Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault yesterday distanced cabinet from a federal report recommending the licensing of internet news media. “Who should have a license?” asked a reporter. “We will have to wait until I table the bill,” replied Guilbeault.
Federal regulators have privately polled Canadians on whether to charge companies for clean-up of plastics. In-house focus groups commissioned by the Privy Council Office asked: 'How would you feel about legislation to make companies responsible for damage?'
Federal agencies hiked pre-election advertising last year by 49 percent, says a Treasury Board report. Spending on Canadian newspaper and magazine ads increased but remains a fraction of ad buys with Facebook, Google and other U.S. social media corporations: "It seems to be going south."
The Department of Health has spent $3.1 million to date on an unannounced pharmacare plan, according to records. Most spending went for production of a 2019 report that recommended Parliament offer free life-saving medication like cancer drugs by 2022: "These figures are approximations."
Federal anti-trust investigators have opened a mammoth probe of the nation’s largest farm chemical manufacturers accused of targeting a start-up discounter. Records in the case include an email from a Winnipeg executive with Univar Canada Ltd. who wrote suppliers: “If anyone thinks socialism is going to feed the world just call Russia.”
A federal tax cut billed as significant savings for middle-class Canadians is worth $90 this year, the equivalent of $1.73 a week, says the Parliamentary Budget Office. Prosperity Minister Mona Fortier suggested taxpayers use the proceeds to buy food: "Buy healthy food, send kids to camp."
The Senate ethics committee recommends Senator Lynn Beyak be suspended again for talking back in sensitivity training class. Beyak was awarded an Indigenous Awareness certificate but remained a poor student, said an instructor: 'I want to move forward and not be stuck in the past.'
Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson has told department employees to lead by example on plastic waste by boycotting bottled water. Records show other federal departments bought water by the caseload: "More needs to be done within government."
The Department of Justice has hired consultants at $166,337 to conduct internal “violence risk assessments” among staff. Attorney General David Lametti told the Commons the investigations involved lawyers’ offices in two cities: 'There was a workplace violence complaint.'
A federal labour arbitrator has overturned the firing of an Air Canada flight attendant for hurtful remarks to an Asian coworker. The words were unpleasant but not worth termination, said the ruling: "You must live in Markham."
One day in 2004 two co-workers – one black, one white – had an unpleasant physical alteration at a slaughterhouse in Brooks, Alta. The black man was fired. About 200 Sudanese employees protested the wrongful dismissal. “Management told them, go back to your jobs or we’ll fire you,” one witness recalled. They refused. Sixty were fired.
The incident set in motion an extraordinary series of events documented in Defying Expectations by Prof. Jason Foster of Athabasca University. Foster is a former policy director with the Alberta Federation of Labour, and a skillful writer whose account reads like a screenplay. The Brooks plant was the least promising candidate for a union drive anywhere in Canada. Merely posting an NDP lawn sign was an act of bravura.
Cabinet proposes to regulate plastic bags and straws under the same federal law that restricts asbestos, says Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson. “We will be developing the list of products to be banned,” he told reporters yesterday: "There was discussion around plastic bags, for sure, and things like straws. Those are good examples."
Canada’s trade deficit with China topped a record $50 billion last year, according to data yesterday given to MPs. “Yes, we have seen some drops,” said Steve Verheul, assistant deputy foreign minister: "We cannot turn our back and walk away."
Three officers of a federal oil and gas regulator including Lead Commissioner Damien Côté have been ordered to sell energy stocks and bonds. Côté yesterday was named in a Compliance Order issued by the Ethics Commissioner: 'I may order any compliance measure I determine is necessary.'
A federal home equity loan program polled badly in Privy Council research with focus group skeptics calling it a “Band-Aid solution”. Few heard of the CMHC plan, and few liked it once it was explained: "There was low to moderate interest in the idea."
