Blacklock's Reporter

Poet Dahlia Kurtz writes: “Green bananas are the same as yellow ones…”

Canadian history for generations of sufferers has been a tiresome recitation of patriotic themes sanctioned by officialdom: Champlain, Vimy, the CPR. There is so much more.

Among unsung benefactors are those researchers who seek out the hidden corners of Canadiana. For little reward and less acclaim, they devote thousands of unpaid hours in documenting the lives and trials of our ancestors. The results are gold. An example is African Canadians In Union Blue.

Professor Richard Reid of the University of Guelph documents the story of Afro-Canadians who enlisted in the greatest cataclysm of the 19th century, the U.S. Civil War. Reid is a gifted writer. His research is extraordinary. In 308 pages Reid convincingly challenges everything Canadians think they know about the era.

Flight logs show the Department of National Defence flew half-empty mercy flights out of Kabul for days before the city fell to the Taliban, trapping thousands of Canadians and Afghan allies. The department in a newly-disclosed memo said it flew with empty seats in part because it wanted to conserve fuel: "It was very obvious the city was coming under siege."

Five provinces have solid finances that should carry the rest of the century, the Parliamentary Budget Office said yesterday. “All other provinces and territories have current fiscal policies that are not sustainable over the long term,” warned analysts. Two are headed for insolvency: "Manitoba will see the largest deterioration."

A Privy Council briefing note rates Arctic security “more important than ever.” Soldiers, sailors and air crew permanently assigned to the vast region number 300, it disclosed: "We have some 300 full-time military personnel in the North."

A labour board has awarded $54,000 in damages plus back pay to a former federal employee tormented at work by score-settling surveillance and costly suspensions. “The employer’s behaviour was egregious,” ruled the Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board: "This should have never happened."

Cabinet today expects final ratification of a settlement to the 13-day B.C. ports strike, says Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan. Another strike is out of the question, O’Regan told reporters: "We can’t have it happen again. We cannot go through this again."

Calling a judicial inquiry into alleged election fraud by Chinese agents is “complicated,” newly-appointed Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc yesterday told reporters. It has been nearly five months since all MPs but the Liberal caucus voted for an independent investigation: "What exactly is the holdup?"

The Prime Minister yesterday appointed a new Treasury Board president for the sixth time in eight years. The newest appointee, MP Anita Anand (Oakville, Ont.), told reporters she was “very well placed at this moment to join a fantastic economic team."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau yesterday sacked a fifth of his cabinet. He needed a “team with fresh energy,” Trudeau told reporters: "“There are lots of big things ahead and we’re going to stay focused on delivering them because that’s what Canadians want."

The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada yesterday would not release findings of a first-ever detailed federal study of payday loan borrowers. The research followed a February 13 report that 38 percent of Canadians were borrowing money to cover daily expenses: "The Agency is currently analyzing the data."

Canadians are buying fewer groceries due to food inflation, Statistics Canada said yesterday. “Shoppers are spending more but buying less,” wrote analysts: "Many grocery items have continued to increase month after month and on balance are 20 percent above levels reported two years earlier."

Covid-19 may have started in a “laboratory incident” but the precise cause is unproven, says the Department of Health. The acknowledgment comes three years after then-Health Minister Patricia Hajdu ridiculed “conspiracy theories” about the Wuhan Institute of Virology: 'You're feeding into conspiracy theories people perpetuate on the internet.'

Millions spent on the taxpayer-owned Trans Mountain Pipeline are not included in total costs, records show. Additional subsidies were excluded from calculations used in supporting cabinet’s claim that “no more public money will be used to complete the Trans Mountain Expansion.”

“Private capital” is needed to revive public transit, a Department of Infrastructure report said yesterday. Ridership nationwide remains below pre-pandemic levels at a loss to operators of more than $46 million a month, according to Statistics Canada: "Costs of major public transit projects cannot be met by governments on their own."