Amira Elghawaby, cabinet’s $191,000-a year Special Representative on Combating Islamophobia, denies any correspondence with a lobby group, the Muslim Association of Canada, that accuses Israel of genocide. However Elghawaby was photographed numerous times at a June 6 Association conference: "No records exist."
Devices used to track marijuana-impaired drivers are so unpredictable several police forces are waiting for “improved technology,” says a Department of Public Safety report. The disclosure follows warnings by legislators that identifying cannabis users behind the wheel would be difficult: "Given that drug testing has not sufficiently evolved, in your own words, why is your government legalizing?"
A national press ombudsman yesterday faulted editors of a rural weekly for falsely implying a local Facebook activist was convicted of a crime. “Court cases are often sensitive and complex matters that should be handled with appropriate care,” wrote the National News Media Council.
Senator Yuen Pau Woo (B.C.), a Liberal appointee, claims “the state” drove a former Liberal MP from office on suspicions of foreign interference. “Who else can be targeted?” asked Woo, who accused police, Parliament and media of waging a witch hunt against friends of China.
Cabinet yesterday transferred control of the Canadian Coast Guard to the defence department under Minister David McGuinty. It followed a 2024 audit that complained the maritime service fell into disrepair when managed by the Department of Fisheries: "Thirty percent of vessels have less than five years left."
Steelworkers are “actually, personally very special to me,” Transport Minister Chrystia Freeland said yesterday in pledging to promote Canadian metal products. Freeland made no mention of taxpayers’ financing of steel-hulled vessels in a Chinese shipyard or Chinese tariffs on Canadian canola: "People who produce steel and aluminum in Canada are actually, personally very special to me."
University faculties are free to pass resolutions on world events like the war in Gaza, the British Columbia Supreme Court has ruled. The decision came on a petition by 13 faculty members protesting anti-Israel resolutions adopted by the Faculty Association of Simon Fraser University: "It is not the Court’s role to intervene in members’ political disputes."
New Democrats are tripling the filing fee for leadership candidates compared to rates charged in their last race won by Jagmeet Singh in 2017. The Party yesterday said it would also take a 25 percent cut of all candidates’ donations: 'It's an administrative fee.'
Federal New Democrats were too immersed in “identity politics” and made the fatal mistake of voting confidence in the Liberal cabinet last fall, says Party leader Don Davies. “That was the beginning of the end,” Davies said in a candid podcast.
Cabinet to date is 89 percent shy of its target to plant two billion trees, figures show. The program announced by then-Environment Minister Catherine McKenna in 2019 has cost $267.7 million so far: "Why?"
A cabinet appointee named to oversee "nation-building projects" was cited for failing in her duties in a 2023 Federal Court case, records show. Dawn Farrell, named Friday as CEO of the Major Projects Office, was taken to Court by federal Access To Information lawyers: "The CEO is in violation of her legal duty."
A federal judge for the second time in five months has dismissed a class action claim alleging racism in government workplaces. The latest lawsuit alleged discrimination against civilian employees of the Department of National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces: "Being identified as racialized does not necessarily mean you have experienced racism or discrimination."
Taxpayers are owed updated figures from Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne on the cost of subsidies for electric auto battery factories, says the Budget Office. Champagne had defended billions in subsidies as a “game changer for the nation” prior to industry slowdowns, "a pretty good deal for Canadians."
Blacklock's Reporter pauses today for the 131st observance of Labour Day in tribute to Canadian workers nationwide. We will be back tomorrow -- The Editor
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: “When I was three, our neighbour Sarah asked my friend Amos and me to help her find the key she’d lost in the yard…”
