Environment Canada yesterday ordered years of water sampling to monitor the spread of toxic mercury in northern waterways. The program comes a year after cabinet ratified a United Nations treaty on mercury: 'Do we have the tools in place?'
Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion has ordered MPs to stop using lobbyist-paid interns in their Parliament Hill offices. Use of free labour sponsored by corporations is a breach of the Conflict Of Interest Code, wrote Dion: "They are not volunteers."
The Federal Court in an unusual ruling has cited a government agency for stealing a private company’s trademark. The Ontario Ministry of Energy ignored repeated warnings and mistakenly claimed it couldn't be sued for adopting a 2013 slogan, “empower me”.
The Department of Natural Resources has awarded $1.4 million in climate change funding to a supermarket chain. The grant follows similar funding earlier awarded to corporations including Sears Canada and McDonald’s: "It just so happens to be located in a Liberal Minister's riding."
Foreign tourists don’t come here for the food though fish and game are nice, says a Department of Industry report obtained through Access To Information. “We can’t be everything to everybody,” said a research study. The department has tried since 2017 to develop an all-Canadian cuisine as a tourism draw: "It's easy to find McDonald's."
Most businesses don’t understand a federal “Innovation Superclusters” program and question its usefulness, says in-house research by the Department of Industry. Canadians said they’d never heard of the plan detailed in cabinet’s 2017 budget: 'They did not understand what a supercluster was.'
Cabinet proposes to give itself broader powers to award billions in federal contracts without competitive bidding. The Treasury Board is increasing by 60 percent the maximum value allowed on sole-source contracts, the biggest increase in 22 years: "Departments were strongly in favour."
A federal agency will not use SWAT team tactics to enforce a cabinet bill on accessibility complaints, says the Canadian Human Rights Commission. The bill allows for spot inspections of federally-regulated businesses to ensure they do not discriminate against the disabled: "It’s less a SWAT team and more an inspector."
Environment Canada promises to reform its chemicals inspections program, but not until 2020. Auditors cited the department for spending more time auditing small businesses like dry cleaners than large industrial polluters: 'Priorities were not based on risks to human health.'
We're grateful this holiday to friends and subscribers for your support as Blacklock's embarks on a seventh great year of independent, all-original Canadian journalism. On behalf of reporters and contributors, please accept our thanks.
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday: “Costly to keep the pandas in Toronto Zoo. $3 million shelter renovation plus $2.6 million annual maintenance, including $150,000 insurance, $238,000 staffing, $550,000 food flown in from Memphis…”
Of all skeletons hidden in the nation’s attic, few are as strange as the Saskatchewan Klan. For a brief period in the 1920s the KKK thrived with rallies and cross-burnings. In no other province did Ku Kluxers achieve such prominence.
Yet the organization was never as influential as mythology suggests, nor as sadistic as its U.S. namesake. Historian James Pitsula does not document a single homicide attributed to the Saskatchewan Klan, where organizers seemed satisfied to wear idiot hoods and tell Catholic jokes.
Cabinet now says it will not object if any First Nation bans legal cannabis under the Indian Act. The same would not apply to ordinary municipalities, said Border Security Minister Bill Blair. Members of the Senate aboriginal peoples committee asked cabinet to put it in writing: "Yes, of course, the ability to ban is something you may want to discuss."
The Senate is named in a federal lawsuit for alleged breach of the Official Languages Act. Members of the languages committee would not comment. A complainant seeks payment and a formal apology over a sign on a water fountain: "You understand the meaning of the sign but you believe it’s a violation of your rights?"
Parliament must reform government hiring practices rife with cronyism, union executives yesterday told the Commons government operations committee. “It is neither transparent nor easy to understand,” said Greg Phillips, president of the Canadian Association of Professional Employees.
