Cabinet last year pocketed a 25 percent profit on mandatory security fees charged airline passengers, records show. Advocates have sought relief from fees introduced in 2002 following the 9/11 terrorist attacks: "How much is collected from passengers?"
John A. Macdonald was a vagabondish fellow who never stayed in one place for long and occasionally had trouble paying the mortgage. Our founding prime minister had at least five homes in Ottawa. Few survive. One today is the High Commission of Brunei. Another was demolished to make way for an economical grey, mid-century apartment tower across the street from a vacant convenience store.
Covid is a tale of failure by federal executives and political aides. They did not mean to cause death and suffering; these people are not monsters. They were merely reckless and incompetent in the manner of Titanic officers who kept a dance band and well-stocked liquor cabinet but no binoculars in the crow’s nest. The Public Health Agency of Canada was fully funded at $675 million a year and found money for climate change conferences but literally could not run a mask warehouse. It was their job to keep you safe. They failed.
Displacement City is a story of failure. The City of Toronto budgeted $663 million a year for homeless and housing programs yet authors count 10,000 homeless people. The City has 75 years of experience in public housing and a six-figure CEO at the Toronto Community Housing Corporation, yet was reduced to arguing whether to install communal toilets at tent cities in municipal parks.
Liberal MP Michael Ma (Markham-Unionville, Ont.) yesterday questioned whether accounts of slave camps in China were “hearsay.” The remarks prompted an outcry at the Commons industry committee: "It is something I have never experienced before, that a Canadian politician would be defending China’s human rights."
The finance department's senior director of forecasting yesterday boasted Canadians were enjoying “real gains in income.” MPs on the Commons finance committee questioned Brian Torgunrud's claim by pointing to household debt levels, poverty rates and homelessness.: "I have a statistic here."
Use of bitcoin to finance political campaigning would be outlawed under a cabinet bill introduced yesterday in the Commons. Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon said cabinet was unaware of any suspicious use of cryptocurrency in campaigns but was “trying to be as responsive as we can.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday said Canada met its NATO obligation to spend $60 billion or 2 percent of gross domestic product on military preparedness. No budget document substantiates the $60 billion figure: "It’s focus."
The Canada Revenue Agency will no longer mail T1 tax returns to paper filers at a $1.8 million annual saving. Traditionalists will have to download and print their own forms: "The Agency sent educational letters to them."
The taxpayer-backed Canada Infrastructure Bank yesterday acknowledged it knowingly approved a $206 million loan to a Nova Scotia wind farm operated by friends of the Liberal Party. CEO Ehren Cory confirmed Liberals would not have to make payments until their venture proved profitable: "That’s why the Bank exists."
It will take decades to begin searching for purported graves at an Indian Residential School site in Kamloops, B.C., the chief of the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation said last evening. “Holocaust investigations have continued for more than 75 years,” Chief Rosanne Casimir told senators. “Truth takes time.”
Liberal MPs are blocking disclosure of a secret audit regarding millions in administrative cost overruns for the Canada Dental Care Plan. MP Hedy Fry (Vancouver Centre), chair of the Commons health committee, gaveled an adjournment after Opposition members pressed for the audit to be made public: "This committee is really, really disorderly."
Health Minister Marjorie Michel yesterday said she is reviewing regulation of sports betting ads as a mental health risk. “We will come with more later,” she told the Senate: "Yes, we see the suicide rates."
The Department of Transport yesterday assumed direct control of the Gordie Howe International Bridge from a Crown corporation at Windsor, Ont. It followed a threat by U.S. President Donald Trump to block the Bridge's opening this year unless billions were paid in compensation: "The regulations allow Transport Canada to intervene where required."
Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree estimates more than 166,000 “assault-style” firearms are subject to a $742 million national buyback program. Only 51,000 have been registered with six days remaining before expiry of a compensation deadline: "I’m cautiously optimistic."
Cabinet spent billions on electric transit buses without any data on how they perform in winter months, records show. Managers said they had “not been made aware” of any problems since then-Environment Minister Catherine McKenna launched the subsidy program in 2021: "It is another step forward for smart public transit funding."
