It remains the only Parliament Hill structure to be razed by cabinet order, a magnificent colonial landmark, Canada’s first Supreme Court building. Here a Laval tax lawyer, Louis St. Laurent, pleaded his first federal case in 1911. As prime minister in 1956 he had it demolished to make way for a parking lot.
Parliament for 90 years enforced a White Canada immigration policy intended to create an all-Caucasian society, literally a Great White North. It was built on crude and false assumptions of racial characteristics. Lawmakers and educators rarely speak of it today though the painful topic has inspired excellent academic research like White Settler Reserve, an exposé of attempts to create a Nordic master race on the Prairies.
It was a “special experiment of immigrant colonization,” newspapermen wrote in 1875. Cabinet subsidized Icelandic immigrants to colonize the southwest shore of Lake Winnipeg on territorial lands of the Cree, Ojibwe and Métis. Among the 19th century settlers were the great-great-grandparents of Professor Ryan Eyford of the University of Winnipeg, who chronicles the experiment in a crisp narrative.
New Democrat leadership contender MP Heather McPherson (Edmonton Strathcona) yesterday had no comment after sponsoring a Commons petition targeting a Jewish charity co-founded by Heather Reisman, CEO of Indigo Books. The petition also asked Parliament to screen all Canadians returning from Israel for complicity in alleged war crimes: "I have to feel in my heart that I’ve done what I can."
Federal agencies yesterday outlined payroll cuts that were half the 10 percent stated by Prime Minister Mark Carney. The Budget Office had sought the figures for months: "There is a lack of detail."
A labour arbitrator has overturned Canada Post’s firing of a mail carrier who kept thousands of undelivered letters in his vehicle for months at a time. Inspectors found 6,000 pieces of mail including urgent notices: "This can only be seen as very abnormal behaviour."
Repeal of U.S. climate mandates set the industry back “at least 15 years,” says a Department of Environment briefing note. Cabinet to date has yet to report on its review of Canada’s electric auto mandate though it was due December 31: "Why the mandate?"
A federal agency is shopping for artificial intelligence software to replace a "specialized team" of bilingual employees paid to translate weather bulletins. The proposal by the Meteorological Service of Canada is the first of its kind in the federal use of AI: 'It would rely solely on machine to machine communication.'
Liberal MP Chrystia Freeland (University-Rosedale, Ont.) will quit Parliament tomorrow in an abrupt departure that averts any Commons ethics committee questioning over conflicts of interest. Freeland’s announcement came only hours after the committee chair expressed outrage over her conduct: "When did we become a country where laws, ethics and morality don’t matter anymore?"
China represents a “new partnership” for growth, Prime Minister Mark Carney said yesterday in confirming a January 13 trip to Beijing to meet President Xi Jinping. It is the first conference of its kind since Carney called China our worst security threat and a federal inquiry likened Communist Party meddling in Canadian elections to a national crime: "I’ll choose my words carefully."
A majority of Canadians surveyed, 64 percent, say they changed their household spending habits because of tariffs. Federal researchers found 80 percent concluded U.S. President Donald Trump’s policy had made everyday goods more expensive: "How worried are you that tariffs might reduce your household income?"
The Canada Revenue Agency ten years into its investigation of tax avoidance by wealthy clients of a Panamanian law firm has not laid a single charge in the case, records show. Cabinet a decade ago said the Panama Papers case involved thousands of Canadians deemed “high risk.”
A federal agency is asking how much Canadians are willing to pay to save Lake Winnipeg, one of the world’s largest freshwater lakes. “This research is required,” the Canada Water Agency wrote in a notice to contractors.
Statistics Canada reviewed whether to add a “non-binary” gender category in its monthly jobless reports but concluded the population was too small for accurate data, says a labour department report. Less than a quarter of one percent of Canadians identify as transgender or non-binary: "Given the non-binary population is small, data aggregation to a two-category gender variable is necessary."
Parliament should federalize rent controls and cover late payments for tenants “at risk of immediate homelessness,” says the only MP in the federal New Democrat leadership race. Heather McPherson (Edmonton Strathcona) yesterday said regulation must not be left to landlords and local authorities: "Affordable housing is non-negotiable."
A now-suspended tax on foreign-owned vacant residences cost nearly as much to collect as it raised in cash, according to Canada Revenue Agency figures. Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne announced repeal of the tax last November 4: "The form is six pages long."
