Lawmakers are being warned of “political unrest” if Parliament passes a bill to jail tobacco traffickers. Aboriginal groups told a Senate committee the legislation violates traditional rights: “Now we’re being criminalized”.
Health Canada paid $92.7 million to compensate aquaculture firms for diseased fish, the highest figure cited to date. The department’s Canadian Food Inspection Agency disclosed that payments dated over three years to salmon farmers: ‘It’s a case-by-case basis’.
A Conservative Senator is questioning the Canada Border Services Agency after he was detained 20 minutes by border guards. Senator Victor Oh said the incident occurred the first time he tried to use his Nexus card at a border stop near Niagara Falls, Ont.: “I didn’t say, ‘Do you know who I am?'”
Most small business owners, fully 60 percent, did not seek loans last year despite historic low interest rates, according to new Industry Canada data. An advocacy group attributed the trend to owners’ antipathy to banks: “Never again”.
Nearly 1 in 5 Canadian households are now wireless, says a new telecom report. The CRTC said telephone companies are losing landline customers at the rate of four percent a year, with 17.8 percent of households now completely wireless: “This industry needs more spectrum”.
The Senate is taking up an Alberta-style bill that would make it easier to decertify unions at federally-regulated workplaces. Bill C-525 An Act To Amend The Canada Labour Code lowers the threshold of votes needed to trigger a decertification ballot from the current 50 percent to 40.
“I believe this approach is fair and will create a level playing field,” said Alberta Conservative Senator Scott Tannas in opening Second Reading debate; “It is a common-sense bill.”
The measure also repeals the decades-old membership card check system for certifying and disbanding unions in favour of secret balloting by employees, a measure adopted by Alberta in 1988. Alberta today has the lowest unionization rate in the country, by official estimate.
“It will make the certification and decertification process for unions a much more democratic one in which all workers can have their voices heard without fear of intimidation,” Tannas said. Commons supporters also claimed the card check system subjected workers to “bullying, threats or even blackmail”, though federal Industrial Relations Board records indicated only 0.04 percent of investigations conducted in the past ten years – a total 2 of 4,629 cases – involved allegations of union intimidation.
“How would the process work?” said Senator Joan Fraser (Liberal-Que.), deputy opposition leader; “How would it be established that there should be a vote on certification if they are not signing cards? Can you enlighten me?”
“I’m afraid I can’t,” Tannas replied.
The traditional system of having union supporters sign membership cards has been repealed in all provinces but Manitoba, Québec, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. Bill C-525 applies to some one million workers in federally-regulated workplaces including railways, airports, marine shipping, banking and broadcasting.
Bill C-525 passed the Commons last April 9 amid acknowledgement it would restrict union organizers. “It is not the job of any government to ensure that union certification is as easy as possible,” said Conservative MP Blaine Calkins (Wetaskiwin, Alta.), sponsor of the bill; “The union is able to collect union dues, a massive taxation power on the backs of workers.”
Senate debate on the bill coincided with new data indicating annual wage settlements for unionized workers averaged 1.4 percent last year, the smallest gains since 1997. Contract settlements averaged three years.
“As the Bank of Canada forecasts inflation to rise gradually to 2 percent in 2016, employees who ratified longer settlements may see negative wage growth towards the end of their agreements,” noted a Department of Employment report Overview Of Collective Bargaining In Canada 2013.
Settlements for public employees averaged 1 percent, with 2.2 percent gains in private sector contracts reached last year. “Efforts by governments to constrain public-sector wage growth contributed to the downward pressure,” the labour study concluded.
Québec and Newfoundland & Labrador had the most unionized workforce in Canada at 40 percent, followed by Manitoba (36 percent); Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan (35 percent); British Columbia (32 percent); Nova Scotia (30 percent); New Brunswick (29 percent); Ontario (28 percent) and Alberta (23 percent).
By Paul Delahanty 
A Senate committee examining bee deaths and pesticides must investigate the “indiscriminate” use of farm chemicals accumulating in soil and water, says a B.C. agriculture official. The appeal follows disclosures that federal regulators have licensed toxins for decades without completing environmental risk assessments: “If I’m a shareholder of Bayer, I think this is all great”.
Shippers and farmers are expressing astonishment over cabinet claims that regulated fines on delinquent railways were a “typo”, and only one-seventh the penalty promised. Transport Minister Lisa Raitt yesterday failed to explain the garbling of fines for railways that do not meet shipping quotas: “The law is the law”.
Environment Canada has filed hundreds of requests for subscriber information from telecom providers in its investigations of polluters and scofflaws, including warrantless searches. Data tabled in Parliament indicate the department’s enforcement branch filed 676 requests in the past four years: ‘There are no directories for mobile phones’.
Federal inspectors will gain new powers to order repairs or force closures of unsafe rail crossings under a bill introduced in the Commons. The measure’s Conservative sponsor noted the safety amendments will affect the nation’s 18,500 level rail crossings: “Why wait for somebody to get hurt?”
Catching, convicting and jailing criminals takes billions of dollars with a single violent delinquent estimated to cost $11.3 million, according to confidential research by the Department of Public Safety. The data was released through Access To Information: “Crime is a process and not an event”.
Canada Revenue Agency has been cited by a federal judge for concealing documents from a taxpayer. The agency withheld files despite three requests, mistakenly claiming records had been destroyed or never existed in the first place: ‘They consistently delayed disclosure’.
A bill that would effectively curb the proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline has been introduced in the Commons. New Democrats introduced the private legislation to ban oil tankers off the northern coast of British Columbia: ‘This is borne out of a crisis’.
A promised balanced budget law may have far-reaching consequences, cautions the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Authorities warned that legislated restrictions on deficit spending could hurt essential services and off-load costs on provinces: “It’s a political stunt”.
A new Conservative bill would banish provincial welfare payments to refugee claimants. The measure follows earlier restrictions to claimants’ medical coverage that were struck down as “cruel and unusual” in Federal Court: “We are watching”.
