Electric car rebates are the costliest federal climate change program, according to Department of Transport figures. The department estimated cuts to greenhouse gas emissions as a direct result of cash rebates cost taxpayers nearly $900 per tonne in the first year of the program: "An audit has not yet been completed."
Cabinet is serving legal notice it will blacklist plastic as toxic under the same federal law that regulates asbestos and mercury. The Department of Environment acknowledged industry complaints the listing “could lead to the stigmatization of plastics”.
A federal agency launched in 2015 to “create a public service that is more agile” spent most of its budget on salaries and benefits for employees assigned to hold “armchair meetings”, say auditors. Staff complained they were underfunded: 'Innovation has been slow.'
They say the carpet in the House of Commons is green to symbolize the meeting grounds of Old England where farmers and townspeople gathered to solve numerous and vexing problems. The Commons today is populated by professional politicians skilled in contrariness, accomodation and dissent. It works.
Author Peter MacKinnon writes of the other commons found at university campuses, populated by political amateurs skilled in histrionics and entitlement. It is not a flattering exposé. MacKinnon is provocative: “Members of the general public who hear of these controversies might well ask, ‘What on earth is going on in our universities?’”
The federal carbon tax must increase fivefold, up to $289 per tonne or 69¢ per litre of gasoline, if cabinet is to meet emissions targets, the Parliamentary Budget Office said yesterday. The report confirmed a secret 2015 memo the Department of Environment earlier dismissed as hypothetical: "So, the question is -- ?"
Liberal MPs yesterday expressed alarm that talent fees privately paid to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his family will become public. The Commons ethics committee has sought records from the Trudeaus’ talent agent since July 22: "Once it is out electronically, it’s out."
Cabinet faces a Commons vote that would force disclosure of uncensored records on its dealings with the now-disbanded We Charity. Staff blacked out whole pages of emails and memos in breach of a finance committee order, according to the Commons Law Clerk: "We have the right to see those documents."
Parliament must impose a surtax on excess corporate profits, New Democrat leader Jagmeet Singh yesterday told reporters. Singh stopped short of threatening to withhold twenty-four NDP votes from any minority Liberal budget bill: “This is fundamental.”
The Bloc Québécois yesterday proposed the Commons environment committee consider the feasibility of a federal Zero-Emission Vehicles Act mandating electric cars. A similar British Columbia law would abolish the private sale of gas and diesel-powered vehicles by 2040: "Could we provide further incentives?"
A newly-appointed federal Taxpayers’ Ombudsman has friends in cabinet, according to filings with the Ethics Commissioner. François Boileau of Toronto was named to the $153,700-a year post though he had no expertise in tax matters: "They have to be more serious than that."
The CBC yesterday listed Canadian news publishers it deemed trustworthy and deserving of public support. The list was borrowed from a lobby group that successfully sought a $595 million newspaper bailout: "We provided them with our members."
Activist judges should mind their own business, says the Federal Court of Appeal. “They should stay in their proper place,” wrote Justice David Stratas. “Their place is not in the public square amongst the partisans and the politicians.”
Cabinet yesterday said it will ban six everyday plastic products as environmentally toxic with scores of other items under review. “These are things that are harmful,” Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson told reporters: "Action is needed."
More than a third of British Columbians fear family life suffers when women get a full-time job. And most Atlantic Canadians say women aren’t interested in math. The findings are among data in federal research by the Office of Women and Gender Equality: "It is a woman’s job to be responsible for birth control since they are the ones who get pregnant."
One of the longest-serving MPs in the Liberal caucus yesterday warned cabinet cannot “simply pile up debt”. Eight-term MP John McKay, chair of the Commons public safety committee, said constituents have asked: “How are we going to pay for this?”
