New Democrats deserve consideration as the Party with the balance of power in the minority Parliament, leader Don Davies said yesterday. Cabinet publicly rejected any waiver that would grant NDP members crucial votes on Commons committees: "We are going to be able to play a profoundly important role in this Parliament."
Allowing a million foreign students into the country cost Canadian jobs and wages, Bank of Canada research shows. The latest study confirmed a 2022 employment department report that foreign labour had a “significant” impact in some sectors: "They accounted for a larger share of workers in low skilled occupations, replacing Canadian born workers."
MPs yesterday elected their fourth Speaker in six years. Francis Scarpaleggia (Lac-Saint Louis, Que.), 67, an eight-term Liberal MP, told the Commons: “We are all equal here.”
Liberal MP Greg Fergus (Hull-Aylmer, Que.), first Black nominee elected Commons Speaker, yesterday was denied a second term in secret balloting. Fergus admitted errors that saw 149 MPs demand his ouster: "To be frank, it would have been a difficult time for anyone in that role."
More than a third of Canadians are “feeling hopeless” about climate change, especially young people, says in-house research by the Department of Environment. Canadians over 55 expressed less alarm: "I felt isolated with no one to rely on."
Canadian banks, credit unions and other cash dealers have reported more than 2.6 million suspicious transactions since the pandemic, Access To Information records show. The reporting coincided with cabinet’s unmet pledge to create a new police agency to fight white collar crime: "It is a step above simple suspicion."
The next two years “will be challenging” as millions of low-cost mortgages come up for renewal, says Canada’s chief bank inspector. The warning from Superintendent of Financial Institutions Peter Routledge follows federal data showing most mortgage borrowers are already struggling: "2025 and 2026 will be challenging years."
Liberal MP Greg Fergus (Hull-Aylmer, Que.) today is seeking re-election as Speaker of the Commons one year after he narrowly escaped ouster for partisanship. Fergus complained he was held to a “higher standard” as the first Black Speaker: "You want to make sure you lead the way so you won’t be the last."
The Prime Minister’s Office has quietly shelved a First Nations folk tale from its annual observance of the 1914 Komagata Maru incident. The Office omitted all reference to disputed claims the Musqueam First Nation played a heroic role in aiding South Asian immigrants: "I would expect that federal cabinet ministers, before they made it part of the public record, would have verified it."
The newest member of the 45th Parliament yesterday said he hoped for a national rematch within 18 months. Jonathan Rowe’s election by 12 votes was certified Friday by a Superior Court judge: "Forty-eight hours ago I was still wondering where I was going to be today."
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: “Security cameras caught you stealing. In one country, they take you to the city square, amputate your hand…”
High inflation, chronic deficits, shaky central bank leadership: This is the 2020s but also 1985. The parallel is striking. Michael Wilson in posthumous memoirs recalls an unpleasant meeting with then-Governor Gerald Bouey of the Bank of Canada where he could not get straight answers to important questions.
“When he sensed my building frustration he finally answered one of my questions by saying to me, ‘I don’t know, Minister. What do you think?’” writes Wilson. “What did I think? I exploded in frustration. ‘Gerry,’ I said, ‘I have been waiting for more than twenty years to get the inside information on what you guys are thinking about the financial markets. I finally get to ask you what happens in this Black Box and now you ask me what I think?’ I came to understand that the Bank knew little more about financial market facts than bond traders.”
Something Within Me is timely and unnerving. Why do smart people go to Ottawa and fall to pieces? Wilson explains it unwittingly, as if the captain of the Hindenburg titled his memoirs How To Navigate An Electrical Storm.
Since 1970 Canada has had eleven finance ministers who could not balance a budget. Michael Wilson was one of them. As fellow Upper Canada College alumni Michael Ignatieff would put it, “We didn’t get it done.”
Cabinet’s $393,000-a year science advisor Dr. Mona Nemer assigned seven employees to work on UFOs, according to records. Authorities yesterday said staff compiled tens of thousands of pages of research most Canadians rated pointless when questioned in a federal survey: "Enthusiasm and responses have been uneven."
The first petition of the 45th Parliament asks that cabinet apologize for the transatlantic slave trade. The petition was sponsored without comment by New Democrat MP Gord Johns (Courtenay-Alberni, B.C.): "Apologize for the historical and ongoing injustice."
The Canada Pension Plan tripled wartime investments in Israel even as dozens of MPs demanded an international boycott of Jewish industry. Pension managers put more than a third of a billion in Israel from banks to supermarkets: 'We navigate these turbulent times.'
