Parliament is being urged to stop meddlesome amendments to complex federal laws by piecemeal private members’ bills. It follows disclosures a private Conservative bill on rail safety will be repealed by cabinet amendments to the same law: "I'm questioning why we're discussing it".
Canada Post is quietly shelving a consulting report that forecast staggering losses for the Crown corporation. The post office reported a surprise $194 million profit last year after raising stamp prices 35%: "There are projections, and then there’s what occurs".
The fisheries department for the first time is withholding information on the Atlantic seal hunt, claiming “privacy” concerns. The press gag comes as the Senate takes up a Conservative bill that would ban photographers and animal rights activists from observing the hunt under threat of arrest: 'This is information that was publicly available on a government website'.
Bitcoin should “go through the roof” as a money-making investment, the Senate banking committee has been told. The forecast came despite volatile trading in the pseudo-currency that has seen its value cut in half in the past year: "I’m not suggesting that you buy now, but it’s not a bad idea".
Growers stung by Ontario restrictions on bee-killing pesticides are appealing to MPs for a standardized policy on farm chemicals. Health Canada’s own review will not be completed till 2018: "What does this result in?"
Street Sex Work appears calculated to rattle Middle Canada. It is provocative and edgy. It dives into the deep end on morality, race and prostitution. The result is wantonly shocking.
“The street sex trade has come increasingly to be represented as a particularly urban menace,” Prof. Shawna Ferris of the University of Manitoba writes; even the term “prostitution” carries “pejorative and morally inflected connotations”.
Ferris prefers the term “sex worker”, similar to “transit worker” or “bakery worker”. One provides bread to strangers, another public transportation to strangers, the other sex to strangers: same thing, Ferris implies. Morality is irrelevant. Street Sex Work even badgers Vancouver tourism managers for “trite rhetorical euphemisms” in telling visitors which neighbourhoods to avoid; Gastown makes a nice “daytime stroll” (emphasis added) while streets in Chinatown are “partially located in a more graphic part of the city”.
Senators may hold as little as two days’ worth of pre-election hearings on union bill C-377, says the chair of the Senate legal affairs committee. The contentious Conservative measure would force disclosure of confidential union data: "It's not a sure thing".
Cash-strapped VIA Rail faces millions in costs from a 2012 wreck that killed three locomotive engineers and injured scores of passengers. Class action attorneys claim more than $600,000 in fees alone, records show: "You don't survive a train wreck and just walk away".
Federal investigators are launching a mammoth tax audit of Ontario bars, lounges and restaurants in a bid to track unreported sales. Canada Revenue Agency has asked a federal judge to order the Liquor Control Board to surrender three years’ worth of sales records: "We've asked them to show us what it is they're looking for".
Food processors are in crisis due to restricted hiring of migrant labour, the Senate agriculture committee has been told. Members of a trade council said they cannot find Canadians to work regardless of immediate hiring or pay up to 60 percent better than the minimum wage: "Anyone who wants or is able to work is already working".
A long-promised balanced budget bill has been introduced in the Commons, but not the version promised by cabinet two years ago. The treasury would be forbidden from running a deficit except in war or extraordinary circumstances, and required to use at least half of future surpluses to pay down the national debt under a private bill: "There's still plenty of time to correct this fiscal ship".
Cable TV companies must write contracts in plain language and disclose all fees under a Code of Conduct drafted by broadcast regulators. The CRTC earlier issued similar requirements for cellphone providers under a 2013 Wireless Code: "It's about time".
Cellphones, Wi-Fi’s and other wireless devices pose no danger to Canadians, says a senior Department of Health official. Authorities dismissed claims of illness attributed to radiofrequency exposure: "'No evidence of harm'; they just repeat it ad nauseam".
Transport Canada has been cited by a federal judge after revoking security clearance for an airport cleaning woman over hearsay allegations of drug smuggling. The woman was fired without seeing evidence against her or learning the name of her accuser: "It was Kafkaesque".
Cabinet billed $117,992 on photo backdrops for ministerial announcements in six months, according to accounts tabled in Parliament. The budget for media ornaments was run through 21 federal departments and agencies: "It appears cost is no factor".
