Anti-China slavery groups have lost a legal challenge to force federal agents to seize products made by forced labour. The Federal Court of Appeal said human rights advocates could not sue on principle, alone: "Our enforcement to this point has been terrible."
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: “U.S., Cuba restore ties. Canada claims credit. We were the host, the facilitator, the neutral ground. Let no one think the former foes could have done it without us…”
In Canada’s tortured postwar history of “reconciliation” with Indigenous people not a single deputy minister has been called to the witness stand. That’s odd. There have been twenty of them since 1953, yet blame for repeated failures was pinned on churches, social workers, Indian Residential School superintendents, the police or Canadian society as a whole. When everybody is to blame, nobody is to blame.
Professor Jim Miller of the University of Saskatchewan pulls back the curtain on the historical blame game. Residential Schools And Reconciliation documents Ottawa’s handling of Indigenous issues. This is not ancient history. It just happened.
Methodically, step by step in infuriating detail, Miller recounts the costly failures, a “pettifogging” dispute resolution system and bureaucratic cross-piling of sawdust that left Canadians with a process that satisfied no one.
Governor General Mary Simon logged thousands of kilometres by government jet to live in Nova Scotia rather than the 175-room Rideau Hall mansion in Ottawa. Simon yesterday disclosed she decided to make Nova Scotia her home "during the pandemic."
Cabinet yesterday issued a public safety order suspending the experimental decriminalization of cocaine and other narcotics in British Columbia schoolyards, airports and other targeted locations. B.C. saw blanket decriminalization of simple possession of drugs provincewide last January 31: "My son’s daycare had to be shut down."
Repeal of the GST on new apartment construction will cost about a third of a billion a year, according to the Parliamentary Budget Office. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau yesterday revived a 2015 campaign promise for a sales tax holiday on new, purpose-built apartments: "How many new buildings?"
Conservatives will compel Parliament to vote on a mandate that municipalities issue 15 percent more home building permits annually or lose federal subsidies, Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre said yesterday. “More home building, more money,” he said. “Less home building, less money.”
A CBC story that made gratuitous reference to criminal suspects as white and angry failed to meet the network's own journalism code, an ombudsman ruled yesterday. The story suggested violent criminals in B.C. were young, Caucasian and "disgruntled."
Cabinet yesterday for a second time extended a repayment deadline on $49.2 billion worth of interest-free pandemic loans for small business. Loans originally due December 31: "The government has failed to address the most critical issue."
Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault has settled a five-figure debt for unpaid taxes. Guilbeault as a member of cabinet is paid $287,400 a year plus a $2,000 car allowance: "“I no longer have arrears due Revenu Québec."
Home prices everywhere are far too high and “cannot continue to go up,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said yesterday. He did not elaborate: "Does that mean you would like house prices to come down?"
Parliament should abolish $76 billion real estate investment trusts and consider “other tax measures to curb financialization of housing,” says a report by the Federal Housing Advocate. Cabinet yesterday did not comment on the report but ruled out any tax on home equity: "It would be political suicide."
Barely a quarter of Canadians surveyed have a high opinion of the CRTC, says in-house research. A decline in the agency’s “favourability rating” coincided with new legislation granting it unprecedented powers to regulate the internet: "What is your impression of the CRTC?"
Show business is hardscrabble and unpredictable but still deserving of legitimate deductions, Tax Court has ruled. The decision came in the case of Chantal Preston, a singer and songwriter whose manager’s deductions were denied by the Canada Revenue Agency: "The Minister of National Revenue did not agree."
Cabinet yesterday signaled it will extend a soon-to-expire $595 million temporary bailout for newspapers. Press lobbyist Bob Cox, who won subsidies on a promise “you can't give them forever,” was appointed to a bailout review panel that will now run into 2025: "I don’t like the idea of a long-term subsidy for newspapers that becomes permanent."
