Barely one percent of road vehicles in Canada are battery-powered electrics, Statistics Canada said yesterday. New data were released as members of the Commons trade committee questioned the feasibility of cabinet’s mandate to abolish new sales of gasoline and diesel powered cars by 2035: "Isn't it better to remove those mandates?"
Immigration Minister Marc Miller is refusing to release a federal citizenship booklet that's been under revision by his department since 2016. Parliamentarians complained Miller’s office ignored multiple requests to see the guide that promised “historically accurate” accounts of Indigenous history with input from the LGBTQ community: "References generally in the guide are ones that are outdated."
Western free trade farm groups are petitioning the Senate to reject a Bloc Québécois bill on dairy quotas. Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet has warned the bill must be signed into law by 11:59 pm Eastern on October 29 or he will “bring down the government.”
The Commons public safety committee by unanimous vote has agreed to investigate RCMP murder-for-hire allegations against the Government of India. “A criminal is a criminal and a Canadian is a Canadian,” said Conservative MP Jasraj Singh Hallan (Calgary Forest Lawn): 'This is something the Sikh community has been talking about for more than 40 years.'
Canada is a net exporter of fentanyl, says the Department of Foreign affairs. Canada “is now a source and transit country for fentanyl to some markets,” said a department briefing note: "Domestic production is likely exceeding domestic demand."
Newly-declassified records show then-External Affairs Minister Joe Clark personally cancelled a showing of the film The Last Emperor at the 1989 grand opening of a new Canadian Museum of Civilization. “Too sensitive,” said Clark, noting the film was to be shown only days after the Tiananmen Square massacre: "The Prime Minister noted the shock that most Canadians had experienced."
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: “Stay indoors. Shelter-in-place. No one to enter this facility without photo ID…”
If one of the keys to happiness is learning how the world works, University Leadership would be an essential text. It is wry, self-deprecating and likable. They might have marketed it as a self-help guide on governance but that would have meant redesigning the cover, say with a thunderbolt and exclamation marks and a snappier title like Yes! You Can!
Instead readers are treated to very Canadian observations like this: “We are reluctant to declare high ambition, whether because we are unable to speak with one voice or we fear repercussions from falling short. Perhaps there is more to the amorphous cultural arguments than we care to admit: Canada is a solid, middle-of-the-pack performer because that is where Canadians are most comfortable. Even if true, however, middle-of-the-pack performance is no longer assured, if ever it was.”
Catherine Tait, $497,000-a year chief executive of the CBC, has been summoned Monday by the Commons heritage committee to explain why managers pocketed millions in bonuses while cutting 346 jobs and pleading financial hardship. Tait’s own bonus is worth 20 percent or about $100,000 annually, according to records: "A lot of things have made you unpopular."
MPs yesterday expressed outrage over slipshod federal management of a program intended to set aside five percent of contracts for Indigenous businesses. The Assembly of First Nations has complained of widespread fraud: "Anybody can walk in the door and say, ‘I’m Inuit,’ ‘I’m Métis’ or ‘I’m First Nation’ without any verification."
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland missed this year’s deficit target by 17 percent, the Budget Office said yesterday. Debt servicing charges are now the fastest growing budget line item: "It is not our money, it is the money of Canadians, and they quite rightly expect us to be really thoughtful."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a sworn statement to the Commission on Foreign Interference says he now starts his work week by reading 45 minutes’ worth of security memos every Monday morning. The statement follows criticism Trudeau ignored explicit warnings Chinese Communist Party agents posed an “existential threat to Canadian democracy.”
Cabinet 35 years ago called VIA Rail an “exorbitant” expense for taxpayers that should be privatized, according to newly-declassified 1989 documents. Members of then-Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s cabinet rated the Crown railway unaffordable: "All privatization proposals will be considered."
MP Han Dong (Don Valley North, Ont.) was blacklisted from any cabinet appointment after coming under security surveillance, the Commission on Foreign Interference disclosed yesterday. Cabinet aides confirmed Dong was deemed unfit for promotion yet twice ran for office as a member of the Liberal caucus until media divulged his China contacts in 2023: "Don Valley North comes to mind."
Conservatives yesterday demanded Prime Minister Justin Trudeau name names after he said he had "explosive" top secret evidence Opposition members were acting for foreign agents. “Release the names,” said Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre: "Share it with the public."
