Canada’s investment in research and development is rated “poor” and has been in decline for more than a decade, says a federal panel. The Science, Technology & Innovation Council ranked Canada behind Slovenia and Estonia in spending on R&D: "We are falling dramatically behind other countries."
Environment Canada despite intense lobbying is restricting its mandated use of renewable fuels as too costly. The regulation will save consumers, truckers and industry the equivalent of $14.7 million a year. One MP called the promotion of corn-based biofuel a "disguised subsidy for corn growers."
The Consumers’ Association of Canada, the oldest advocacy group of its kind, has had its charitable status revoked by Canada Revenue. An official called it an orderly reorganization of the group, founded in 1947. The association is credited with helping create the federal Office of Consumer Affairs: "Those were the good old days."
Ratings on the provinces run from A to D in a national report on standards for migrant labour. The study by the Canadian Council for Refugees follows a federal crackdown on abuses of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. Canadian employers filled 202,510 jobs with migrant labour last year.
Thousands of now-qualified immigrants, mainly young and old, will be barred from entering the country under new regulations proposed by Citizenship and Immigration Canada. The new rules take effect in 2014. Authorities said they were intended to weed out immigrants challenged by "integration."
In a mix-up dubbed a "zombie file" that refuses to die, a federal lawyer says marketing boards that monopolize trade in farm foods in Canada are improperly collecting fees without authority. Farm boards nationwide are collecting funds they're not entitled to, including a Prince Edward Island agency that's acted without authority for more than 20 years.
A federal safety panel is urging Transport Canada to quickly enact regulations requiring that small commercial aircraft carry flight recorders. The Transportation Safety Board said the lack of cockpit recorders is hampering investigations, including a fatal 2011 Yukon accident that remains unsolved.
It's the actual gift, not the thought that counts, in a Tax Court ruling that dismissed claims of charity by an Ontario taxpayer. A judge described as “vague and implausible” the claim of $10,198 worth of undocumented gifts in kind to one of Canada's 85,000 federally-registered charities.
Federal regulators, farmers and Canada’s honey industry are keeping a close watch on bee counts in coming weeks following alarming pesticide-related deaths in 2012. Apiarists in two provinces advocate a ban on the farm chemicals: "It accumulates in the soil, it accumulates in the hives, it accumulates in water."
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock's tradition: "Take this poem, wrap it around your fist, smash it in the face of the bully.."
In a figurative case of a man with two hats, the Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal by a businessman who claimed for tax purposes he was not an employee of a company he owned. The Ottawa man explained he could not be an employee since nobody told him what to do: "The question of who controlled whom has no answer."
The RCMP will compile the biggest fingerprint database in Canadian history – more than a million files worth, including children and the elderly – in the name of protecting the “integrity” of the immigration system, documents show. The Department of Immigration detailed for the first time in regulations the vast scope of its program to keep files on foreigners.
MPs examining fine print in the budget will give speedy approval to a provision granting taxpayers more leeway in taking Canada Revenue to court. “My sense is this is not contentious,” said MP James Rajotte, chair of the Commons finance committee. MPs will also examine the repeal of tax credits for safety deposit box fees, and a measure to charge GST on insurance medicals.
Parks Canada is raising select fees up to 39 percent on its antique canal system this year despite an announced freeze on one charge most familiar to boaters. The federal government operates a system of nine canals in three provinces. Figures show boaters pay only a tenth of the $45 million cost of operating the waterways.
Canada Revenue Agency has been cited as “absurd” and “illogical” by a federal judge in a tax dispute with one of the country’s largest colleges. The judge ruled the Agency failed to think clearly when it charged interest on unpaid taxes the college never owed in the first place: "It seems absurd."
