A media outlet suing for the privilege of asking questions of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says in a Federal Court affidavit it was banned from accreditation by the Parliamentary Press Gallery. The Gallery is intended to be nonpartisan. The executive last night did not comment: 'It is government influenced.'
The Department of Justice loses almost a third of lawsuits at a taxpayers’ cost in legal fees averaging more than $200 million a year, says a newly-released audit. Of cases settled out of court, 44 percent were paid out just before trial: “Some improvement is needed.”
Canada needs about three billion pandemic masks as the economy opens up, says a federal contractor. The Public Health Agency had just 100,000 high-grade N95 masks in a national stockpile before the Covid-19 outbreak: "We're going to need a lot more."
Federal 1-800 centres have improved their rate of dropped calls by not answering the phone. The president of Shared Services Canada, the federal IT service, said an undisclosed number of jobless callers seeking benefits received endless busy signals: "The call would never get dropped, it would just never get answered."
The Federal Court of Appeal has dismissed a consumer group's demand for cash refunds on pre-paid flights. The Canadian Transportation Agency in 2019 said that “compensation must first be offered in cash or equivalent”, but waived the rule as a pandemic measure: 'The airline industry has been seriously affected by Covid-19.'
Canadians should avoid using the word “aboriginal”, says a federal language guide. The term may give offence and has no legal meaning, wrote researchers: "Using appropriate language is fundamental."
Cabinet yesterday said it will discuss with provinces a New Democrat proposal to mandate ten days’ paid sick leave for all workers nationwide. No cost or deadline was discussed: "It is just beyond imagination."
The Public Health Agency for the first time acknowledges it ignored its own advice and stockpiled only a “small amount” of pandemic supplies before the Covid-19 outbreak. Managers would not say if they ever warned cabinet: "If you could give a yes or no answer..."
The Department of Canadian Heritage admits it garbled a historical “fact” in a report to Parliament. Minister Steven Guilbeault tabled the claim Black people had a presence in Nunavut dating back 400 years. They didn’t: "You can't pick and choose facts."
Parliament should pass a law denying $2,000 Canada Emergency Response Benefit relief cheques to anyone who won’t take a job, the Commons human resources committee was told. The Department of Employment said it is curbing clear abuses of the program such as payments to dead people: "The priority was to provide the benefit."
The Canada Revenue Agency may withhold tax refunds for a year or more, a federal judge has ruled. The decision came in the case of a business denied a GST refund after auditors decided to review the company’s books: "This is for the Minister to decide."
Not a single postal worker has contracted Covid-19 on the job, says the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. Public health officers say there is no evidence the coronavirus is transmitted by mail: 'It’s remarkable; 60,000 employees and not a single Covid-19 case traced back to Canada Post."
Canadians have a complex relationship with success and failure. That’s strange in a capitalist society where city life is a weekly succession of petty contests. Success is caricatured as a triumph of positive thinking that culminates in a prize, like winning on Dragon’s Den. Failure is a vaguely shameful exhibition of personal weakness: “The Morgans lost their house!”
Neither is accurate. Winners and losers strive, and even successful people fail all the time. Billy Durant, the Michigan wagon maker who created General Motors, went bankrupt in 1936 and ended his career as manager of a bowling alley. It must have been a well-run bowling alley. Successful people like to run things.
Finance Minister Bill Morneau yesterday vowed he will not increase taxes to pay for the largest deficit in Canadian history. Morneau set no new date for a financial report to Parliament after cancelling a planned March 30 budget due to the pandemic: "We have no plan to raise taxes."
The Globe & Mail yesterday appealed for more direct federal aid to compensate for sharp revenue losses. Publisher Phillip Crawley provided rare details of finances at the daily, a privately held company owned by the billionaire Thomson family of Toronto: "The long-term outlook for the Globe and many others has darkened because of the pandemic."
