The Department of Canadian Heritage is attempting to claw back $99,500 in funding from a Palestinian group over social media posts. The department cited Instagram messages depicting Israelis as homicidal slave masters and a symbol it associated with Hamas terrorists: "Long live the triangle."
House of Commons administration is keeping files on what Canadians say about their MPs. The “very robust records management system” included social media posts, said the Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms: "We have different categories, if they are misogynistic, etcetera."
The Privy Council in a newly-declassified 1968 memo estimated Soviet sympathizers and Cold War subversives in Canada far outnumbered actual Communist Party members. The memo named one university, five unions and the United Church as key targets for subversion: "The Communist movement in Canada consists of some 20,000 persons."
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: “The Royal Canadian Mint introduces their new collection. They say Canadian coins celebrate our nation’s culture and milestones…”
On Sunday, June 22, 1953 a liquor store clerk named Bill Beatty died from an accidental fall at his Toronto duplex. Beatty was a plain man who died an ordinary death, yet a Globe & Mail editor pushed his obituary up to page four: “As a result of injuries suffered a week ago in a fall from an upper duplex porch at his home, William James Beatty, 54, of 56 Macdonnell Ave., died yesterday afternoon in St. Joseph’s Hospital. Mr. Beatty, it is believed, suffered a dizzy spell from the heat and lost his balance. He never regained consciousness. A veteran of the First World War, he served overseas with the 75th Regiment.”
He was with the 75th. In a city that celebrated Old School Ties and the exclusivity of private clubs, the combat veterans of the Toronto Scottish Regiment were a privileged class of workers’ aristocracy honoured long after the war’s end.
The national debt is now worth the equivalent of more than $33,000 for every man, woman and child in Canada, Budget Officer Annette Ryan said yesterday. Sustainability of Canada’s finances is a concern if interest rates rise or growth shrinks, she said: "The economy still remains tenuous."
Use of the Liberal Party’s “Canada Strong” election slogan in federal advertising violates a directive against partisan misuse of public funds, members of the Commons government operations committee said yesterday. The Privy Council promised to investigate: "It literally violates the Treasury Board rules."
Statistics Canada yesterday denied downplaying anti-Semitic incidents in a national hate crimes report. Access To Information records showed the agency provided a confidential advance copy of its “highly anticipated” report to Heritage Minister Marc Miller’s department before it was published: "The department will get to review work in progress."
Canada’s new Chief Public Health Officer yesterday called the pandemic “a very difficult time for everyone” but would not discuss which specific errors contributed to public distrust. “Trust in health and institutions has been strained,” Dr. Joss Reimer of Winnipeg told the Commons health committee: "Whether those were the right or wrong decisions, we know there were many difficult things."
MPs yesterday recommended first-ever annual reporting on military suicides. The Commons veterans affairs committee complained of “data shortages” amid conflicting figures: "Release an annual report on deaths by suicide."
Cabinet has jurisdiction to regulate the internet, Heritage Minister Marc Miller said yesterday. Canada had fallen “a couple of years behind” European countries in monitoring legal content, he said: "We’re working on it."
Cabinet rates its “nation building bill” a success though no project has been approved since it passed into law last June 26, a parliamentary committee was told. Conservative MP Aaron Gunn (North Island-Powell River, B.C.) ridiculed the claim at a hearing of a Special Joint Committee: "John A. Macdonald and Wilfrid Laurier are looking down on us saying, ‘These guys know how to build things now’?"
A federal appointee mandated to monitor Canadian corporate ethics abroad has not tabled an annual report since 2022, Conservative MP Arnold Viersen (Peace River-Westlock, Alta.) yesterday told the Commons. Union executives have long questioned the Ombudsman for Responsible Enterprise: "The concern here is not an isolated delay but an ongoing failure."
The nation should avoid a 2026 recession if world events are resolved smoothly, the Bank of Canada said yesterday. “If the situation changes, we may need to change course,” Governor Tiff Macklem told reporters.
Employment Insurance claimants have no right to keep undeserved benefits even if they were paid through government error, says a federal judge. The ruling came in the case of a jobless claimant told to repay the treasury $1,366: "She did nothing wrong."
