Blacklock's Reporter

Canadians have a complex relationship with success and failure. That’s strange in a capitalist society where city life is a weekly succession of petty contests. Success is caricatured as a triumph of positive thinking that culminates in a prize, like winning on Dragon’s Den. Failure is a vaguely shameful exhibition of personal weakness: “The Morgans lost their house!”

Neither is accurate. Winners and losers strive, and even successful people fail from time to time. Billy Durant, the Michigan wagon maker who created General Motors, went bankrupt in 1936 and ended his career as manager of a bowling alley. It must have been a well-run bowling alley. Successful people like to run things.

Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday denied he was ever lobbied by developers to endorse a $1.45 billion plan to buy distressed Vancouver condos at taxpayers’ expense. Carney did not say if he personally held shares in any British Columbia development as he does in Ontario: "Mark Carney helped build this system."

The Department of National Defence in a newly-declassified report described Ukraine as a “no man’s land” of organized crime and political corruption. The confidential document was written in 1992 following the collapse of the Soviet Union: "Bribery and theft are rife."

Federal regulators yesterday disclosed the Royal Bank paid $4.25 million in fines for overcharging hundreds of thousands of credit card customers in breach of the Bank Act. It was the largest fine to date against RBC: 'It reflects significant harm to customers.'

The Department of Foreign Affairs yesterday would not disclose the cost of reopening a consulate in Phoenix that was closed 14 years ago to save taxpayers’ money. The new Arizona office follows an internal audit that complained of costly missions in the United States: "Canada maintains a large mission footprint in the United States requiring considerable effort and expenditures."

Muttering that you’d like to kill your boss is not an automatic firing offence, a British Columbia labour board has ruled. The decision came in the case of a North Vancouver cleaning lady, 60, fired last Christmas after a bad day at work: "She does not pose a danger."

Cabinet should adopt as a principle the validity of “Indigenous laws,” says a Canadian Human Rights Commission report. “Indigenous ways of life and Indigenous laws are not seen as valid as Canadian law,” wrote the Commission.

First Nations schools operated by Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty’s department have failed an audit for the second time in five years. Records show the federal system spends 29 percent more per capita than the national average yet has the highest dropout rate in Canada: "There has not been measurable improvement over time."

Statistics Canada yesterday declined comment regarding profane, anti-Israel Twitter posts by a Vancouver employee. “We do not comment on specific cases including internal investigations,” a spokesperson said.

Courts must make quick use of new penalties against copper thieves who sabotage telecom lines for scrap metal, Attorney General Sean Fraser said yesterday. Utilities lobbied for steeper sanctions for over a decade: "We expect by mid-July these measures will be in force."

Canada’s FIFA World Cup squad yesterday joined a long list of celebrities, military heroes and everyday Canadians to receive a Peace Tower flag. “These flags are hugely popular,” one former MP earlier explained: "They should go to people who have made a significant contribution to the nation’s well-being."

Complaints of fraud prompted changes to the multi-million dollar Canada Student Loan program, says an internal federal memo. No schools were named: "There have been growing concerns around certain educational institutions related to fraud, integrity and growing financial risk."

The Department of Health has a total 67 federal inspectors to monitor diversion of legal marijuana into the black market nationwide, says a report. The disclosure followed allegations that tonnes of cannabis have been diverted since Parliament legalized recreational marijuana eight years ago: "That is illicit cannabis."

Authorities yesterday confirmed Prime Minister Mark Carney is permanently closing the federal consumer affairs' office, the last remnant of the old Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. One association called it “the death knell for nonprofit consumer protection.”

Millions in funding for the Kids Help Phone counseling service will be cut, the Public Health Agency said yesterday. Then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the funding during Covid lockdowns after telling children on TV: “We’re here for you.”