Social Development Minister Jenna Sudds’ office yesterday would not substantiate claims its school lunch program will save families $800 a year. Advocates have cautioned a National School Food Program would “need billions” to achieve its targets, not the $200 million a year currently budgeted: 'There is little to no literature available regarding Canadian school food programs’ costs.'
All Canadians may “speak what they understand to be the truth” without being hectored, says the Ontario Court of Appeal. Judges ruled Christians may litigate against "digital activism" on TikTok aimed at disrupting pro-life prayer vigils: "These issues should go to trial."
A majority of the workforce in at least one province will be foreign-born by 2041, Statistics Canada forecast yesterday. Currently a third of workers nationwide were born outside the country: "The proportion of foreign-born individuals in the Canadian labour force has risen steadily since 2001."
A democracy expert who twice represented Canada abroad as an election observer yesterday was censured for cheating at the polls in Québec. David Gilchrist of Montréal was fined $1,250: "Gilchrist has an above-average knowledge of the electoral process."
A WestJet Airlines passenger denied boarding due to a mask mandate has lost a bid for damages. The Canadian Transportation Agency yesterday said WestJet had no choice though it meant the cancer survivor had to drive 740 kilometres in a rental car to keep a doctor’s appointment: "The Covid-19 pandemic was an extraordinary event."
Taxpayers were charged top dollar for Québec-made Covid ventilators later junked as scrap metal, Access To Information records show. A contract to buy $231.7 million worth of ventilators at $28,250 apiece was signed after then-Industry Minister Navdeep Bains spoke privately with the company's CEO: "We are in a position to help."
The Canada Pension Plan must pull all investments from Israel, says a petition sponsored by Liberal MP Jenica Atwin (Fredericton). The MP also sponsored petitions seeking limits on background checks of Gazans permitted into Canada, and introduction of Arab history into public school curricula: "Words can hurt but they can also heal."
The military is reviewing minimum “medical requirements” for new recruits in a bid to attract more volunteers, records show. Defence Minister Bill Blair earlier told reporters he’d take other measures like cutting minimum enlistment to as little as 18 months: "We will undertake a wide array of new and innovative measures."
Cabinet’s "two billion trees" program was overrated from the start and will have no climate impact for 50 to 100 years, says the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society. The program was launched in the Liberal Party’s 2019 election platform: "This program is overrated as a means to fight climate change."
Legal marijuana is linked to accidental poisoning of small children, says the Department of Health. Data show “significant associations” between Parliament’s repeal of a criminal ban on cannabis and emergency room visits by children, it said: 'It's primarily children younger than 5.'
Blacklock's pauses for the August bank holiday with warmest regards to subscribers. We wish you a safe, happy holiday. We're back tomorrow -- The Editor.
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: “You all walk red-handed waiting to get caught by the law, by my lines. None of you can hide. You who had let your voters down…”
“All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy,” said Al Smith, cigar-chomping governor of New York. But Smith liked people. Every politician loves democracy. It’s just people that some of them can’t stand.
In 1988 Conservative MP Patrick Boyer (Etobicoke-Lakeshore, Ont.) introduced Bill C-311 the Canada Referendum & Plebiscite Act that proposed a legal framework for referenda. It was “awkward,” Boyer writes in Forcing Choice. “A number of MPs told me referendums were a bad idea because members of the public are too ignorant to vote intelligently on complex issues, so it would be a danger for public affairs to start down this ill-conceived path.”
Boyer’s bill lapsed in the Commons though he reintroduced it six times. “Not every issue should be litigated in court or made the subject of a royal commission,” writes Boyer. “Not every person suited to a task needs appointment to a public body or a consultant’s contract.”
Nearly 4,000 hotel rooms for illegal immigrants and refugee claimants are being billed to taxpayers monthly, says the Department of Immigration. Cabinet has acknowledged a more “permanent, sustainable” solution is required: "The department’s hotel footprint consists of approximately 3,810 rooms in 29 hotels."
Parks Canada fire preparedness in Jasper, Alta. was a model for the nation, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault yesterday told reporters. Guilbeault’s office refused to say how many thousands of hectares of dead pine were left standing in Jasper National Park as a known fire risk: "All of these things were done."
