet the test of economic development? I’d like them to try and justify this.”
The contract was awarded for an unspecified rental on July 16, 2014, documents show. The company did not comment. Six members of the government caucus were in London at the time for the Farnborough Air Show: Michelle Rempel, Minister of State for Western Economic Diversificaton; Public Works Minister Diane Finley; Infrastructure Minister Denis Lebel; and three unnamed MPs.
Industry Canada when contacted by Blacklock’s claimed its Commons tabling was incorrect, and that actual spending on the English chauffeur was about half the figure reported to Parliament. The department would not divulge invoices detailing the expense.
Nothing About An Airport Shuttle
One official insisted British Heritage Chauffeur Tours was hired to “supply a van” to shuttle MPs from London to the Farnborough airfield over three days. A second official said the contract was actually for four days’ worth of airport shuttling, and cheap at the price: “All travel options were considered and the most economical option was ultimately chosen,” said Caroline Marchildon, department spokesperson.
Chauffeur Tours runs Jaguars, a Land Rover Discovery and Mercedes Vianos, according to its website, and does not offer cut-rate airport shuttles: “We will create a tailor-made tour for you to ensure that our days together are the most memorable time you will spend in Britain,” the company writes on its website; “We own the luxury vehicles you will travel in”; “Our elite team of five gentlemen has a wealth of knowledge and experience”; “Spend either a morning or an afternoon at a truly unique English estate that has achieved global popularity as the film location of Downton Abbey.”
MP Sgro said the contract “sounds like a beautiful tour with a chauffeur as a nice addition to a trip – and taxpayers paid for it”; “Why?” said Sgro, MP for York West, Ont. “Whether it’s $5,000 or $5 million, this is taxpayers’ money. If they can’t spend $5,000 appropriately, I question how they spend the millions.”
The hiring of the English chauffeur coincided with the opening of the Downton Abbey summer season of castle tours.
By Tom Korski
Canadian banks face daily electronic threats from organized crime and “Putin’s nephews in Russia”, says a senior security officer with one of the country’s largest financial institutions. The executive said all employees now change internet passwords monthly: “There are things that are scary”.
A federal regulators’ proposal to allow corporate tracking of Canadians’ TV habits is drawing concerns from privacy advocates. The CRTC proposes to convene an industry “working group” on monitoring subscribers: “This is distasteful”.
Cabinet must regulate electronic cigarette sales, says the Commons health committee. MPs of all parties also advocated a ban on e-cigarette advertising and the use of flavours targeted to youth: “We need to figure this out”.
Plunging oil prices are bad for the country despite “more money in the pockets” for motorists and transport companies, says the Bank of Canada. Oil’s fall is expected to cost the federal treasury almost $5 billion this year, prompting a delay in the budget till April: “Most of the negative effects will appear in the first half of this year”.
Canadian doctors
asked to volunteer in West Africa,
help fight Ebola.
Some answer the call.
Others may prepare
for the greater challenge
of going to Disney,
fight measles.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
