Blacklock's Reporter

On November 13, 1971 a Cree teenager, Betty Osborne, was walking home in The Pas, Man. when she was abducted by four white men, raped, and stabbed to death with a screwdriver. It took police 16 years to get a conviction. “One of the saddest aspects of the so-called police investigation was the fact that the police began their investigation within the Aboriginal community,” notes Keetsahnak: Our Missing And Murdered Indigenous Sisters. “When no suspects were found, the police dropped their investigation.”

The fact the justice system failed an entire class of Canadian citizens is undisputed. The RCMP count 1,017 Indigenous women murdered in the period from 1980 to 2012. No other identifiable group endured such violence. As low as expectations were of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, it at least fixed in the public mind that local tragedies like the murder of Betty Osborne are interconnected.

Treasury Board President Anita Anand yesterday described herself as “an extremely thorough and systematic minister” but said she did not know why Board employees paid social calls on ArriveCan contractors. “It is not my purview to oversee the day to day work of employees,” Anand told the Commons public accounts committee: "I do not know."

Cabinet yesterday denied any plans to recognize Sharia law in federal financing after citing “halal mortgages” in Tuesday’s budget. CMHC in 2023 funded research by the Islamic Family Social Services Association into mortgages suitable for observant Muslims: "Why is it in the budget?"

The federal sale of new $22,000 ventilators as scrap metal for $6 apiece is inexplicable, an MP said yesterday. The Department of Health said it had no records on the purchase of devices it licensed for use in 2020: "Was it incompetence or corruption?"

Cabinet’s signature Canada Dental Care Plan is confusing and bureaucratic with 61 percent of dentists declining to participate, the Canadian Dental Association yesterday told the Commons finance committee. Health Minister Mark Holland said he was confident difficulties will be resolved: "We heard from a lot of dentists."

Complying with a federal bill on replacement workers will put “a lot more pressure” on the Canada Industrial Relations Board, the chair yesterday warned MPs. The bill mandates rulings within 90 days though the Board currently takes an average seven months to settle Canada Labour Code complaints: "It will be difficult for us to meet the timelines that are in the bill."

Millionaire ArriveCan supplier Kristian Firth yesterday named names of federal managers he met over meals and drinks to discuss lucrative contracts. Firth’s disclosures followed his summons to the bar of the House as the first federal contactor in 111 years to be cited for contempt of Parliament. Firth said his company GC Strategies Inc. of Woodlawn, Ont. “could have been stopped” at any time as it billed $19.1 million for the ArriveCan project.

A federal contractor’s summons yesterday to the bar of the House of Commons was the first punishment of its kind since 1913. The last contractor named and shamed by MPs was jailed for months as a “prisoner of Parliament.”

Cabinet has a “lot of details that we need to work out” in its latest housing plan, Housing Minister Sean Fraser said yesterday. The plan reiterates CMHC figures suggesting Canada would have to triple annual housing starts to attain affordability: "Details need to be worked out."

Any federal employees who leaked secret memos on Chinese interference must be “identified and prosecuted,” says Liberal-appointed Senator Yuen Pau Woo (B.C.). The Senator made the demand in a submission to the Commission on Foreign Interference made public yesterday: "Why have the leakers not been identified and prosecuted?"

The next Census will include new questions on “couple relationships” outside marriage and common law, Statistics Canada said yesterday. It follows the first-ever collection of Census data on “gender diversity."

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland yesterday proposed billions in new mid-term deficit spending at rates up to 95 percent higher than forecast only a year ago. Freeland revised all deficit projections upwards despite writing in her budget document that “it would be irresponsible and unfair to pass more debt to the next generation.”

A federal ethics investigation of a Department of Industry board will be finalized within 90 days, the Commons ethics committee was told yesterday. Records show then-Industry Minister Navdeep Bains ignored repeated warnings in appointing a Liberal Party donor with a known conflict: "Have you uncovered any element of criminality?"

Elections Canada yesterday detailed plans for a media marketing campaign targeting young voters. Electors under 25 number 2.7 million but fewer than half, 1.2 million, cast ballots in the 2021 campaign: "Most of them intend to vote in the upcoming federal election."

No one can provide “100 percent clarity” there are no Chinese agents on the federal payroll, says the nation’s spy chief. David Vigneault, director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, told MPs he could not discuss ongoing investigations: "We can never rest."