The CBC in Access To Information memos questioned what MP Erin O’Toole’s election as Conservative Party leader “means for us.” O’Toole became the first Opposition Leader to advocate privatization of the English-language TV network: "Yes we are tracking."
A long running dispute over whether banks can pull mortgages from marijuana users is finally headed to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. The dispute dating from 2010 follows Scotiabank’s recall of a loan to a homeowner with a federal license to grow medical cannabis: "The Bank does not allow marijuana."
Booksellers yesterday rated Jody Wilson-Raybould’s SNC-Lavalin exposé the bestselling Canadian political memoir of the entire year after two months on the market. The former attorney general wrote that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had to “come clean” on dealings with the Québec engineering company: "Deny, delay and distract."
A new federal law threatening ten years’ imprisonment for vaccine protestors is undemocratic, says a British Columbia senator. “Protest is one of the hallmarks of our democracy for unions and for different groups that want to put forward their views,” said Senator Larry Campbell: "Any time we limit this, we lessen our freedoms."
Canadians want a tax on foreign offshore real estate speculators to be expanded, says in-house research by the Privy Council Office. The current tax, first of its kind, takes effect January 1: "Both foreign-owned summer homes and properties purchased primarily for use in Airbnb should be subject to the foreign buyers’ tax."
Cabinet on Friday pushed final passage of a paid sick days' bill through the Senate amid complaints of arm-twisting. Senators grumbled the Upper Chamber had become a rubber stamp. The Senate has passed every cabinet bill for 25 years: "I won’t say there was intimidation but there was pressure, and a lot of it."
Most government jobs earmarked for public posting are never posted, according to the Public Service Commission. The agency has complained of cronyism by federal managers: "That is certainly something we are on the lookout for at the Commission."
Federal regulators have censured another bank for negative option billing. Scotiabank breached regulations by opening thousands of accounts for customers who never asked for them, according to the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada: "Scotiabank was negligent."
To read this delightful account of wartime eating is to comprehend for the first time our mothers’ odd fascination with liver.
Livestock organs have today vanished from most supermarkets including items that butchers once creatively marketed as “variety meats”: calves’ brains, tongue, tripe and kidneys. None blighted so many childhoods as liver: liver loaf, minced liver, liver sauté, and most appalling, fried liver and onions, a dense, grey, mealy dish that could only be choked down with ketchup.
“Eat liver frequently” was the decree of the 1944 Official Food Rules. An entire generation of homemakers took the admonishment to heart long after victory was ours.
Food Will Win The War is a fresh and lively account of the Canadian dinner plate. It peers into the corners of the historical cupboard to uncover the most intriguing details of the home front experience.
The latest pandemic relief bill will cost billions more than originally estimated, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland disclosed last night. The revelation came minutes after the Commons passed the bill and adjourned for Christmas: "We're tired of this."
Liberal MPs yesterday said any federal boycott of China-made pandemic masks might breach trade treaties. Opposition members on the Commons government operations committee tried and failed to pass a motion recommending federal agencies use only Canadian-made products: "Get rid of the Chinese masks, okay?"
An 1880 railway agreement yesterday dubbed a “sweetheart deal” will be reconsidered by Parliament. Prairie legislators appealed for help in countering a Canadian Pacific Railway claim for a perpetual tax holiday: "The railway did pretty well at the time."
Cabinet must introduce new gun controls, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said yesterday. Guns were “causing the loss of too many innocent lives,” he said: "We believe we have more steps to take around gun controls."
Individual Canadians and private companies “need to do their part” in surrendering confidential information to Statistics Canada, a federal advisory panel said yesterday. StatsCan said it would respect privacy rights: 'There is a lack of willingness by public, private and other sectors to work with Statistics Canada.'
MPs last night ordered hearings into the Prime Minister’s promises to a United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow six weeks ago. “Is there a plan?” asked a member of the Commons natural resources committee: "The Prime Minister is making promises."
