Two years after abolishing the penny, cabinet proposes to eliminate small benefits payments as an austerity measure. Authorities would not disclose the minimum value of payments that aren’t worth the trouble. It costs the treasury 82¢ to cut a cheque: 'It's a common-sense measure'.
Media disclosures of overseas sweatshops prompted a Department of Public Works inquiry on whether to require “ethical procurement” in federal contracting, records show. Department memos indicate news accounts of the fatal 2013 collapse of a Bangladeshi garment factory led regulators to examine the sourcing of apparel: "Protections do not exist in some offshore countries"
Health Canada will spend $590,000 sponsoring Tweets and Facebook postings on narcotics and other issues following research showing many Canadians are ambivalent about marijuana use. Parliament has regulated pot since 1921: 'It's no longer seen as a substance that only the ‘druggies’ use'.
Environment Canada proposes only voluntary targets for curbing winter use of tonnes of road salt cited for damaging property and poisoning vegetation and waterways. The recommendation follows decades of study: "These chemicals are toxic".
A federal agency banned public employees from accessing news stories at Blacklock’s Reporter via government internet servers, documents confirm. Confidential records show Shared Services Canada imposed the government-wide blackout on website access by hundreds of thousands of staff. Files on the blacklisting were obtained through Access To Information: “It’s astonishing to see Canada join the short list of countries that forbid public employees from accessing internet news sites”.
The Supreme Court will rule on the right of federal auditors to examine confidential legal records in chasing the “money trail” of suspected tax evaders. The case follows Québec notaries’ refusal to surrender client files to the Canada Revenue Agency: "This is where the battleground is right now in privacy law".
In a court ruling a federal judge called “extraordinary”, the Department of Public Safety has been cited for abuse of process against an admitted member of the Hells Angels. The finding came in a British Columbia immigration case: "The integrity of our justice system has been compromised".
CMHC is hiring marketing consultants to blitz Filipino, Chinese and South Asian immigrants with ads for new “branding” of home loan insurance. Federally-insured mortgages currently average more than a quarter-million dollars for first-time buyers: "The objectives are to increase CMHC's visibility".
On Wanfujing Street in Beijing the Xinhua state bookstore promoted a single Western author, Charles Dickens. Many others were banned. Dickens’ depiction of 19th century squalor and capitalist depravity appealed to Chinese censors, as if to say: Who are you foreigners to lecture us about our squalor and our depravity?
Great Expectations was written as popular fiction and not a Workers’ Compensation inquiry. If the Victorian era brought child labour and debtors’ prison, it also gave Canada public education; street lighting; an unlicensed press; multi-party elections; the first consumer protection laws; a Criminal Code that presumes innocence at trial; and Labour Day.
$1.1 billon tariff increase phased in from January 1 appears to have little benefit for Canadian manufacturers, say analysts. The five-year increase will see duties jump $330 million this year alone on goods imported from Canada’s most popular suppliers: 'It's hard to see who benefits'.
Canadians face significant costs to modernize hundreds of obsolete municipal sewage systems nationwide, say analysts. The warning comes as cabinet transferred regulation of wastewater in Yukon to local authorities, where one municipality was already found to violate anti-dumping regulations: "The federal government can't just make up the rules".
A national historic site dubbed the cradle of Confederation is in such poor shape with water damage, toxic asbestos and falling plaster it must close within days to undergo $15 million in repairs. Charlottetown’s Province House, home of the Prince Edward Island legislature, is to be shuttered next month for emergency restoration. It will not reopen for at least five years, according to Parks Canada: "It is sad".
Transport Canada is outlawing bulk shipments of lithium batteries aboard passenger aircraft, effective yesterday. The regulation follows scores of fires linked to malfunctioning batteries, including two unnerving incidents at airports in Toronto and Vancouver: 'There is an increasing risk'.
Solving a single murder costs police more than $342,000 according to the latest federal research on the economics of crime. A study by Public Safety Canada also concludes the vast majority of violent crimes such as robberies and assaults are never reported to police, and result in billions' worth of intangible costs: "I'm not sure what the government's motivation is".
Parliament will consider a bill to federalize all shipwrecks. The Canadian Coast Guard would be permanently designated as receiver of marine flotsam and jetsam under a private New Democrat bill before the Commons: "I'm a sailor".
