The Treasury Board in an internal memo says subsidies for green technology are run through a hodgepodge of programs so dysfunctional, taxpayers can’t be sure they get what they pay for. Release of the memo through Access To Information follows the collapse of Canada’s first commercial tidal farm with millions in losses: "Right now, it is not clear what is being funded."
Health Canada proposes to place tiny warning labels on individual cigarettes in a bid to lower smoking rates. Currently 5.3 million Canadians are casual or daily smokers: "The goal would be to increase awareness."
Millions of people should join in 2019 film and photo celebrations of “queer Canadian history”, the heritage department predicts in Access To Information records. Programs will “educate the mainstream population” on gay milestones. Promoters received a $771,240 federal grant: "The project expects to reach 3.5 million participants."
Warmest wishes to friends and subscribers for a safe and happy holiday. Blacklock's pauses to bid you the best of the Christmas season. We're back on January 2 -- The Editor
By 2021 one of the nation’s largest observant religious groups will follow the Koran. Canadian Muslims already outnumber Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Mennonites, Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Within seven years they will outnumber Anglicans and United Church members.
Professor Abdolmohammad Kazemipur, a sociologist at the University of Lethbridge, asks The Muslim Question: how exactly will this work out? Never before in Canadian history has national life been directed in no small part by Muslims. For generations officialdom frankly considered the group irrelevant; in 1944 the Dominion Bureau of Statistics deleted “Muslim” from its census questionnaire. “Canada’s encounter with Muslims is unlike that of any other major immigrant-receiving countries,” he writes. “It has a very short history with no colonial past, and Canada has a Muslim population that is both diverse and carefully selected.”
The Department of Foreign Affairs is out billions in lost profits on real estate in Tokyo, accounts show. Diplomats bought high and sold low in the costly 1991 construction of a new embassy now worth a fraction its original value: "There was no transparency then, and it’s worse now."
Santa must not fly under the influence of narcotics, Transport Minister Marc Garneau’s office yesterday wrote in a statement. The news release followed a failed gag last Christmas by a Privy Council think tank that quipped Santa was a climate change refugee forced to flee the North Pole: “Wow, just when I thought government could not get any worse.”
Environment Minister Catherine McKenna yesterday confirmed cabinet is 36 percent short of meeting its climate change target. Higher fuel costs are likely but "minimal", said McKenna. The admission came hours after Blacklock’s published an internal memo stating cabinet knew it could not achieve its target even with a 12¢ per litre carbon tax on gasoline: "It's not really about our target."
The Federal Court in 2019 will hear its first complaint of discrimination since cabinet proposed legislation mandating accessibility for disabled Canadians. A British Columbia man seeks a Human Rights Act probe of conduct by two airlines and the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority: "You cannot reason with these people."
Cabinet has ordered the Royal Canadian Mint to issue a $1 coin commemorating Pierre Trudeau’s 1969 repeal of criminal sanctions on homosexuality. The loonie depicts a figure wearing an earring and the word “equality”.
The Federal Court of Appeal has upheld the firing of a Canada Revenue Agency employee who flashed her employee badge while negotiating a house sale. The firing followed a 2015 complaint from a homeowner selling a property in Laval, Que.: "I work for the Agency."
The Treasury Board in an Access To Information memo confirms cabinet cannot meet its climate change target with a 12¢ per litre carbon tax on gasoline. The statement contradicts repeated claims by Environment Minister Catherine McKenna: "We have a plan to meet a target."
Senate Liberals yesterday shrunk to their smallest caucus since 1896 with the departure of a longtime member. Liberals now risk losing official party status in the Senate for the first time since Confederation: "It's very painful."
Cabinet is dropping its own deadline for a national plan to promote electric cars. Transport Minister Marc Garneau repeatedly promised results by year’s end. Garneau declined comment: "It would be very, very challenging to reach those targets."
Alberta dirt bikers face large fines for killing a rare species of fish in a motocross race. A Lethbridge court cited racers for breaching the Fisheries and Species At Risk Acts by speeding through streams that are home to trout near extinction: "Trout died as a result of this race."
