Blacklock's Reporter

Who invented our conservation movement: Hippies? First Nations. Settlers? The answer is none of the above. Conservation was created by 19th century corporations and wealthy urban sportsmen. The first national park in Banff was intended as a resort for the rich. Critics cursed it.

“There is no reason for the government to go into the business of entertaining,” Liberal MP John Kirk of Nova Scotia told the House in 1887. “This is a benefit to the wealthy while the poor people are compelled to foot the bill.”

If the motives of corporations like Banff’s Canadian Pacific Railway resort builders were selfish and narrow, the result was good and beyond debate. There is a park. Wildlife and waterways were preserved.

At least 49 staff at the Department of Employment were fired as Covid relief cheats, the Commons public accounts committee learned yesterday. MPs could not get information on the number of firings in other departments or the Canada Revenue Agency: "49 now former employees at the department were terminated for fraud?"

Covid shots accounted for an average 85 percent of medically reported “adverse effects” due to vaccination in the Canadian Armed Forces, new data show. Figures were disclosed at the request of Conservative MP Cheryl Gallant (Renfrew-Nipissing, Ont.) who asked, “How many vaccine-related injuries have occurred to Canadian Armed Forces members?”

Federal managers in a series of social media errors misspelled the Queen's name when she died and compared tax filing to monkey business. The gaffes are among scores of Government of Canada tweets deleted by staff, records show: "The perks are ape-solutely a-peeling!"

A federal bank, Farm Credit Canada of Regina, paid bonuses to every senior manager through three years of pandemic, records show. The bank was one of nine federal agencies to pay 100 percent of executives a bonus year after year: "The government pays these people a lot of money."

The Bloc Québécois yesterday protested plans to eliminate the Québec riding held by an MP who supported the Freedom Convoy. “This will weaken our political voice,” said MP Kristina Michaud (Avignon-La Mitis-Matane-Matapédia, Que.), her party's public safety critic.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland hosted a dinner party at her Toronto home with a former federal contractor, the Commons government operations committee learned yesterday. “She actually convened a dinner at her house,” testified Dominic Barton, now-retired managing director of McKinsey & Company, a global consulting firm: "I knew her from before. I did know her."

Québec has a “fixation on religious minorities” while Black Muslim women live in fear “out West,” cabinet’s inclusion advisor said in public remarks last spring. Amira Elghawaby, the $191,000-a year Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia, said she herself was targeted by a truck driver while walking in her Ottawa neighbourhood: "I too was almost hit by a truck that was deliberately and very dangerously swerving toward me."

Attorney General David Lametti has lost a key Federal Court ruling on his use of emergency powers against the Freedom Convoy. A judge ordered that internal emails contradicting cabinet claims of a national crisis must be admitted into evidence: 'It was not disclosed despite repeated requests.'

The Commons yesterday for the second time in two years unanimously passed a motion condemning China for crimes against humanity. MPs by a 322-0 vote said Uyghur Muslims “face pressure and intimidation by the Chinese state.”

Customs agents did not seize any contraband by rail over a four-year period, records show. The disclosure follows cabinet’s admission it has no estimate on the number of guns smuggled into Canada: "The CBSA did not seize any illegal items from train cars for the years 2018 to 2021."

A Calgary hotel last year was paid the equivalent of $452,714 per guest to feed and shelter quarantined travelers, records show. MPs expressed astonishment at millions paid to the Westin Calgary Airport hotel by the Public Health Agency of Canada: "Has anybody been fired for this?"

A Conservative MP yesterday was told to “watch the language” after accusing cabinet members of corrupt practices. MP Michael Barrett (Leeds-Grenville, Ont.) repeated his charge outside the Commons, then served notice of committee cross-examination for one minister caught rewarding a friend with sole-sourced contracts: "What is it going to take for one of these corrupt ministers to resign?"

A cabinet bill to regulate YouTube is an Orwellian attempt to have Canadian creators comply with government-approved messaging, a Liberal-appointed Senator said yesterday. “In Germany it was called the Ministry of National Enlightenment,” said Senator David Richards, a novelist and screenwriter: 'I don’t know who would be able to tell me what Canadian content is but it won’t be the Minister of Heritage.'

Taxpayers lost a half million on contractors’ cancellation fees paid by federal department and agencies, records show. The figure did not include estimates from the Department of Public Works that declined to release all numbers: "This information is not systematically available."