Canadian real estate continues to attract dirty money, says a federal agency. The group in an Operational Alert urged caution over suspicious dealings like flipping titles to unbuilt condominiums: "Some realtors look the other way."
Liberal Senate appointee Charles Adler in a radio broadcast called Indigenous people uncivilized “boneheads” who should “get a job.” Adler’s remarks on Radio CJOB Winnipeg were so vulgar they prompted a formal complaint by the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, records show: "No shit, Sherlock."
A disgraced Canadian diplomat has abruptly resigned while under investigation, the Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed. The executive faced firing for lewd misconduct at the office: "Our ultimate goal is to foster a culture of zero tolerance for bad behaviour of any kind."
Addictions Minister Ya’ara Saks’ office in a briefing note it is “inaccurate to claim” its decriminalization of cocaine and opioids is to blame for an increase in overdose deaths in British Columbia. Coroners’ data show deaths increased 16.5 percent in the period of decriminalization: "It is inaccurate to claim this exemption is the cause."
Cabinet is expanding a multi-million dollar fund to document claims thousands of children died in Indian Residential Schools. It acknowledged First Nations complaints a $500,000 limit per grant application was insufficient: 'We are committed to finding the children."
A federal program to have young Canadians “give more back to their communities” has cost $204 million to date, records show. Cabinet launched the Canada Service Corps six years ago “to support a vision of Canada.”
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: “Could have put this banana peel in the Green Bin, let it go to the city plant where it decomposes in four weeks…”
Poverty makes people work hard just as being chased by a bear makes people run fast, but only a sadist would recommend either as a character-building exercise. A million Canadians work two jobs and sixty-hour weeks, by official estimate. The late Senator Hugh Segal recounted this drudgery in his own childhood memories of Mother and Father pulling night shifts to pay the rent in a cramped world lit by 40-watt bulbs.
“Being on the cheery edge of poverty is not, as some bootstraps proponents assert, about building character and ambition,” wrote Segal. “It is about understanding that the financial insecurity at the centre of your existence, once installed in your memory bank, never leaves.”
The Segals were working poor, cabbies and garment salesmen and drugstore clerks. They ate meat and Hugh had his own bedroom in their Montréal walk-up. Segal recalled a prized bottle of Crown Royal saved for extraordinary occasions. No one took a vacation. The bailiff repossessed their car.
A new luxury Manhattan penthouse for New York Consul Tom Clark cost taxpayers four times the expense of renovating the apartment used by his predecessors, records show. Clark is testify next week at the Commons government operations committee over the multi-million dollar purchase that outraged MPs: "How did that purchase come to pass?”
Almost a quarter of Canadians are so hard up they expect to eat at the food bank this fall, Statistics Canada said yesterday. The rate was higher than reported during the pandemic: 'This is the first time in 40 years we have seen unemployment so low and food bank usage so high.'
Media under any future Conservative cabinet must forego federal aid and rely on private revenue as they did for centuries, says Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre. His remarks yesterday were quoted in an interview with a subsidized weekly: "Sell subscriptions and advertising, get sponsorships and do what media have done for, I don’t know, 3,000 years."
Federal office buildings were 40 percent empty even before the pandemic sent 240,000 employees to work from home, says a briefing note to Public Works Minister Jean-Yves Duclos. Cabinet has proposed selling half its office buildings nationwide but expects it will take decades: "Infrastructure is the second largest expense to the Government of Canada after salary expenses,"
New Democrats yesterday warned cabinet to take no action against Teamsters in a threatened national rail shutdown. A 2022 dispute with Teamsters lasted 60 hours after New Democrats similarly vowed they would never support back-to-work legislation: "Maintain a neutral stance."
Cabinet mismanaged a housing crisis in the one jurisdiction where it has complete oversight, First Nations reserves, says a federal audit. Housing Minister Sean Fraser has promised to solve the housing crisis for the entire nation by 2031: "Demands of housing far exceeds the funds available."
Cabinet is seen as uncaring by a middle class now weary and stressed, says in-house research by the Privy Council. Canadians said the “quality of life for the middle class had changed in their lifetimes."
