Blacklock's Reporter

Poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday: “Google Street View takes me places. It’s my first visit to the city. Wide roads, bustling with cars, trams, pedestrians…”

A feared shortage of pandemic supplies comes nine years after federal auditors specifically warned the Public Health Agency to stock up. A 2011 audit noted the Agency spent nearly twice as much leasing warehouse space than it did buying needed supplies: 'It is an insurance policy.'

MPs yesterday questioned an airport loophole in a quarantine rule that allows international arrivals to immediately board domestic connecting flights. Health Minister Patricia Hajdu suggested passengers carry masks in case they’re stricken with the coronavirus mid-flight: "You can’t go to the grocery store but you can sit beside someone on an Air Canada flight from Toronto to Vancouver?"

Air travel has fallen as much as ninety percent, the Canada Border Services Agency said yesterday. “We are seeing a significant decrease day by day,” said an executive.

Cabinet should reset immigration targets now a third higher than they were in previous recessions, an MP said yesterday. The Department of Immigration only two weeks ago set the highest immigration targets in more than a century: "Those ballpark figures should not be taken as a realistic target anymore."

A federal judge has cited the coronavirus pandemic in urging the Canada Border Services Agency to release a convicted carjacker from detention. Justice Alan Diner of the Federal Court questioned whether jails were safe from Covid-19: "These are unprecedented times."

Parliament yesterday passed a bill granting cabinet emergency powers to nationalize private financial institutions. Canada has not seen a bank run since the 1985 recession in Alberta: "We unfortunately do not know either the depth or the duration of this challenge."

The Department of Health yesterday said it would provide guidance for healthy workers fearful of contracting Covid-19 on the job. Labour codes grant employees a right to refuse work with reasonable cause: "They're afraid."

International travelers including Canadians returning home face $200,000 fines or six months in jail for failing to self-quarantine effective midnight last night. Drivers must not stop for groceries, and air passengers are forbidden from taking public transit home from the airport: "We will be taking the contact details of all people coming into Canada and then we will follow up with them to be sure."

Service Canada in a newly-released audit says it was often swamped by requests for federal benefits even before an anticipated rush of hundreds of thousands of new pandemic-related cases. Problems ranged from call centres that put callers on hold, to service counter agents who couldn’t answer questions: "Wait times are highest in March and April."

A veteran of the now-disbanded Senate Liberal Caucus yesterday vetoed committee hearings on the Covid-19 pandemic. Senator James Munson (Ont.) refused to grant the necessary unanimous consent after former Liberals were denied a seat at the hearings: "That's a shame."

Parliament today will approve Covid-19 aid after Opposition MPs vowed to fight a draft bill packed with unprecedented powers for cabinet to tax, spend and borrow by decree. Conservative leader Andrew Scheer called the draft an attempted executive “power grab” unseen in wartime: "Our parliamentary system has seen this country through two world wars."

Legislators two weeks ago granted extraordinary spending powers to cabinet without ever reading the bills, an MP said yesterday. “The House agreed to buy a pig in a poke,” said seven-term Conservative MP Scott Reid (Lanark-Frontenac, Ont.): "Panic is never, ever an excuse."

The labour department in an Access To Information memo says its backlog of Canada Labour Code investigations includes unresolved complaints dating back 500 days or more. Staff called them “aged files”.

The Department of Health yesterday acknowledged problems with the scope and speed of crucial Covid-19 testing among Canadians. MPs in contact with virus carriers waited days in self-quarantine: "There are concerns with the speed of testing being done in Canada."