Cabinet has “a long way to go” in achieving its promise of 100 percent internet coverage nationwide, Auditor General Karen Hogan said yesterday. The latest audit found only 60 percent of Canadians outside cities have reliable, affordable internet service: "This report is pretty startling."
MPs are demanding to question David Johnston, 81, “special rapporteur” on suspected election fraud. The Prime Minister has asked Johnston to take two months considering whether to call a public inquiry already sought by Commons vote: 'People talk about him like he’s Spiderman, that he's going to fix everything because he is a great guy.'
Canadian delegates to a climate change conference booked a luxury resort rated one of the least environmentally-friendly hotels in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, records show. Room rates ranged from $405 to $1,300 a night at the resort with a mediocre Green Star rating but 13 bars: "How much was spent?"
A Jamaican sun holiday for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last Christmas cost taxpayers almost $163,000, records show. Trudeau prior to the trip said he recognized holiday time was “difficult for many Canadians” due to inflation: 'Everyone knows well that Canadians are facing tough times.'
The Department of Health on Saturday said it will cut regulations on the marijuana trade following numerous bankruptcies. Growers, wholesalers and retailers blame federal taxes and regulations for ruining the licensed cannabis industry: "There is more money in a winery."
It shouldn’t take a police file clerk four hours to pull 50 pages from a filing cabinet, says a Freedom Of Information ruling. The decision came in a complaint against the Weyburn, Sask. Police Service for padding its timesheet on a routine request: "It should take an experienced employee five minutes to search one regular file drawer."
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: “Proudly the world’s largest, Lloyd’s of London insures people, businesses and communities no matter what the size, location, industry or complexity…”
After the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, Sitting Bull led the Sioux into southern Manitoba to escape reprisal by the U.S. cavalry. They wintered near my hometown. This went unmentioned in history class. We were told instead to memorize the travels of Champlain who didn’t come within 1,600 kilometres of Manitoba. Relevancy was irrelevant. “Curriculum is ideological,” as Prof. Dwayne Donald of the University of Alberta puts it.
“Official curriculum ideologies become so pervasive and unquestioned that their followers are left unable to recognize them as cultural and ideological,” writes Donald. He calls this “curricular worship.”
“Curriculum documents, and the educational priorities they emphasize, are thoroughly imbued with the cultural assumptions and prejudices that the majority of the members of the society have come to consider normal and necessary for young people to know and understand,” Donald explains in a tidy and devastating critique. “In teleological terms then, curricula can be understood as preparing children for a future that has been imagined on their behalf by adults. Thus, curricula are basically an exercise in citizenship, and the success of this exercise is generally assessed according to how well the children have taken on the characteristics that the adults hoped they would.”
The Commons public accounts committee last night ordered the Department of Public Works to surrender secret Covid vaccine contracts for scrutiny. Pfizer executives threatened Canada could lose its “reputation” and foreign investment if MPs insisted on reading contracts that cost taxpayers $5 billion: "It makes me wonder, what is so damaging?"
Now-Independent MP Han Dong (Don Valley North, Ont.) yesterday joined 171 opposition Members in demanding a public inquiry into alleged Chinese Communist interference in elections. Refusal by the Prime Minister to comply with the Commons vote would risk a finding of contempt of Parliament: "The evidence is mounting."
Governor General Mary Simon had an RCAF flight crew log nearly 3,000 kilometres so she could attend a six-minute ceremony, records show. Simon earlier said it was “up to all of us to act responsibly” to fight climate change: "How we do things is just as important as what we do."
The Department of Immigration billed taxpayers $137 a day for room and board to shelter illegal immigrants at Niagara Falls hotels, records show. Refugee claimants bused in from Québec stayed months at a time with no obvious processing of their claims: "We just had people show up on our doorstep."
Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier will not disclose how many employees were fired for defrauding a pandemic relief program. MPs have repeatedly sought the number from the Canada Revenue Agency: "The Agency has terminated the employment of a number of employees."
The Commons today is expected to order a full public inquiry into suspected Chinese interference in Parliament. Debate last night grew heated as members shared a Global News report on surreptitious contact between now-Independent MP Han Dong (Don Valley North, Ont.) and Chinese diplomats. "It is important that all Members of Parliament vote on this."
MP Han Dong (Don Valley North, Ont.) last night abruptly quit the Liberal caucus following a Global News report he admitted to personal contact with China’s Consul in Toronto. Dong the day before denied any impropriety or secret contacts with Chinese Communist agents: "The truth will protect us."
