A federal handgun sales ban will not “meaningfully” reduce gun crime, the RCMP union and Regina's police chief testified at the Commons public safety committee. Federal authorities have sought to enforce a ban through cabinet order: "The issue is people who are criminals."
The federal Leaders’ Debates Commission paid $8,500 to settle out of court a defamation claim by Rebel News Network Limited. The payment was disclosed in Public Accounts tabled in Parliament: "There is room in the nation for the expression of opposing points of view."
“Canada: The Last Best West!” was his slogan. Clifford Sifton, a brilliant interior minister, crafted far-reaching immigration policies that are still with us. The Ottawa house he lived in for 25 years is not. His home might have been saved as a memorial to the man who built the West. Instead it was demolished to make way for a grey apartment building.
First-hand accounts of horrific childhoods are rare in literature, and compelling: Charlie Chaplin’s My Autobiography or A Memoir of Robert Blincoe, the recollections of an English workhouse boy that are so stark one U.K. reviewer said it made Oliver Twist look like a holiday camp.
From Athabasca University Press is My Decade at Old Sun, My Lifetime of Hell, the memoirs of an Indian Residential schoolboy. Arthur Bear Chief’s story is so raw it would have gone unpublished 30 years ago. Bear Chief notes with irony the Anglican Church didn’t give him much of an education at the Old Sun Residential School in Gleichen, Alta. His English skills were so poor that later, as a public servant, he had an ex-wife ghostwrite his government reports. The result in My Decade at Old Sun is a plain and riveting narrative stripped of adjectives and ornamental prose. It is vivid and powerful.
The Ottawa Police Service days before cabinet invoked the Emergencies Act distributed a memo falsely claiming foreign extremists bankrolled the Freedom Convoy. The memo by a U.K. think tank mentioned “Trump” five times and summarized Facebook insults against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: "Funding appears to be coming from a host of U.S. and international sources."
The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce yesterday was fined $5.6 million for breach of consumer protection rules. The federal penalty came on top of $11 million in refunds and interest the Bank was mandated to pay under Cost Of Borrowing Regulations: "CIBC was negligent."
Parliament in promoting a federal dentacare program runs a risk Canadian employers will repeal private plans to offload coverage, medical professionals warn the Senate national finance committee. “It is a real fear,” said the Canadian Dental Hygienists Association: "Either incentivize employers to maintain their dental benefits or you disincentivize them through large government fines."
Taxpayers face a half billion write-off on overpayments to federal employees due to payroll bungles, auditors said yesterday. “About half of these request had been outstanding for more than three years,” wrote Auditor General Karen Hogan: 'It may eventually result in the amount being written off.'
Toronto could be a niche market for raw seal meat, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said yesterday. Federal agencies for years have subsidized attempts to build a market for seal: "Did you say there is a demand for seal meat in Toronto? Is that what you said?"
The Public Order Emergency Commission paid as an expert consultant an Ottawa pollster who described Freedom Convoy supporters as thugs and jihadists. Frank Graves, president of Ekos Research Associates Inc., said he regretted his tweets and deleted them: "The Commission was not aware of Mr. Graves’ tweets."
Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez’s department “begged us” to take a subsidy, says an anti-Semite. Laith Marouf in his first public comments on the $133,822 grant said he was contacted by the Department of Canadian Heritage and promised funding in less than a week: "We got the money very fast."
Emergency powers could be used to jam Freedom Convoy cellphones, RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki wrote a cabinet aide. Lucki did not advocate use of the Emergencies Act but checked off numerous applications: "Cell phone disruption (but more work to be done)."
Cabinet’s YouTube regulation bill is not close to clearing the Senate communications committee, the chair said yesterday. Parliament must not hurry passage of the bill, said Senator Leo Housakos (Que.): "It would be irresponsible."
Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem yesterday warned Canadians to brace for another interest rate hike in time for Christmas and a likely recession. “Rates will need to rise further” December 7 after increasing six times this year, said Macklem: "There is no easy way out."
Senior officials including police and a deputy minister of public safety drafted a memo to end the Freedom Convoy with the stroke of a pen, in inquiry was told yesterday. A convoy lawyer said the proposal was before cabinet when it opted instead to invoke the Emergencies Act: "The deal would be: Leave the protest and denounce unlawful activity and you will be heard."
