The federal Green Party in a 2022 membership vote will see its fifth leader in three years, a parliamentary record. Interim leader Amita Kuttner yesterday said someone else could have the job: "I’m going to try to get out of it."
Money is not the problem in maintaining minimum drinking standards in First Nations, the Parliamentary Budget Office said yesterday. The report followed an internal audit that complained federal agencies spent billions on new water plants but failed to ensure there were managers to run them: "This needed to be fixed yesterday."
A federal manager coached a favoured contractor how to invoice one penny below the Treasury Board threshold on a sweetheart contract, according to Access To Information records. Neither the contractor nor manager would comment yesterday: "Hello, Raj. Our contracting folks inform me that the total contract value cannot exceed $40,000."
A federally-funded agency yesterday claimed wide public support for internet regulation in a survey that asked Canadians if they’d like to ban hate speech. Parliament already banned hate speech in 1970: "This is really an important point."
A federal law that prohibits voting by children faces a constitutional challenge. A legal clinic and group of young plaintiffs yesterday filed their claim in Ontario Superior Court: "Denying Canadian citizens under the age of 18 the right to vote is unconstitutional."
The Senate yesterday took up a bill to honour essential workers killed by Covid, from doctors to truckers. The total number is not known, though victims among health care workers are estimated at 55: "With the current numbers of Covid in Canada, everyone will have known someone who died of this coronavirus."
Pay equity regulations to take effect in 2024 will cost about $620 million a year, the Parliamentary Budget Office said yesterday. Companies will have up to eight years to adjust wages for underpaid women: "I would love to have seen this corrected overnight."
The Canadian Tourism Commission laid off nine percent of its employees due to Covid. Recovery from the pandemic will take at least four years, the agency said: "We are facing the spectre of an industry in deep crisis with many parts of it on the brink of collapse."
The CBC has rewritten an online article by an Elections Canada information officer who called the Conservative vote "jarring" and questioned whether elderly white people all hated Muslims. The website story was posted nearly a month before it was corrected by management: "It was jarring to realize that many of the people who had seemingly been nice to me throughout the day had chosen to vote for the Conservative Party."
Canadian Blood Services, a non-profit agency regulated by the Department of Health, has fired an employee after he claimed religious exemption from vaccination. The health department had called mandatory immunization unconstitutional: "I was shocked. I was just devastated."
There is no doubt some Canadians abused one of the best-known pandemic relief programs, a senior Liberal MP said yesterday. Claims for $2,000 Canada Emergency Response Benefit cheques were six times the number of Covid jobless: "That is an incredible percentage of the population."
The Republic of Singapore stands to gain a virtual monopoly over container handling at Canada’s fourth largest port. The buyout at the Port of Halifax is detailed in Federal Court records: "The proposed transaction is likely to result in the removal of a significant competitor."
A federal bank regulator warns of far-reaching consequences of any significant decline in housing prices. Mortgage debts are equivalent to 85 percent of Canada’s entire economy, said the Superintendent of Financial Institutions: "This means any significant fall in housing prices could have let to material credit losses for lenders."
The rising cost of living will be more persistent and long-lasting than officialdom admits, says a former chief economic analyst with Statistics Canada. “Containing inflation may not be a simple or short process,” wrote Philip Cross, senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, an Ottawa think tank: "Economists did not foresee the surge in prices."
Hospital protesters face a maximum ten years in prison under Criminal Code amendments proposed by cabinet. It is the first of two election campaign bills targeting Canadians opposed to vaccine mandates: "Why would that legislation be necessary?"
