The Department of Employment says its Canada Summer Jobs program does help student hiring through 50 percent wage subsidies but cannot say how many jobs it creates. A first-ever analysis called it “a good policy tool” at more than a quarter billion a year: "How do you know if the program is achieving its objectives without measuring exactly that?"
Cabinet will not disclose the budget for the June 8 swearing-in of the new Governor General. The ceremony is the first of its kind since Prime Minister Mark Carney promised to cut spending and “make tough choices.”
Mark Carney misidentified the first Alberta prime minister in a videotaped tribute to “great Albertans,” records show. Carney’s office could not name the first Alberta prime minister when asked: "I think when I come to Parliament of the great Albertans."
Parliament should withhold federal funding from municipalities that fail to build more homes, says the Canadian Human Rights Commission. It promoted a variation of a 2025 campaign proposal by the Opposition to reward local authorities that build and punish those that don't: "Municipal governments would be required to demonstrate concrete progress."
Indigenous Canadians should be formally consulted on all new foreign treaties, the Assembly of First Nations has told the Senate. Consultation with chiefs must be mandatory, they said: "First Nations have engaged in trade since time immemorial."
New CRTC data confirm a sharp generational divide between Canadians who rely on TV newscasts and those who get their news on the internet. “A lower proportion used regular television as a primary source for their news and information content,” said in-house research.
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: “The news channel brings stories from the storm into my living room. My eyes to the screen; my heart skips a beat…”
Police were not infrequent visitors to author Cheri DiNovo’s childhood home. All families have troubles but DiNovo’s make Angela’s Ashes look like a holiday camp. “I grew up in a violent, neurotic, narcissistic household where victims of their own personal traumas acted out in nasty, aggressive ways,” she writes. “This is not to blame any of them.”
Take Uncle Ken, one of the more responsible adults in the home. “It was Ken who took me to dance classes, Ken who took us shopping, Ken who drove us up to the family cottage and stayed with us there, Ken who financially supported us, Ken who always arrived at breakfast at the same time,” writes DiNovo.
“My breakfast was Sugar Crisp, white toast and milk. His, brown toast and coffee. It was also Ken who, one day as I was slurping down my second bowl of cereal, picked up a knife and slashed my Aunt Lorna across the neck.”
The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board holds shares in a Chinese social media company used by Communist Party agents to intimidate Conservatives in the last election, records show. The Board had no comment on millions invested in operators of WeChat, a platform used to distribute wanted posters of one candidate who was forced to suspend his campaign: 'The RCMP intercepted a credible threat to harm me during the election.'
Attorney General Sean Fraser yesterday said he feared some future justice minister will use federal hate crimes legislation to settle scores with environmental groups or political opponents. Fraser did not identify any person by name: "Those are dangerous conversations."
Parliament should criminalize Indian Residential School denialism just as it outlawed wilful downplaying of the Holocaust, First Nations leaders yesterday told the Senate human rights committee. Indigenous witnesses condemned skeptics who state “no children actually died or are buried at these sites.”
A federal Taxpayer Bill Of Rights is “non-binding,” says the Canada Revenue Agency. The admission followed repeated Court rulings that the measure was neither a bill nor any guarantee of rights for taxpayers: "It would probably be better if the document were given a different name."
A failed experiment with decriminalization left British Columbia with the lowest public support of any province for a “public health” approach to drug addiction, says in-house Department of Health research. New findings followed admissions the “safe supply” policy led to public disorder: 'Support is only 15 percent in B.C.'
Nearly half of Canadians surveyed distrust the federal government to “make good decisions in the public interest,” according to in-house Privy Council research. The study documented growing public skepticism: "On the whole, how satisfied or dissatisfied are you with the way democracy works in Canada?"
Federal agencies have warned a mass attack targeting Canadian Jews may occur in coming months, the Senate human rights committee was told yesterday. Senators did not question the testimony: "This is not theoretical."
