Senator Patrick Brazeau (Que.), 50, yesterday fainted on the Chamber floor, prompting an immediate suspension of Senate business. A medical doctor rushed to Brazeau’s aid as senators cried out: "Oh!"
Creation of a first-ever Canadian Financial Crimes Agency is now speculative though it was a 2021 Liberal Party campaign promise, a cabinet spokesperson said yesterday. The Party had pledged the new agency would coordinate white-collar crime units of the RCMP, Canada Revenue Agency and others: "When and where?"
No new sacrifice is expected of taxpayers under cabinet’s plan to increase defence spending sevenfold, Prime Minister Mark Carney said yesterday. Defence spending that totaled $34.6 billion last year is targeted to surpass $200 billion annually by 2035: "Can you outline what sacrifices you are expecting Canadians to make?"
A Crown bank, the Business Development Bank, yesterday invoked “solicitor-client privilege” in censoring all records regarding executive donations to the Liberal Party. Transport Minister Chrystia Freeland would not comment on whether she appointed the Bank’s chair as financial agent for her failed Liberal leadership campaign: "The records have been redacted."
A federal program that doubled grants for women in trades was gamed by men who self-identified as female on application forms, says a Department of Employment report. Auditors did not estimate the scope of the problem: "Applications were approved based solely on the apprentice self-identifying as ‘female.'"
A federal labour board has upheld the dismissal of a Employment Insurance call centre worker censured for political comments in the workplace. Records showed the woman expressed resentment over Parliament Hill protests like Black Lives Matter, asking: “When will there be a day to remember white people?”
One of last of the smart meter scofflaws has been ordered by Québec Superior Court to permit utility crews to replace her old analog electricity meter. Smart meter mandates provoked years of litigation in provinces where they were enforced: "Out of 4,000,000 meters currently in service in Québec there are only five analog meters left."
The Department of Fisheries will spend $110,000 on whale rescue training for staff. Federal employees had a duty to assist sea creatures in distress, it said: 'This includes entanglements, strandings dead and live, ship strikes and other threats.'
A federal report suggests a buy-back of “assault style” firearms to be enforced from October 30 by Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree’s department will be a costly failure. Few gun owners trust the government, it said: "As such the program faces a risk of non-compliance.”
The Canada Revenue Agency in an internal report admits “unconscious biases” in auditing registered charities. The report follows a Federal Court of Appeal challenge by the Jewish National Fund that accused auditors of bias in revoking its charitable status after 57 years: "Employees were aware of unconscious biases."
Canada Post predicts ongoing losses of more than a billion a year even with new federal loans. Management in a report tabled in Parliament said the post office was structurally unsound: "Cracks are rapidly appearing in the foundation of the postal system."
Cabinet has named a new $296,000-a year president of the Public Health Agency, the fifth in five years. The appointment of Nancy Hamzawi (right) follows admissions of pandemic mismanagement and “naiveté or incompetence” in the hiring of suspected Chinese People’s Liberation Army spies at a high-security lab: "I am talking about people at the Public Health Agency."
Donations to religious charities have dropped nearly a quarter since 2018, Statistics Canada figures showed yesterday. The decline followed one churchgoing MP’s unsuccessful attempt to raise the basic charity tax credit on par with political donations: "God keep our land glorious and free."
Canadians are sharply divided over an electric car mandate to be enforced beginning in 2026, says in-house research by Transport Minister Chrystia Freeland’s department. “There was no consensus,” said a transport report: "It was suggested this is a single solution approach to solving complex problems with an arbitrary deadline."
The Senate by Friday is expected to pass Prime Minister Mark Carney’s “nation building” bill under closure. The Commons approved the bill Friday by a 306 to 31 vote on warnings it grants cabinet extraordinary powers to reward corporate friends: "We’re becoming a banana republic with this type of legislation."
