Blacklock's Reporter

If mushrooms killed or hospitalized 10,700 Canadians every year MPs would order committee hearings and mushroom regulations would fly like confetti. Now replace the world “mushroom” with “traffic” and consider the fact accidents claim 10,700 casualties every year. This does not include 150,000 minor injuries.

Parliament for years has not enacted a single new traffic safety initiative. A bill that would have required installation of side guards on heavy trucks, C-344 An Act To Amend The Motor Vehicle Safety Act, died in the Commons in 2011. Ontario’s chief coroner said it would have saved bicyclists and pedestrians from being dragged to their deaths.

Author Neil Arason attempts to bring the country to its senses. No Accident is a compelling, plain-spoken appeal for what at first glance seems an incredible goal: to eliminate virtually all traffic fatalities.

Prime Minister Mark Carney misled media on his private meetings with Chinese Communist leaders, Privy Council records show. Documents written by cabinet aides directly contradicted Carney’s claims that he raised human rights and foreign interference with his Beijing hosts: "On human rights, with the President, yes, we did discuss human rights."

Almost half of Canadians surveyed nationwide say immigration is “causing Canada to change in ways I don’t like,” according to in-house research by the immigration department. Two thirds complained immigrants must “do more to integrate.” The research followed Immigration Minister Lena Diab’s most recent cuts to quotas on a promise of “taking back control over our immigration system.”

Cabinet agreed to ease some restrictions on migrant labour under lobbying by Tim Hortons franchisees, Access To Information records show. Operators claimed tens of thousands of jobs would go unfilled if they couldn’t hire foreigners: "The food service sector faces over 63,000 job vacancies."

Cabinet's Buy Canadian policy does not mean a majority of supplies used in public works or home construction must be Canadian, Housing Minister Gregor Robertson said yesterday. “We’re not being rigid about this,” he told reporters.

The Supreme Court yesterday agreed to hear gun owners’ challenge of Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree’s blacklisting of “assault style” firearms. Two lower courts upheld the ban as reasonable though it was introduced without data showing it would fight crime: "There is no way to know exactly."

Defence Minister David McGuinty yesterday said cabinet for the first time will meet its minimum 2 percent NATO target on military spending by month’s end. MPs have noted the NATO calculations include budget line items of little military value like unarmed Coast Guard lifeboats: "We just can’t have creative accounting to get to 2 percent. We actually need capability to protect Canada."

Weak growth forecasts for 2026 will get weaker yet, Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem yesterday told reporters. A January 28 outlook is already out of date, he said: "It looks like it is going to come in lower than what we previously forecast."

A federal labour board has upheld the firing of a Statistics Canada supervisor for dishonesty. Managers said the misconduct did not impact any statistical reports but breached the Agency’s Code Of Conduct that states, “Trust is the defining characteristic of an effective and useful statistical system.”

The Canada Revenue Agency yesterday confirmed it is suspending its fax line for charity filings at month’s end. It is the first federal office to eliminate fax lines since Xerox Corporation introduced the dial-up facsimile machine 60 years ago: "We simply don’t seem to be able to modernize and move quickly."

A Laval, Que. constable who tracked down the author of an insulting Facebook post has been cleared of abuse of authority. Numerous Québec municipalities including Laval enforce local bylaws against “insulting or abusing a peace office or a municipal employee in the performance of his or her duties.”

Average spot prices for regular gasoline have jumped 24 percent since the outbreak of war in Iran, the Department of Natural Resources said yesterday. Diesel is up 28 percent: "Obviously this could affect growth and inflation."

The Commons industry committee is recommending cabinet reverse a decade of Trudeau-era tax policy. Canada should be more competitive with the United States, wrote MPs: 'Examine the impact of tax rates on entrepreneurship.'

More than 53,000 Canadians have petitioned the Commons to force floor-crossers to face a byelection. Thousands signed following the March 10 defection of New Democrat MP Lori Idlout (Nunavut) to the Liberal caucus: "Voters deserve immediate accountability."

Vancouver activist Avi Lewis has attracted more New Democrat donors than all other contenders combined in final balloting for the Party leadership, federal filings show. Lewis raised more than a million, typically in small contributions under $100, with his campaign to “tax the rich.”