Cabinet yesterday would not release terms of a multi-billion dollar concession to the U.S. over the Gordie Howe International Bridge. Prime Minister Mark Carney confirmed he agreed to share toll revenues with the United States, a breach of a 2012 agreement: "Carney has negotiated a terrible deal for Canada."
Canada Post spent nearly $194 million on climate programs amid ever-increasing deficits, service cuts and a 46 percent hike in stamp rates, records show: "It’s a responsibility we embrace."
The Senate Ethics Officer yesterday would not say whether a Liberal appointee’s vulgar Twitter posts breached a 2019 citation on appropriate conduct on the internet. Senator Charles Adler (Man.) in his official social media account posted a series of insults about the Official Opposition: "The minimum standard of conduct tolerated in the community is not necessarily the same standard of behaviour that a senator must adhere to."
Airlines will receive $150 million jet fuel loans at below-market rates, says a federal briefing note. Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne made no mention of the subsidy in announcing the program June 8: 'Borrowing costs are favourable relative to market rates for affected companies.'
Canada Post managers last year pocketed nearly $31 million in bonuses even as CEO Doug Ettinger told Parliament the organization was “on the brink.” The disclosures were detailed in financial accounts requested by MPs: "One of the things I lose sleep about is keeping the good people who are with us."
Eleven percent bonuses for federal executives are proportionate and fair, says a memo to Treasury Board President Shafqat Ali. Bonuses averaging $18,316 per executive were paid last year even as cabinet told Canadians “these are tough times.”
Federal agents cannot keep up with deportation of foreign fugitives, according to figures in a Privy Council briefing note. Current targets are thousands short, data showed: "I liken our inventories to a bathtub; we are constantly scooping water out of that bathtub but the bathtub is filling up."
Cabinet members and political aides received dozens of free passes to attend the FIFA World Cup including four staff and a summer student in the office of Liberal MP Adam van Koeverden (Burlington North-Milton West, Ont.), Secretary of State for Sport. The tournament cost taxpayers $1.07 billion: 'Memories will last a generation.'
Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne must “restore fiscal credibility,” say investment bankers. A Toronto think tank in a submission to MPs expressed alarm over high deficits: 'There is no path to balance the budget.'
Poet W.N. Branson writes: “Long before the vacant promises of the elected. Long before the vacant seats in the House, Indians on foot greeted every lake, river and ridge…”
One day in 2004 two co-workers – one black, one white – had an unpleasant physical alteration at a slaughterhouse in Brooks, Alta. The black man was fired. About 200 Sudanese employees protested the wrongful dismissal. “Management told them, go back to your jobs or we’ll fire you,” one witness recalled. They refused. Sixty were fired.
The incident set in motion an extraordinary series of events documented in Defying Expectations by Professor Jason Foster of Athabasca University. Foster is a former policy director with the Alberta Federation of Labour, and a skillful writer whose account reads like a screenplay. The Brooks plant was the least promising candidate for a union drive anywhere in Canada.
Condo speculators in Metro Vancouver caught with thousands of unsold units should be allowed to fail, says a Commons petition sponsored without comment by Conservative MP Dan Albas (Okanagan Lake West-South Kelowna, B.C.). Petitioners opposed a $1.45 billion bailout of developers at taxpayers’ expense: "Unsold units should be allowed to fall to prices that households can afford through open market discounts, credit or losses, or receivership."
Military and civilian employees in the Department of National Defence have been cited for cheating on timesheets and fuel cards at taxpayers’ expense. No individuals were discharged though similar offences resulted in firings and police investigations in other departments: "We are constantly looking."
Diplomats in staff emails depicted Fiji as a backwater where it was hard to find office supplies or make a long-distance phone call, Access To Information records show. Liberal MP Randeep Sarai (Surrey Centre, B.C.), Secretary of State for International Development, last January 16 opened Canada's first Fijian mission in what cabinet called an important step in “Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy.”
A highway billboard calling the Prime Minister a liar was Charter-protected free expression, an Ontario Superior Court judge ruled yesterday. Counsel with the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms that won the case called the decision “a welcome affirmation of the importance of political expression.”
