Educators are pressing the Prime Minister's Office to rewrite 2009 federal grant regulations that exempt funding for college students who enroll in programs lasting under 60 weeks: "Canadians would like to see changes in the next budget."
A northern development bill nearly a decade in the making now faces "uncertainty" over concerns by a participating stakeholder group: "Amendments are going to have to be required if the bill goes through." The legislation aims to rewrite licensing regulations for Nunavut resource projects.
Businesses have successfully lobbied for broad exemptions to federal anti-spam regulations. "This is much friendlier for marketers," said one industry group. Parliament has grappled with anti-spam legislation for nearly a decade, with regulations still under revision.
Environment Canada is waiving mandatory minimum fines on polluters, proposing that "minor" violators of federal law face unspecified lesser penalties that may include a simple warning. "We are concerned this appears to be backtracking," said counsel for a leading environmental group.
Cabinet has more than tripled its borrowing limit on Canada's westernmost container port to record levels to fund improvements, including transportation to a Crown-owned coal terminal now for sale to private investors.
Regulators have okayed the removal of three lakes in two provinces to make way for open-pit mining projects, ruling the public will not be "affected" by the vanishing waterways. "The tailings left over will be managed in perpetuity," said one environmental researcher.
Rising costs of cross-border trucking are so "drastic" they have the effect of a multi-million dollar tariff on goods shipped across the line between Canada and the United States, a first-ever federal study confirms. "Trucking companies and their customers are facing tough times," warned an industry association.
National research shows that, in academic and legal professions, the proportion of Canadian women in senior positions declines as they follow their career paths. An example: some 50 percent of new members of the Criminal Lawyers' Association are women, but they make up just 35 percent of members with five or more years at the bar.
The Canadian Cattlemen’s Association is joining a global coalition of industry and environmental groups on sustainable production, in a move one federal analyst praised as a method to counter the “anti-technology agendas” of activist groups.
An Alberta inventor is patenting a locking device for bicycle seats after his own bike was cannibalized by thieves in Calgary: "It was a huge pain. I always wanted to invent this." Estimates of bicycle thefts nationwide range as high as 200,000 annually.
Cabinet is lifting a ban on the sale of automatic firearms to Colombia though activist groups petitioned against the move, and a leading Canadian manufacturer of weaponry says it is at a loss to explain the policy change: "We never asked for a license to sell to Colombia; it's just not part of our scene."
Sky-high debt levels that have ballooned over the past three decades “have little to do with economics” or the recent recession and simply reflect new “social behavior,” accountants warn. Federal data show typical Canadians now owe more than they own.
Travel advertisers face maximum fines of $25,000 under new federal regulations on full price disclosure of air fares. "We are among the last countries to get on board," said one industry association, noting the European Union and United States already enacted full-fare disclosure requirements to benefit travelers.
The Federal Court has ruled smokeless electronic cigarettes remain a licensed drug, citing medical evidence they deliver enough nicotine to alter brain waves and raise the heart rate. One importer unsuccessfully argued that e-cigarettes contained so little nicotine they were exempt from licensing.
China is to be stricken off an obsolete list of preferential tariff traders after running up an export surplus with Canada that is now into its third decade. The move will raise taxes on thousands of Chinese goods shipped to Canada, from cutlery and kitchen appliances to luggage, spices and even caskets.
