A federal judge has ordered public disclosure of locomotive data recorders for the first time since Parliament mandated use of the contentious surveillance equipment in 2022. The ruling came in the case of electronic data that captured the final, terrifying moments of a fatal derailment in a mountain pass: "Railway companies are statutorily obliged to record this information."
The Department of Natural Resources proposes a fully-automated earthquake warning system that would not only alert the public of impending disaster but slow trains, divert landing aircraft and shut off natural gas mains. No budget was disclosed: "Why have you not taken any steps to protect your property from earthquakes?"
It was a monument to scandal. For 19th century visitors and VIPs, the last stop in Ottawa was Canadian Pacific Railway’s Broad Street station. It had no more frequent visitor than Prime Minister John Abbott, millionaire lawyer and CPR fixer. The station is gone now, the scandal forgotten. And Abbott is recalled only as the great-grandfather of actor Christopher Plummer.
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 was 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 Arthur Bear Chief’s story is so raw it would have gone unpublished 30 years ago.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.
Newly-declassified 2004 cabinet minutes show then-Prime Minister Paul Martin agonized over legalization of same-sex marriage. Martin privately complained provincial courts had forced the government’s hand, according to Access To Information records disclosed yesterday: "Many Canadians are struggling with the idea."
The Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations has censored as "confidential" its files on what a Kamloops, B.C. First Nation did with $12.1 million paid to recover alleged graves of Indian Residential School children. The Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation acknowledged February 18 it never exhumed any remains: "The heartbreaking truth about Residential Schools’ unmarked burials continues to be unveiled."
Layoffs due to artificial intelligence are already underway, says one of the country’s largest unions. The Canadian Union of Public Employees in a report to senators itemized jobs that have vanished: "CUPE is already seeing job loss."
The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has awarded an Alberta truck driver $30,000 in damages for discrimination. The Tribunal was told the driver was harassed at work after suffering an injury on the job: "Damage awards should not be so trivial or insignificant so as to be meaningless."
A national radio ombudsman yesterday faulted a Toronto station for celebrating World Series ticket giveaways. Radio CFTR should have specified it had the same ownership as the Blue Jays, Rogers Inc., ruled the Canada Broadcast Standards Council: "The media landscape has changed with corporate groups becoming increasingly involved in many ventures."
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Buy Canadian policy doesn’t apply to Crown corporations hiring suppliers outside the country, says a federal memo. The Prime Minister omitted the fact when urging Canadians to support home industries: "Canada is on a mission to build Canada strong."
Complaints of misleading “Made in Canada” labeling increased tenfold since tariff troubles erupted with the U.S., says the Food Inspection Agency. Inspectors attributed it to “an increase in awareness.”
Distributing conspiracy videos does not constitute discrimination or hate speech, British Columbia's Human Rights Tribunal has ruled. The decision came over a 21-minute video posted in a students’ union Facebook chat: "I do not see how sharing the video in a small group could be likely to cause the kind of societal harms the Human Rights Code is designed to prevent."
A social media post by the publisher of Rebel News Network prompted federal managers to launch an immediate search for a security guard wearing a Palestine pin, Access To Information records show. The search followed a Twitter comment last December 18 by Ezra Levant at the Calgary International Airport: "This needs to be addressed as soon as possible."
The Competition Tribunal has dismissed a constitutional challenge by Google Canada Corp. in a long-running dispute over marketing practices. Google complained federal investigators were after billions in damages for alleged breach of the Competition Act: "“Google claims the requested administrative monetary penalty may exceed $90 billion."
The Department of Foreign Affairs liberalized drinking rules for diplomats in the name of “improving efficiency,” Access To Information records show. Repeal of strict controls on embassy liquor cabinets came under a 2025 order to cut red tape: "We believe these changes will significantly reduce the administrative workload and improve efficiency in our operations."
