Auditors at the Department of Veterans Affairs are questioning millions spent on an old navy cemetery. The department billed taxpayers $4 million for graveyard upgrades like plots that were never sold and trails that were never used: "There is no plan."
Homeowners on flood plains face a mandatory $900 a year premium for additional insurance under a proposal yesterday by a federal task force. A national insurance program is need to save taxpayers the cost of ad hoc disaster aid, it said: "It is the country’s most common and costly natural disaster."
Inflation is a “perfect storm” for wage earners, says an Ontario labour arbitrator. Private sector wage settlements across Canada this year are averaging as high as three percent or more in a bid to catch up with the cost of living: "What was once hoped to be ‘temporary’ is proving stubborn and persistent."
Inflation is the leading worry for Canadians with many questioning if the country’s best years are behind it, says internal Department of Finance research. Canadians told Minister Chrystia Freeland’s pollsters the cost of living was a bigger worry than crime, terrorism or climate change: "Wages have not kept up."
Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller yesterday said he had no idea his office approved a Canada Summer Student grant for a group whose anti-Semitic senior consultant campaigned against Jews as “human garbage.” Miller said the funding should be returned: "He’s held horribly anti-Semitic statements that we should have known about earlier."
Cabinet is “leaning in” on a pending bill to censor legal internet content and will introduce the legislation as soon as possible, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said yesterday. The effort has stalled since first proposed in 2019: "Others within our government are leaning in on this and will bring forward the legislation as quickly as possible."
A federal judge has certified a class action lawsuit against the Canada Revenue Agency over hacking of thousands of online accounts by CERB cheats. The Agency acknowledged flaws in its software allowed hackers to steal taxpayers’ ID to claim $2,000 pandemic relief cheques: "Did these attacks not demonstrate there was a total failure of the systems?"
Rogers Communications Inc. must answer for a July 8 blackout in pressing for its takeover of rival Shaw Communications, Chief Justice Paul Crampton of the Federal Court has ruled. Rogers executives had questioned the relevance of the internet shutdown that affected 12 million customers: "We work hard to bring the best value for money for our customers."
Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller’s office approved a Canada Summer Student grant application by a Montréal group linked to anti-Semitic slurs. Cabinet at the time required applicants to swear an oath to “respect individual human rights.”
A federal contractor paid as a media consultant by the Department of Canadian Heritage for years claimed Zionists controlled newspapers in Canada. Friends of Jews “monopolize North American media,” wrote Laith Marouf: "The majority of Canadian media is owned by two Zionists."
A drafting error by the Department of Justice will save a convicted drunk driver from a six-year license suspension, a judge has ruled. “Mistakes happen,” said the Ontario Court of Appeal: "They happen everywhere. One appears to have happened here."
The Public Service Alliance of Canada, the largest federal union, never challenged vaccine mandates in court because they “would have little chance of success,” it said. The comments came in a labour board hearing on the Alliance’s representation of members: "It was decided the best approach would be to handle files case by case."
Air Canada has been ordered to pay $1,000 each to a Fort St. John, B.C. couple whose flight was delayed more than nine hours due to “crew constraints.” A similar July 12 ruling against WestJet is being challenged in Federal Court amid fears airlines now owe clients millions in compensation: "Assessment must be made on a case by case basis."
In 1911, when Richard Bedford Bennett first arrived in Ottawa as the bachelor MP for Calgary West, his choice of accommodation was the Rideau Club. No finer meal could be had. Bennett loved food. “He believed if he put on weight he would present a more impressive appearance,” a friend recalled. In the end Bennett ate his way to diabetes and heart disease and the Rideau Club burned to the ground. But once both were in their glory.
Many Canadians recall when a portrait of Her Majesty was displayed in every post office and hockey rink and a thumping rendition of God Save The Queen was a staple of service club luncheons. Much has changed since a monarch last ascended to the throne in “an age of deference,” as David Johnson puts it.
“We are coming to the end of an era,” Johnston writes in Battle Royal. “Elizabeth II, a seemingly near permanent feature of life for so many people, is in her twilight years. At any point in the next decade or so the Queen will die and her son Charles, Prince of Wales, will become king. Monarchists will rejoice at this succession, following the ancient protocols of English common law, but republicans will grimace.”
Battle Royal is a crisp examination of where Canadians stand or fall on the relevance of the monarchy. Even die-hard republicans can’t bother with the tedious chore of changing the Constitution Act to replace the new king with a Canadian head of state, but this is not the point, notes the author. “This we know: The monarchy will continue to exist in Canada once Elizabeth II is gone, and the Canadian vice-regents will carry on their work as they always have,” writes Johnson of Cape Breton University. “There is a world of difference, however, between existing and thriving.”
