Blacklock's Reporter

“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."

Failing to pay the GST on all-cash deals is immoral, says a Nova Scotia judge. The courthouse comment follows in-house Canada Revenue Agency research showing many taxpayers consider cheating commonplace: "A dollar you don’t pay is a dollar that someone else has to pay or that has to be borrowed."

Taxpayers facing new capital gains costs hope to block Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s proposal before it becomes law, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business said yesterday. The remarks followed a Budget Office estimate the measure will cost $17.4 billion: "We see the potential for many losers because of this."

Tobacco manufacturers would pay to finance enforcement of the Tobacco And Vaping Products Act under a health department proposal detailed yesterday. Enforcement currently budgeted at $66.2 million a year is charged to taxpayers: "A significant number of people in Canada are still smoking."

Cabinet has abruptly scrubbed dozens of Government of Canada webpages detailing more than $24 billion in payments to Covid contractors. The publicly-accessible database was deleted only weeks after Treasury Board President Anita Anand promised to “make sure we have transparency in government contracting.”

Media and Opposition MPs are manipulating voters into believing the federal government is scandal-ridden, Liberal MP Vance Badawey (Niagara Centre, Ont.) said yesterday. Badawey made the remarks at a Commons industry committee hearing into a scandal: "It is just once again a narrative they continually try to gain and of course utilize the media to get out there and try to manipulate public opinion."

Canada has quadruple the number of shipwrecks and abandoned boats originally estimated, says the Coast Guard. Cabinet proposed a special tax on all boats from cabin cruisers to tugs to help pay the cost of clean-up: "Taxpayers can’t fund every single one of these,"

A federal farm loan program dating from 1945 is now irrelevant, say auditors at the Department of Agriculture. Loan guarantees once touted as crucial have not kept up with rising costs and land values, said a report: "The program is no longer relevant."

Prisoners have no right to keep guitars behind bars, a federal judge has ruled. The decision came in the case of a convicted strangler ordered to surrender his electric guitar with removable steel strings: "I understand that playing music is therapeutic."

Undocumented foreigners in Canada could number as many as a half million, according to estimates by Immigration Minister Marc Miller’s department. The figures do not include lawfully landed immigrants or permit-holding students and migrant workers: "We have made a conscious decision to be an open country."

Cabinet billed taxpayers $600,000 to subsidize 10 days' worth of stand-up comedy in Montréal, accounts show. Federal managers had refused to disclose the cost when first contacted by Blacklock’s July 10: "I am proud."

Parks Canada managers four years ago said fire risks at Jasper National Park were a "big concern." The agency yesterday would not explain why it failed to take all measures needed to save the Town of Jasper from a July 24 wildfire that destroyed 358 buildings: "What is the fire emergency plan?"

Fewer Canadians say they’d buy an electric car despite billions in federal aid for the industry, says in-house research by the Department of Natural Resources. Drivers complained electrics are still too costly and unreliable in winter: "I would only buy or lease a zero emission vehicle if the price were about the same as an equivalent gas or diesel powered vehicle."