The Department of Natural Resources yesterday said it is contracting tree experts to fulfill a forestry promise made by cabinet two elections ago. Then-Environment Minister Catherine McKenna in 2019 promised to create thousands of jobs planting billions of trees: "We harvest less than one percent of our forests in Canada."
Canada’s official inflation rate reflects only a fraction of true increases in the cost of living, a former chief analyst with Statistics Canada said yesterday. Actual inflation is much higher than StatsCan’s benchmark Consumer Price Index, the Commons finance committee was told: "I am sure the inflation rate in Canada is much higher than 4.8 percent."
Political aides yesterday declined comment on federal security measures for a Truckers For Freedom convoy. A similar 2019 rally had the Privy Council Office clear rooftops overlooking Parliament Hill and distribute staff emails claiming truckers wanted to arrest Justin Trudeau: "I’m worried that somebody’s going to be shot."
Cabinet has no idea how many firearms are smuggled into the country from the United States, according to Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino’s department. Staff in an internal briefing note also contradicted public claims of widespread gun seizures at the border: "The total number of firearms successfully smuggled into Canada is unknown."
Covid caused fewer cases of serious illness among kindergartners than originally claimed, says an internal federal briefing note. The Public Health Agency also ruled out any vaccine mandate for young children and said parents’ views must be respected: "Caregivers are supported and respected during the decision making process."
The Treasury Board is in violation of its own rules on proper use of federal credit cards, says an internal audit. An investigation found irregularities were commonplace including lack of receipts justifying purchases: "The department must show good stewardship of public funds."
The Department of Canadian Heritage is billing taxpayers to fly hip-hop dancers, rappers and African drummers to Nunavut to observe Black History Month in February, accounts show. Documents detail nearly $83,000 in funding including talent fees for one senator to visit Nunavut: "This is not something I wish to discuss with you."
Federal regulators say they are still awaiting cabinet's final approval to launch on an interest-free loan program for home energy refits. Cabinet announced the plan last April 19 but has yet to introduce it: "We are waiting impatiently for it."
Mandating vaccination is not recommended, says the deputy chief epidemiologist with the Public Health Agency of Canada. Dr. Howard Njoo told reporters Friday immunization was “a voluntary choice” and that positive education was preferable to coercion: "It doesn’t have to be because there’s a mandate."
CMHC never meant to commission $250,000 worth of research on a home equity tax, the CEO told the Commons finance committee. Romy Bowers said the federal insurer had done no work on the entire subject of taxation: "Unfortunately I am not in a position to answer."
Only a third of Canadians think they will be better off in five years, says a global survey by a Chicago-based public relations firm. The finding mirrored in-house research by the Department of Finance that found many Canadians were merely “coping or struggling.”
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, writes for Blacklock’s each and every Sunday: “I dreaded her. My Grade 6 English teacher who beat at the blackboard with her chalk…”
In 1955 a round-trip flight from Toronto to Rome was a staggering $677, the modern equivalent of $6,100. It was the cost of a full order of household appliances or a good used car – not that it mattered. Most Canadians went their entire working lives without ever stepping on an airplane for a holiday. Not till 1944 did any province even mandate two weeks’ annual holiday pay for wage earners. A simple vacation was luxury, let alone travel abroad.
“Don’t you get tired of just reading about things?” the frustrated traveler George Bailey is asked in It’s A Wonderful Life. Bailey, like the film audience, accepted he could never get away. So, they dreamed. The phenomenon inspires this compelling book documenting the aspirations of the “middlebrow”, a pejorative first coined in 1924.
Internal records show the Department of Health rushed to stock a malaria drug after then-U.S. President Donald Trump endorsed it on Twitter as a Covid treatment. Managers in a censored memo rushed to buy hydroxychloroquine based on “media articles,” they said: "That’s all it is, just a feeling."
Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan’s office in correspondence with a senator said paid sick leave for the private sector should be not be too generous to avoid abuse by workers. The letter claimed employees like truck drivers would take advantage of automatic benefits such as ten days' paid sick leave per year: "Give it to me in writing."
