Blacklock's Reporter

When retired park warden Frank Farley of Camrose, Alta. died in 1949, neighbours installed a stained glass window at his local United Church depicting St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of the creature kingdom. “He loved this church,” said the pastor. And the townspeople loved him.

Farley, now long forgotten, was among that generation of sodbusters who settled the Prairies and are caricatured today as white supremacists, colonialists and profiteers. Frank Farley And The Birds Of Alberta is closer to the truth, an affectionate biography of a homesteader who achieved national renown in his day as a self-taught ornithologist who loved the land and its people.

Born in St. Thomas, Ontario, Farley left his job as a bank clerk to settle in Alberta in 1892. Provincehood was 13 years away, and the plains were wide open country where buffalo herds could still be found. Not until 1909 would Parliament vote a budget appropriation to save a herd of 750 bison in a Prairie sanctuary.

Prime Minister Mark Carney abruptly withdrew $30 billion in retaliatory tariffs on the United States after in-house polling showed Canadians were becoming wary of “an ongoing cycle of retaliation,” newly released records show. Carney at the time called it a calculated strategy: "We drop the gloves in the first period and send a message, and we’ve done that."

Federal managers stressed secrecy in drafting a 10-year consultants’ contract to manage the government's website at an undisclosed cost, Access To Information records show. Cabinet had repeatedly promised to cut spending on consultants: "We have determined our safest approach is to maintain confidentiality."

A quarter of Canadian students surveyed say they are so hard up they skip meals, says a Food Banks Canada report to the Commons human resources committee. MPs are studying youth unemployment including the impact of cabinet’s now-rescinded 2023 decision to let a million foreign students into the workforce: "Something is not working."

Teachers, pharmacists and other young professionals who relocate to rural Canada are eligible for $65.3 million a year in Canada Student Loan forgiveness under regulations that took effect yesterday. A similar program in the medical field was credited with drawing 17,921 doctors and nurses to rural practice: "The loan forgiveness benefit was very impactful."

The Department of Environment yesterday began enforcement of a national ban on the manufacture and import of compact fluorescent bulbs due to mercury poisoning. Then-Minister Steven Guilbeault drafted the ban in 2024 on bulbs once touted as climate-friendly energy savers: "How many people know?"

Happy New Year! Blacklock's pauses this week for our annual holiday break. We're back Friday, January 2 -- The Editor

Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: “Canadian doctors asked to volunteer in West Africa, help fight Ebola…”

Any tourist can describe Burmese jungles or the snows of Kilimanjaro. It takes talent to write a travel book about shopping malls. “I am writing a book on boredom, on repetition, on déjà vu, on replication, on the dysphasia of constructed landscapes, on the tackiness of the world and how it is shrinking,” writes Swiss author Rinny Gremaud.

All The World’s A Mall pops and snaps. It is outstanding. “It never ceases to amaze me how fatalistic people are about the ugly environments they live in,” she writes. Yes, the food courts in Edmonton and Casablanca look much alike. Yet Gremaud’s book is no tiresome rant against commercialism. She captures the contrasts of life on Earth through the lens of shopping centres.

It’s easy to sneer at malls as “sinister places, cultural and aesthetic deserts where the dead souls of a population that has converted to the religion of consumerism mill around,” writes Gremaud. They are much more.

Warmest wishes to friends and subscribers for a safe and happy Christmas. Blacklock's pauses to bid you the best of the season -- The Editor

The Department of Employment last year disciplined 629 employees for misconduct from absenteeism to theft and fraud, records show. Disclosure was intended to “show what happens when wrongdoing or misconduct is reported.”

Chief Science Advisor Mona Nemer’s office worked up an excuse to spend more than $34,000 on a UFO survey no parliamentarian asked for, records show. Staff in an Access To Information document sought “justification for why the survey is needed” at a time when cabinet pledged to cut unnecessary spending: "Explain the manner in which this research is required."

The Government of Mexico complains it is too expensive and bureaucratic to do business with Ottawa. The candid report by diplomats comes three months after Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a “new era of cooperation" with Mexico: 'Many expressed concern about excessive requirements, cost or red tape.'

Labour Minister Patty Hajdu undermined constitutional rights with her frequent use of strike bans, says the nation’s largest pilots’ association. The union in a submission to the Commons human resources committee said strike bans had “now become commonplace.”

A phone call cost the Canada Revenue Agency $879,092 in a tax dispute, according to evidence in Federal Court. Justice Danielle Ferron ruled a conversation between a tax lawyer and a dismissive collections officer amounted to “breach of procedural fairness.”