Canadians should expect an economic slowdown by winter with continued high costs of living, Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said yesterday. “That does imply some pain,” Macklem told reporters: "Yes, the economy is going to slow."
The Canadian Dairy Commission awarded its staff pandemic bonuses and pay increases as the industry dumped milk and stockpiled butter to keep up prices. Payments were detailed yesterday in Access To Information records obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation: "It’s tone deaf for the Dairy Commission to hand out pay raises and bonuses while making milk more expensive."
A credit union that decided to call a farmer’s loans but kept the fact a secret for a month at spring seeding time was dishonest, Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench has ruled. Financial institutions have a duty to be straightforward with customers, said a Winnipeg judge: "The way the client was dealt with in this case was dishonest and unnecessary."
We Charity for years received piecemeal contracts and grants that ran to $1.4 million from the Department of Foreign Affairs, according to newly-released briefing notes. Staff paid We Charity organizers from Nairobi to Los Angeles: 'Nine small initiatives totaling $1.3 million included activities in Kenya, India, Sri Lanka and Canada.'
Joe Volpe, former Liberal cabinet minister, has been ordered to pay nearly $384,000 in costs over a failed defamation suit. Volpe’s troubles started with a series of articles in his newspaper Corriere Canadese, the nation’s only Italian-language daily: "Parties are not free to abuse the judicial system without the threat of costs."
A public outcry yesterday prompted the Commons industry committee to convene emergency hearings on a Rogers Communications blackout that affected customers nationwide. The committee will meet Friday to schedule testimony on why service to some twelve million Rogers subscribers was disrupted for days: "This is deeply upsetting and unacceptable."
Taxpayers have a “very low” probability of seeing millions used to finance a foreign loan program, records show. A total $64,292,000 was termed repayable though there is little chance it will be ever be repaid, officials admitted: "The likelihood of the department being reimbursed is very low."
Transgender men have an unfair advantage in women’s competition, says a briefing note by the federal department that funds amateur sport. The Department of Canadian Heritage has sidestepped public comment on allowing biological men to compete as women: 'Transwomen are physiologically stronger.'
CBC producers helped “carefully craft” questions posed by voters to then-Opposition Leader Erin O’Toole in an election campaign broadcast, an Ombudsman’s report said yesterday. “They worked with each of the four participants to make sure their questions were focused and phrased effectively,” wrote Ombudsman Jack Nagler.
Taxpayers have lost millions in benefits paid to undeserving claimants under a Canada Pension Plan program, says a federal audit. Management of payments appeared to be a “continuous shuffling of files,” wrote auditors: "Reassessment is very complex work."
A broken hip at an army soccer game qualifies as a service-related injury, a federal judge has ruled. Attendance at the game was mandatory, noted the Federal Court: "He jumped to field a ball, twisted in the air, landed awkwardly on his left leg and fell to the ground."
The Department of Social Development spent more than $660,000 preserving French in the Yukon, records show. The territory is home to 85 unilingual francophones, according to Census data: "I understand the importance of being able to grow up, work and live in one’s own language."
A car rental company that once settled a million-dollar federal claim for false advertising has been ordered to refund a British Columbia driver who rented a faulty SUV. Enterprise Rent-A-Car Canada Co. had blamed the driver for problems with the vehicle: "Enterprise does not dispute this claim and agrees to pay it. There is no indication that it has."
A federal agency invested millions in a green energy firm accused of profiting from slave labour in China, records show. The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board disclosed in its latest filings it holds shares in a company named in a human rights report: "We are responsible for anything that is in our portfolio."
The Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery is in breach of federal sanctions against the Kremlin. Cabinet would not comment on Gallery dealings with a blacklisted entity, the official Russian news agency Itar-Tass, in breach of Special Economic Measures Regulations: "The Russian propaganda machine must answer for its lies."
