Prime Minister Mark Carney last night claimed the first Liberal majority since 2019 with three byelection wins and five floor-crossings. One senior Liberal MP called it an end to years of frustration: "That’s been a part of the frustration of minority government over the last number of years."
Income inequality nationwide has risen to its highest level in a generation, Statistics Canada said yesterday. The rising gap between rich and poor had been “relatively stable” for decades: "The wealth gap grew."
Deputy Defence Minister Christiane Fox yesterday expressed no regrets for landing an $80,000-a year government job for her husband's cousin. An ethics report concluded the man was unqualified and that Fox violated the Conflict Of Interest Act: "Any regrets?"
The Department of Immigration yesterday disclosed it spent more than $9 million on advertising in French-speaking countries from Cameroon to Togo. Cabinet has targeted immigration as key to preserving French in Canada: "It is clear the future of French is found in Africa and we need to recruit where there are pools of French speakers."
Canada is short as many as 10,000 homes for military members, the CEO of the Canadian Forces Housing Agency said yesterday. The latest figures follow an audit that found what housing exists was often unfit for young families: "Would you live in military housing?"
The CRTC yesterday approved a 23 percent hike in subscription fees for CPAC, the Cable Public Affairs Channel that broadcasts parliamentary proceedings. Management complained the channel’s finances were “critical” despite a multi-million dollar federal bailout in 2024: "We cannot continue."
The Canada Revenue Agency spent $202,942 on a questionnaire that asked people how they liked filing taxes. Most did not enjoy it, said the pollsters’ report: "For many, tax filing was seen as a necessary responsibility rather than an activity they look forward to."
Cabinet commissioned confidential polling on support for public service job cuts, records show. Canadians in federal focus groups said they supported layoffs providing it did not affect them personally: "They wanted more details regarding the specific areas in which the Government of Canada would be reducing its spending."
Deputy Defence Minister Christiane Fox in a staff email neither resigned nor apologized after being censured for cronyism. Fox said she breached an Act of Parliament to hire a friend who'd previously worked at a Good Life gym in the name of diversity. The gym employee is Black: "My efforts were focused on advancing diversity and inclusion."
The $4 billion federal prison system has a quarter more employees than prisoners in custody, new figures show. Staff outnumber inmates even with job cuts proposed this year, said a Correctional Service report: "The current portfolio is not sustainable."
The balance of probabilities is sufficient to void a declaration of death, says the Supreme Court of Canada. The ruling came on appeal by a life insurance company opposed to a $550,000 payout over a “dead” policyholder: "What is meant by the ‘return’ of a person who has been declared dead?"
Of the capital’s lost landmarks none is more curious than an old federal museum that exhibited oil paintings, whale bones and lobster. It was the Dominion Fisheries Museum, opened at the corner of Queen and O’Connor streets in 1884.
Conspiracy is mythology, but after sundown. Even when wholly fiction, both satisfy some human need to explain a ridiculous, implausible world. Author Richard Syrett calls it “the madness unleashed by creative genius.” He is a gifted essayist.
Syrett is a Toronto broadcaster, producer and podcaster, and enthusiastic chronicler of the underworld of popular culture. “Pop keeps people distracted and docile, background noise for factory life,” Syrett quotes an interview subject. The result is Tales From The Rock ‘n Roll Twilight Zone, a forensic probing of “the eerie coincidences, the suspicious circumstances, the whispers that something darker was at work.” The result is jarring.
Auditors are faulting Foreign Minister Anita Anand’s department for sloppy accounting by diplomats abroad including disappearing paperwork on spending. The latest report follows a 2020 disclosure that one Embassy misappropriated $145,000 for a party pavilion and lied to cover the expense: "It was nearly impossible to determine."
Parliament must convene hearings on property rights after a British Columbia judge granted Aboriginal title to 1,846 acres near Richmond, B.C. including private lots purchased by ratepayers, Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre said yesterday. “This is a federal issue,” he told reporters: "You need property rights protection to have a thriving, property-owning democracy."
