Most Canadian homeowners now spend more than $200 a month for heat and light, says in-house research by the Department of Natural Resources. A fifth of Canadians, 21 percent, said “my home energy costs are a significant financial burden.”
The Commons public safety committee yesterday voted to investigate Canada's growing black market trade in vehicles hijacked for export. Insurance claims on stolen cars, trucks and SUVs last year totaled $1 billion: "This is an issue that is actually quite personal to me as my vehicle was stolen."
Liberal MPs on the Commons health committee yesterday rejected a public inquiry into federal pandemic management. Cabinet favoured instead a closed-door review by advisors to the Minister of Health: "Canadians will never get the answers they deserve."
A majority of the Commons ethics committee yesterday voted against questioning cabinet dealings with SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. “Unacceptable,” said Conservative MP Michael Barrett (Leeds-Grenville, Ont.): "We have government members looking to shut down a hearing on a very serious matter."
China is likely responsible for another internet slander campaign targeting MPs, the second attack of its kind in four months, the Department of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. China swamped MPs’ social media accounts with libelous remarks, it said: "It likely seeks to discredit and denigrate the targeted MPs."
Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault will not release letters he claimed to receive from Canadians grateful for the carbon tax. Guilbeault said he had thank-you notes from a woman named Jill in Regina and “Bob, a teacher.”
Cabinet will take measures to curb housing demand, says Housing Minister Sean Fraser. The Minister in a letter to MPs said increasing the housing supply alone is insufficient: 'Canada will need careful well-calibrated measures to moderate housing demand.'
Federal agents allowed thousands of inadmissible foreigners into the country under a program that failed four previous audits, says a new Canada Border Services Agency report. Fewer than half of permits issued under a Temporary Resident Permit program followed the rules: 'They may potentially gain access to health and social services.'
Cabinet in 2024 will launch a public registry naming beneficial owners of all federal corporations, says Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne. The Senate banking committee approved a registry bill without amendment, ensuring its passage into law by Christmas: "We are serious about doing something."
Federal auditors have recovered about $78 million in unpaid taxes to date as a result of the Panama Papers leak. The Canada Revenue Agency said numerous audits and two criminal investigations are ongoing: "It is very important for the Agency to be perceived as aggressively pursuing tax evaders to maintain the trust in the tax system."
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: “Visiting the restroom in a New York restaurant. A sign above the sink says….”
In 1918 the Imperial War Graves Commission enacted two notable regulations. All dead were to be buried with their units, regardless of rank, near the spot where they fell. And all families of the dead could submit personal messages, to 66 characters, to be carved into kin’s headstones.
The effect was profound: mammoth, manicured battlefield cemeteries with indelible inscriptions. Wilfrid Laurier University Press asks, what did they write? Epitaphs were thoughtful, angry, ironic. They are collected in Canada’s Dream Shall Be Of Them. It is a beautiful, elegant book that will bring a reader to tears.
The epitaphs “were contributed not by the poets or artists we tend to associate with the Great War and modern memory, but by ordinary men and women,” writes Toronto historian Eric McGeer; “They are a window into another world, not a mirror to our own.”
Cabinet must suspend its “safe supply” drug policy as a killer, says a member of the Commons health committee. Conservative MP Todd Doherty (Cariboo-Prince George, B.C.), choking back tears, told the committee he’d lost a brother-in-law to an accidental fentanyl overdose and was unable to save another brother “who lives on the street.”
More than 29,000 foreign fugitives are at large nationwide, says the Canada Border Services Agency. Management in a report to MPs called it their “wanted inventory” including foreigners convicted of crimes: "I don’t quite understand why we would tolerate this."
The House affairs committee yesterday dropped further public discussion into how a Waffen SS member was given a hero’s welcome on Parliament Hill. “Cover-up,” said one MP who pressed for public hearings: "What we have is the cover-up coalition at work yet again."
