Banks that froze millions held in accounts belonging to suspected Freedom Convoy sympathizers have not yet released all funds, cabinet’s representative in the Senate said yesterday. The Emergencies Act order that allowed blacklisting was suspended Wednesday: "Customers have no access to due process."
A TV announcer’s slip of the tongue on Indian Residential Schools has been censured by a national ombudsman. “The broadcaster demonstrated a lack of the necessary respect,” ruled the Canada Broadcast Standards Council: "Precision in language is what separates journalists from everyone else."
Canada must ensure “Putin doesn’t win,” the chair of Parliament’s Canada-Ukraine Friendship Group said yesterday. Lawmakers of Ukrainian ancestry expressed horror over the Russian invasion of their grandparents’ homeland: "I can see the pain in your face."
A federal bank, Farm Credit Canada of Regina, began blacklisting customers suspected of sympathizing with the Freedom Convoy. Critics of Emergencies Act orders targeting bank account holders yesterday called the measure punitive and unlawful: "Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure."
Cabinet’s abrupt suspension of Emergencies Act orders yesterday came so suddenly Liberal appointees in the Senate were continuing to warn of anarchist plots to topple Parliament even as the threat was downgraded to an ordinary police matter. “We need the full power of the state,” said Senator Bev Busson (B.C.), a former RCMP Commissioner: "It is a national crisis. I am at a loss to understand how we can play politics with our democracy."
First-ever use of the Emergencies Act to quash the Freedom Convoy movement will set a federal precedent for years to come, legislators warned yesterday. Liberal and Conservative-appointed senators called it government overreach: "The country is deeply divided like I have never seen it."
A $100 billion pandemic relief program originally intended to aid small business instead benefited large corporations, Statistics Canada data disclosed yesterday. Large corporations were three times as likely as small business to receive the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy: "One of the challenges the government has had is a profound misunderstanding of how small business works."
The federal minimum wage will rise to a higher rate than any province effective April 1. The pay hike affects three percent of federally regulated employees in the private sector but "sends a strong signal" on wage rates, say unions: "The federal government believes in a reasonable wage floor."
Banks have frozen nearly $8 million in accounts held by Freedom Convoy truckers, the Department of Finance disclosed yesterday. Authorities confirmed even small donations to the convoy, as little as $20, could trigger retribution if cash was contributed after cabinet declared the Freedom Convoy an illegal assembly on February 15: "It could be a savings account, a chequing account, a mortgage."
MPs on the Commons finance committee yesterday said they feared cabinet normalized financial retribution against political protesters. An Emergencies Act order allows banks to freeze personal and corporate accounts of Freedom Convoy protesters without a court order or advance notice to account holders: 'It is like a no-fly list where someone is now asterisked for the rest of their life.'
Cabinet has confidential information justifying extraordinary police powers against Freedom Convoy truckers, the Senate was told yesterday. Skeptical senators questioned why records could not be shown to legislators: "The short answer is no."
Freedom Convoy protests typify the despair of industrial workers “left out of the good life,” Senator Marc Gold (Que.), Government Representative in the Senate, said yesterday. One colleague questioned whether Gold spoke with any truckers: "Everyone had an opinion about them but certainly no one was talking to them."
Auditors have uncovered widespread irregularities in misuse of government-issue charge cards by Canadian diplomats abroad. Records at the Department of Foreign Affairs showed employees billed taxpayers for liquor, jewelry and “hospitality” expenses: "Documentation is required to verify compliance and identify misappropriation or fraud."
The Commons last night by a 185 to 151 vote upheld cabinet’s declaration of a national emergency curbing Freedom Convoy protests against vaccine mandates. The landmark vote, first of its kind, followed 36 hours of debate that saw a minority of MPs including Liberals express unease with use of the Emergencies Act: "This is a slippery slope."
Here is how members of the 44th Parliament last night voted on a cabinet motion to invoke the Emergencies Act.
