Blacklock's Reporter

Cabinet’s costly $595 million media bailout failed to save jobs and included only “temporary” measures, says a briefing note for Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez. Heavily-subsidized newspapers cut jobs while the only significant growth in media occurred with unsubsidized digital startups, wrote staff: “Overall job losses have continued upwards.”

Revenue Commissioner Bob Hamilton misled MPs in under-reporting the number of Canada Revenue Agency employees implicated in fraudulent claims for pandemic benefits. Hamilton claimed there were “not very many, obviously,” though the Agency now confirms hundreds are under investigation: "I’m afraid ‘not very many’ is not a sufficient answer.'"

The Public Health Agency claims 20 times more Canadians would have died in the pandemic than in World War Two if not for lockdowns and vaccine mandates. The claim is detailed in briefing notes and a “what could have happened” study self-published by the Agency: "Do we have data?"

Demonstrators attending an anti-discrimination rally on Parliament Hill played the Chinese People’s Liberation Army anthem, says a pro-democracy China media monitor. The anthem pledged allegiance to “Mao Zedong’s flag.”

Homeowners with variable rate mortgages are cutting household budgets and moonlighting in second jobs, says a Bank of Canada Survey Of Consumer Expectations. “Many low income households are already buying only necessities, leaving little room for further cuts to their spending,” wrote researchers.

Blacklock's pauses to wish all friends and subscribers a happy observance of 156 years of Confederation. We're back tomorrow  -- The Editor

Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: “Join the celebration this Canada day. Do the little things that make a difference…”

Parliament is all we’ve got. Not media or military, not cabinet or courts, not public service executives or the diplomatic corps. Only Parliament stands between us and the wolves, yet it goes unrecognized and unloved. “Dissatisfaction with Parliament is not new,” writes Jonathan Malloy. “We need to step back and consider the matter more carefully,” he adds. Yes, exactly.

Professor Malloy skilfully documents the myths of Parliament. There are many. One is that MPs are helpless, broken automatons with failed marriages who are reduced to jellyfish by mean tweets. Wrong. Many “flourish in the position,” he writes.

“Long-standing parliamentarians can exhibit an almost effortlessness in the job, fielding travel, constituent queries, parliamentary questions and a myriad of other demands with a cool equanimity,” writes Malloy. “There can be a certain world-weary resignation to such characters but also sophistication and wisdom.”

The Canada Revenue Agency confirms it fired an undisclosed number of employees for discussing individual taxpayers’ financial information in a Facebook chat. Two thirds of the Agency’s 47,000 employees have access to electronic tax files, by official estimate: "Employees were disciplined up to and including termination."

Google Canada yesterday joined Facebook in confirming it will halt all links to Canadian news content in protest over cabinet’s Bill C-18 the Online News Act. The announcement came only days after Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez said the Canadian market was too “important to them” to retaliate: 'You have to understand they make a lot of money in Canada.'

A $133,822 grant application by anti-Semitic activist Laith Marouf raised "no flags" at the Department of Canadian Heritage since paperwork was submitted in his wife's name, records show. MPs protested funding for Marouf after he was banned from Twitter for fantasizing about shooting Jews: "If the individual’s views had been discovered the project would not have been funded."

Federal grain workers were not entitled to a day off with pay when the Queen died, a labour arbitrator has ruled. The Prime Minister’s declaration of a National Day of Mourning last September 19 generally benefited only public employees: "There is no federal or provincial legislation which recognizes the Day of Mourning as a holiday."

A Québec court has fined a homeowner $200 for cussing police with a common vulgarity. Other tribunals have concluded the f-word does not have the same raw connotation in French as in English: "He put forward an explanation, namely that he was not insulting the police but rather he was pointing out the lack of service rendered by the police."

Inflation has overtaken the Canada Food Guide, says the federal department responsible for benchmark guidance on healthy eating. Less than a third of Canadians can afford minimum daily servings of fruit and vegetables, it said: "The Food Guide was released prior to the recent rising cost of food due to inflation and does not currently acknowledge the growing issues of food availability and affordability."

Michael Wernick, former chief clerk of the federal public service, yesterday joined a Liberal-affiliated think tank. Wernick abruptly resigned in 2019 following disclosures of cabinet's failed attempt to quash a criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin Group Inc.: "I worry about the reputations of honourable people who have served their country being besmirched."