University students who take a “gap year” after high school typically lose thousands in long term earnings, says Statistics Canada data. There were no similar impacts on high school graduates who waited before entering trades: "A gap year may have long term economic implications."
The abrupt resignation of VIA Rail’s chief executive is a “privacy matter,” Transport Minister Omar Alghabra yesterday told the Commons transport committee. The $318,000-a year CEO quit May 20 with two years remaining on her contract: "I don’t think you want this committee to do a performance review on individual employees."
The head of CMHC in a private meeting complained of a “need for home prices to stall,” according to Access To Information records obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. CEO Romy Bowers also welcomed tips from equity tax advocates on a strategy to “brief political leaders” on the tax scheme: "Her own personal view is that real estate being 14 percent of GDP is not a strong path."
Online black market drug dealers sell more marijuana pound for pound than federally-licensed distributors, says a Department of Public Safety report. Data suggested criminal gangs prospered when Parliament legalized recreational cannabis four years ago: "Factors put the online illicit market on par with the online legal market."
A federal contractor Thomson Reuters paid to host the Prime Minister’s chief of staff and her deputy at the invitation-only White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, according to ethics filings. Katie Telford was earlier quoted by a cabinet minister as boasting she could manipulate press coverage: "Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson made a splash."
Nunavut has the largest government payroll outside Scandinavia, new federal figures show. Statistics Canada estimated 29 percent of the territory’s workforce is employed by government: "The public service is the largest employer in Nunavut,"
Conservative and New Democrat MPs joined in condemning a Supreme Court decision striking lifetime imprisonment without parole as unconstitutional. Parliament in 2011 amended the Criminal Code to permit literal life sentences for multiple murderers: "This is unacceptable."
When Pierre Trudeau died the Calgary Herald published a commentary calling him a Communist. As late as 1989 an Alberta Liberal running for a Senate seat drew protest after describing Trudeau as “a great Canadian.”
The provincial party has not won an election in more than a century. If voters send a handful of Liberals to Ottawa from time to time, statistically a Canadian has a better chance of visiting outer space than earning an MP’s pension as an Alberta Liberal. The last to serve three terms left office 16 years ago.
Yet author Darryl Raymaker recalls Trudeau was once cheered on horseback in the Calgary Stampede parade and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Alberta. He was “our very own JFK,” writes Raymaker.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s luxury tax on planes, boats and automobiles will cost jobs and generate less revenue than estimated, the Parliamentary Budget Office said yesterday. The ten percent tax takes effect September 1: "There would certainly be job losses."
Aggressive sales tactics remain commonplace at major banks, according to an undercover sting operation by a federal agency. Auditors posing as customers were routinely oversold products they neither sought nor required: "The Agency expects banks will not misplace this trust."
Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault yesterday approved a six-figure climate change grant to Canada's largest beer maker. Guilbeault’s department paid $250,000 to replace a diesel boiler in a St. John’s brewery: "We are a company based in nature."
Cabinet will not overturn a CRTC decision blamed for high wholesale telecom rates, the Department of Industry said yesterday. “It would be irresponsible,” André Arbour, director general of internet policy, told reporters in a technical briefing: "That does not mean to say there is not room for improvement for competition."
Vaccination status is “fundamentally private,” a national broadcast ombudsman said yesterday. The Canada Broadcast Standards Council ruling came in the case of an Edmonton announcer Lochlin Cross who outed a listener as unvaccinated: "Revelation of this private, confidential medical information was not only careless but egregious."
Liberal MPs last evening invoked national security in concealing records concerning Reid Sirrs, Canada's last ambassador to Afghanistan. Sirrs was the first G7 ambassador to close the embassy and flee Kabul with staff aboard a half-empty military plane, according to eyewitness accounts: "What went wrong?"
A federally-subsidized report yesterday complained media are subject to “online abuse” from Canadian social media users and Freedom Convoy sympathizers. Authors stopped short of endorsing federal censorship of Twitter and Facebook: "We are holding this event here on Parliament Hill, a place where so many journalists have been exposed to trauma and harassment."
