Blacklock's Reporter

When Pierre Trudeau died the Calgary Herald published a commentary calling him a Communist. As late as 1989 an Alberta Liberal running for a Senate seat drew protest after describing Trudeau as “a great Canadian.”

The provincial party has not won an election in more than a century. If voters send a handful of Liberals to Ottawa from time to time, statistically a Canadian has a better chance of visiting outer space than earning an MP’s pension as an Alberta Liberal. The last to serve three terms left office 16 years ago.

Yet author Darryl Raymaker recalls Trudeau was once cheered on horseback in the Calgary Stampede parade and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Alberta. He was “our very own JFK,” writes Raymaker.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s luxury tax on planes, boats and automobiles will cost jobs and generate less revenue than estimated, the Parliamentary Budget Office said yesterday. The ten percent tax takes effect September 1: "There would certainly be job losses."

Aggressive sales tactics remain commonplace at major banks, according to an undercover sting operation by a federal agency. Auditors posing as customers were routinely oversold products they neither sought nor required: "The Agency expects banks will not misplace this trust."

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault yesterday approved a six-figure climate change grant to Canada's largest beer maker. Guilbeault’s department paid $250,000 to replace a diesel boiler in a St. John’s brewery: "We are a company based in nature."

Cabinet will not overturn a CRTC decision blamed for high wholesale telecom rates, the Department of Industry said yesterday. “It would be irresponsible,” André Arbour, director general of internet policy, told reporters in a technical briefing: "That does not mean to say there is not room for improvement for competition."

Vaccination status is “fundamentally private,” a national broadcast ombudsman said yesterday. The Canada Broadcast Standards Council ruling came in the case of an Edmonton announcer Lochlin Cross who outed a listener as unvaccinated: "Revelation of this private, confidential medical information was not only careless but egregious."

Liberal MPs last evening invoked national security in concealing records concerning Reid Sirrs, Canada's last ambassador to Afghanistan. Sirrs was the first G7 ambassador to close the embassy and flee Kabul with staff aboard a half-empty military plane, according to eyewitness accounts: "What went wrong?"

A federally-subsidized report yesterday complained media are subject to “online abuse” from Canadian social media users and Freedom Convoy sympathizers. Authors stopped short of endorsing federal censorship of Twitter and Facebook: "We are holding this event here on Parliament Hill, a place where so many journalists have been exposed to trauma and harassment."

Small Business Minister Mary Ng faces questions for a second time over contracts to Toronto friends and ex-colleagues. A Conservative MP uncovered a sole-sourced contract awarded by Ng to a former campaign aide and CBC pundit: "This is regrettably just another installment."

Janice Charette, a federal executive critical of the Commons over a China spy scandal, yesterday was appointed Clerk of the Privy Council on a permanent basis. “Janice’s leadership and expertise as head of the public service of Canada is vital,” the Prime Minister said in a statement.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation yesterday named annual winners of its dubious Teddy Awards for wasteful spending. Canadians face a “huge tax bill” for record deficits, said the Federation: "Canadians want to leave their kids and grandkids with a shot at financial success."

Cabinet is invoking confidentiality in refusing to detail actual cash payments to individual publishers under a $595 million press bailout. Newspaper executives mandated to help cabinet design terms of the bailout in 2019 agreed to conceal payments: "They chose the people they wanted to get the answers they wanted."

A cabinet bill detailing legal grounds to search travelers’ cellphones and laptops may lead to political witch hunts, says a Liberal-appointed senator. “Travelers could be targeted for phone and computer searches based on their political views,” Senator Paula Simons (Alta.) said yesterday: "It will put the privacy rights of thousands of Canadian travelers in real jeopardy."

A Québec court will rule on whether to certify a class action lawsuit alleging poor performance of electric cars in winter driving conditions. The allegations target the Chevrolet Bolt once hailed by auto writers as Canada’s 2017 Green Car of the Year: "The range of the Bolt electric vehicle does not even reach 300 kilometres."

Immigrants drawn to “ethnic enclaves” in Canada’s largest cities typically earn less than if they lived somewhere else, says a federal study. “What are the effects of living in an ethnic enclave?” asked CMHC researchers: "Immigrants who landed in ethnic enclaves earned less on average."