It is up to the Coast Guard to enforce a federal ban on Russian vessels in Canadian ports, Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said yesterday. Alghabra said a handful of Russian-owned vessels were already warned to clear out of Canadian waters: "We will not hesitate to enforce any breaches."
A shutdown at Canadian Pacific Railway is ill-timed, Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan said yesterday. Cabinet would not comment on whether it would invoke back to work legislation to end the dispute between management and the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference: "So you're not ruling it out?"
Decriminalizing heroin and other street drugs is no answer to preventing deaths, Addictions Minister Dr. Carolyn Bennett said yesterday. Legalization of marijuana did not stop users from buying on the black market, said Bennett: "Decriminalization still means people go to the street to get their drugs."
An attempted arson linked by media to the Freedom Convoy had nothing to do with the protest, Ottawa detectives said yesterday. Legislators who voted to invoke the Emergencies Act repeatedly pointed to the incident as proof truckers were violent and lawless: "Take a moment to think what that means."
A federal judge has cited the Leaders’ Debates Commission for unfairly blacklisting certain media from asking questions at campaign events. Justice Elizabeth Heneghan sharply criticized the Commission for blacklisting Rebel News Network Ltd. at debates last September: "There is room in the nation for the expression of opposing points of view."
The National Newspaper Awards committee has dropped a sportswriters' prize named for a Globe columnist who ridiculed minority athletes as yelping “squaws” and “coloured gals.” Organizers had pledged to be more sensitive to “equity seeking groups.”
Reid Sirrs, the ambassador who fled Kabul leaving 1,250 Canadians trapped under Taliban rule, tonight speaks publicly for the first time. MPs on the Commons Special Committee on Afghanistan summoned Sirrs for questioning on why he closed Canada’s embassy as thousands pleaded for help: "Any hope for a swift but orderly evacuation went out the window effectively leaving thousands behind."
Federal employers are reviewing their vaccination mandates, says Dr. Theresa Tam. The chief public health officer’s remarks follows suspension without pay of more than a thousand workers who declined Covid shots or refused to disclose their medical status under the Privacy Act: "I encourage Canadians to show each other compassion and respect as we make decisions to protect ourselves."
Customs officers at major airports will be routinely armed under a Department of Transport proposal. Gun-toting smugglers and gangland criminals are now a “presence,” the department said: "There are incidents of organized crime involvement."
A promised "world class" federal oil tanker safety system lacked clarity and focus, says a Department of Transport report. The $394.8 million program launched nine years ago became mired in paperwork, wrote auditors: "There was a lack of clarity."
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, writes for Blacklock’s each and every Sunday: “The world, caught off guard as Russia takes control of Crimea. All eyes on Ottawa…”
Panicked credit union depositors withdrew millions after cabinet ordered a freeze on accounts of Freedom Convoy sympathizers, executives yesterday disclosed. “Many Canadians felt surprised the government had that authority,” said Martha Durdin, CEO of the Canadian Credit Union Association: "There was some degree of panic."
No mysterious foreign millionaires bankrolled the Freedom Convoy, crowdfunding executives yesterday told the Commons finance committee. Evidence disproving cabinet claims of six-figure foreign interference came as one Liberal MP theorized Russia may have secretly funded the protest: "The statistics and numbers we are quoting here are the facts."
Ineligible seniors who falsely claim benefits must pay the money back, the Federal Court of Appeal has ruled. The landmark decision came in the case of an American woman ordered to repay more than $115,000 in Old Age Security cheques she pocketed over nearly two decades: "The fact the Minister approved an application does not qualify the person for benefits for all time."
The federal definition of “fully vaccinated” will remain at two Covid shots for now but it “obviously depends on the evolution of possible things,” Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos yesterday told reporters. His remarks came as cabinet lifted a Quarantine Act requirement effective April 1 that fully vaccinated travelers show proof of a negative Covid test at the border: "Will ‘fully vaccinated’ as a definition have to incorporate three shots?"
