The Canada Border Services Agency has not successfully intercepted a single shipment of slave-made goods since cabinet announced a federal crackdown on Chinese imports, records show. Critics have called Canada an unwitting leader in importing forced labour products: "Our enforcement to this point has been terrible."
Cabinet today proposed new controls and taxes on real estate to take effect in 2025. Measures to be detailed in “consultation” documents this summer include a tax on undeveloped property: "The government will consider introducing a new tax."
Cabinet’s “safe supply” drug policy is prompting public disorder, a Liberal MP yesterday told the Commons health committee. MP Doctor Marcus Powlowski (Thunder Bay-Rainy River, Ont.), an emergency room physician, warned colleagues: “There is certainly the perception by a lot of Canadians that a lot of downtown cores are basically out of control.”
Rideau Hall yesterday had no comment after Governor General Mary Simon personally hosted a conference in support of a bill before Parliament, C-63 An Act To Enact The Online Harms Act. The guest list was limited to Attorney General Arif Virani and supporters of internet regulation: “We discussed this and our Online Harms Act."
Cabinet’s 2022 use of emergency powers against Freedom Convoy protestors cost the Department of Public Safety more than $73 million, new records show. Expenses were not finalized: "What was the cost burden for the government?"
The nation’s largest teachers unions yesterday opposed a New Democrat bill to outlaw corporal punishment of unruly children. Heidi Yetman, a mother of two sons and president of the Canadian Teachers’ Federation, said the bill would “put teachers at risk of being charged with assault.”
Postal unions yesterday asked MPs to beware of steep service cuts contemplated in Department of Public Works in-house research. The department commissioned surveys on closure of post offices and elimination of doorstep delivery: "You have got this tremendous amount of pressure on Canada Post."
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland tomorrow will expand a billion-a-year GST holiday on new rental construction to include student housing. Freeland said she was “unlocking the door to the middle class for millions.”
Canada’s spy chief David Vigneault testified under oath he repeatedly warned Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and political aides that Chinese agents were targeting Conservative MPs. Vigneault’s testimony contradicted the Prime Minister: "It is indeed something I communicated."
A publicly accessible registry to name names of lobbyists acting for China “would be valuable,” says an RCMP briefing note. A federal review of a foreign agents' registry has been underway for more than a year: "A foreign agent registry would be valuable."
Chinese Canadians face new “nativist and xenophobic” discrimination, claims Liberal-appointed Senator Yuen Pau Woo (B.C.). The Senator was granted standing at the China inquiry but did not participate in hearings that exposed illegal activities by Chinese Communist Party agents: "Do you have any ties with the Chinese regime?"
A third of dairy farmers received direct subsidies under a 2017 trade pact, says a Department of Agriculture audit. Milk producers were promised federal aid after cabinet increased imports of tariff-free European cheese: "Supply management is the system the dairy sector has chosen for itself and the government respects and supports this choice."
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: “There are many ways to tell someone that you have absolutely nothing to tell him…”
Ottawa has more statues than any city in the land. As public art and political statements they run the gamut: haunting, contrived, tiresome, outrageous and wonderful, like the exhausted figure of Harold Fisher, head bowed, that’s survived a hundred winters on Carling Avenue.
Fisher as mayor built one of Canada’s first municipal hospitals in 1924, an era when surgery meant charity wards for the poor and spas for the wealthy. Ratepayers placed Fisher and his free public hospital in a cornfield where land was cheap. Surrounding acres over time became one of the prettiest collections of pre-war bungalows in a neighbourhood still called Civic Hospital. Fisher’s inscription reads: “If you would see his monument, look around you.” Beautiful.
Tours Inside the Snow Globe is fresh and intriguing, an investigation of statuary written at the close of an era that saw street protestors decapitate John A. Macdonald. Only a sociologist could explain what happened. Luckly, author Tonya Davidson is one of those.
Canadian news will vanish if private TV networks fail, the CEO of Bell Canada Enterprises yesterday told the Commons heritage committee. “Without a Canadian broadcasting system there will be no news except maybe the CBC,” testified CEO Mirko Bibic: "We need to figure out how to keep Canadian news alive."
