The Department of Foreign Affairs is hiring consultants to monitor millions of Twitter messages after lamenting traditional media are slow and unreliable in reporting news. The department spends more than a quarter-million dollars a year on regular media monitoring: 'Traditional media may not cover an event at all.'
National farm debt has grown 75 percent in the past decade but remains manageable, says the chair of the Commons agriculture committee. Total farm debt is nearly $100 billion: "Right now there is no panic."
A Crown corporation is suing for damages from a rare maritime collision on St. Lawrence Seaway canals. Less than a tenth of one percent of ship crossings result in accidents, by official estimate: 'It cannot be foreseen by Seaway inspectors.'
Liberal MPs are rewriting cabinet’s own budget bill to expand independent reviews of federal spending. The friendly amendments by members of the Commons finance committee follow criticism the original bill curbed scrutiny of departments and agencies: "The role of the Parliamentary Budget Office needed greater independence."
The Department of Canadian Heritage recommended a $576,500 sole-sourced contract to developers of what was claimed to be the biggest quiz in the nation’s history, say Access To Information records. The venture was billed as a “potential legacy project" for the 150th anniversary of Confederation: "Just stop, already."
Many Canadian workers face “growing dislocation” with part-time jobs and factory closures, says the president of the Canadian Labour Congress. Hassan Yussuff, speaking at a Canada 150 Symposium in the Senate, warned of rising inequality in the workforce: "That is not a place you want to be."
The military is hiring forensic archaeologists in anticipation of recovering more remains of Canadians killed in action overseas. The Department of National Defence said urban sprawl and new farming techniques are uncovering more skeletal remains of soldiers and air crew: "We will never forget."
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday: “A song by Nina Simone envisioned a world awaiting the young, gifted and black…”
Industry Canada in 1995 published a landmark report on the internet. It envisioned a road of pencil-thin cable – they actually called it an “information superhighway” – with traffic cops and off-ramps, and even a toll plaza. One cabinet minister proposed a tax on all internet transactions.
Wrong again. No one anticipated an unregulated global web so extensive a faraway terrorist group named ISIS would use electronic propaganda to enlist Canadian mercenaries.
“The pleasure centre of the brain that’s stimulated by the internet is the same as the one stimulated by drugs,” writes Mark Bourrie in The Killing Game; “We have developed the greatest communication systems the world has ever seen and hooked almost everyone in the world to them.”
Cabinet will oppose passage of a Senate bill mandating prompt payment to trades and subcontractors on public works, says a parliamentary secretary. The government’s record on payments is near perfect, said MP Steven MacKinnon: "We're very sensitive."
Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin says the 1982 Charter of Rights expresses the nation’s identity despite any controversy or disappointments. McLachlin spoke yesterday at a Canada 150 symposium in the Senate: "It has neither led to chaos, nor can we claim it has produced a rights utopia."
Legal marijuana should result in a net reduction in medicare and court costs despite higher expenses for actual law enforcement, says the parliamentary secretary for justice. The remarks follow data that 27 percent of Canadians admit to driving under the influence of cannabis: "There are savings, significant savings."
A federal agency has cancelled a six-figure speechwriting contract that breached Treasury Board transparency rules. The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions declined comment on the reversal prompted by an April 28 Blacklock’s story: "What can I tell you?"
Small businesses are appealing to cabinet to delay an obscure anti-spam regulation to take effect in six weeks. Effective July 1, consumers can sue retailers and marketers for $200 over unwanted emails. An Industry Canada memo obtained through Access To Information cited a “deluge of litigation”.
Prescription medicines cost public drug plans 12 percent more last year to $8.4 billion, says a federal regulator. The Patented Medicine Prices Review Board said out-of-pocket expenses for Canadians without adequate insurance could not be calculated: "We do see these cost pressures."
