Blacklock's Reporter

In 2012 RCMP raided a small office in Brighton, Ont. and hauled away hard drives and files. Leia Picard, owner of Canadian Fertility Consulting Co., faced ten years in the penitentiary on fifteen charges under the Assisted Human Reproduction Act. It was a felony to offer any “consideration” to a surrogate mother.

“The end result was anticlimactic,” writes Professor David Snow of the University of Guelph’s Department of Political Science. Prosecutors later struck a plea deal and Picard paid a $60,000 fine. She remains the only Canadian in history charged under the Act. It was “bewildering,” said Picard’s lawyer.

“This book surveys the ruins to explain how Canada arrived at a point that nearly every policymaker and stakeholder involved in the process would describe as suboptimal,” says the author.

Canada Border Services Agency management yesterday said it was proud of the ArriveCan app that cost taxpayers $54 million. The Agency initially misrepresented the cost to MPs as less than half the actual amount: "I am very proud."

A federal grant for homeowners with oil furnaces could cost almost four times the original budget, the Parliamentary Budget Office said yesterday. Federal grants for homeowners who convert to electric heat pumps were originally estimated to cost $750 million: "Program uptake was projected by extrapolating historical participation trends."

The Department of Health says confidential data indicates its year-old experiment with drug decriminalization in British Columbia has not “led to an increase in public drug consumption.” The department did not release the data: "Isn’t it incredible?"

Rising food costs are driving Canadians to “hopelessness and desperation,” a National Advisory Council on Poverty yesterday reported to Parliament. Updated figures due this spring are expected to show a sharp rise in poverty rates due to inflation, it said: "Things seem worse now than they were before."

The Department of Social Development has quietly dropped a 2024 deadline to introduce a long-promised national school lunch program. The department in a briefing note omitted all reference to the 2024 target and said more work is required: "We heard you."

Federal commemoration of Anne Of Green Gables will be reworked with “new narratives” from Indigenous, Black and French perspectives, Parks Canada said yesterday. Novels depicting the red-haired orphan raised by a white, English-speaking Presbyterian couple on Prince Edward Island have been bestsellers since 1908: 'Cultures not currently presented, e.g. Acadians, Black, Indigenous and people of colour, will be shared with visitors.'

Cabinet will detail draft regulations this spring to impose a billion-dollar ban on food advertising to children on TV and the internet, says a Department of Health briefing note. Regulations will still permit fast food ads on radio, billboards, movie theatre screens and sponsorships of minor sports leagues by restaurant chains: "Industry self-regulation is not enough to protect children."

A federal consultant who boasted to clients that he had a secret contact in Chrystia Freeland’s office yesterday testified he made it all up. “I don’t even have those relationships,” said Vaughn Brennan, director TeaLav Consulting Limited of Ottawa. “I don’t have a Rolodex.”

The Commons ethics committee yesterday by a 7 to 3 vote rejected Opposition requests for internal emails regarding Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s latest sun holiday. “There has been a change in the story three times,” said Conservative MP Michael Barrett (Leeds-Grenville, Ont.).

A Canadian Armed Forces program to recruit immigrants has seen only 77 applicants successfully enlist to date, says a briefing note for Defence Minister Bill Blair. Many thousands more applied but faced lengthy security checks: "Security clearances generally take longer for permanent residents."

The husband of Liberal MP Lisa Hepfner (Hamilton Mountain, Ont.) must repay pandemic relief cheques improperly claimed under the Canada Emergency Response Benefit program, records show. MP Hepfner yesterday had no comment but earlier praised cabinet for “rolling out these programs to help Canadians.”

More than $900,000 in federal subsidies were paid last year to insolvent Black Press Group Limited, one of Canada’s largest publishers. The company in bankruptcy court filings blamed the internet, Covid and a disastrous foray into Ohio publishing for its financial troubles: "The company is insolvent."

Federal inspectors have found traces of a bestselling weed killer in food, tap water and Canadians’ blood and urine samples albeit at safe levels, says a Department of Health briefing note. The document is dated two weeks after an Ontario judge certified a class action lawsuit against the makers of glyphosate commonly sold under the Roundup brand: "The Canadian government takes pesticide safety very seriously."

Key housing starts fell seven percent last year, CMHC said yesterday. New construction figures followed Housing Minister Sean Fraser’s pledge to “build more homes faster.” Starts in some cities were down as much as 40 percent or more: "No there is not a plan."