Catherine Tait, the $497,000-a year CEO of the CBC, yesterday declined to forego her $100,000 annual bonus even as the network issues layoff notices. "It is extremely difficult to not have the love," Tait told the Commons heritage committee: "This is performance pay."
SNC-Lavalin Group pandemic field hospitals delivered by rush order two years ago under a $150 million contract remain warehoused at a secret location, records show. The Department of Public Works has estimated storage of the little-used units is costing taxpayers an additional $135 million: "The exact location of the warehouse cannot be shared."
Record immigration “may exacerbate existing pressures” on the housing market, says a Department of Employment memo. It noted requests for migrant labour work permits jumped 66 percent: "What is the department doing?"
A “friend” exemption allowing MPs to accept costly free gifts should be narrowed under the Conflict Of Interest Act, legislators said yesterday. Debate at the Commons ethics committee followed the Prime Minister’s $84,000 expense-paid Christmas holiday in Jamaica: "We should have a cap."
The Commons Speaker yesterday ordered Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland's latest omnibus budget bill to be split up into nine separate votes. The order sought by Conservative MPs followed Freeland’s appeal to pass the mammoth bill and “do so quickly.”
FinDev Canada yesterday had no reply when asked if its $43.4 million worth of shares it purchased in a Kenyan phone company are lost. The company M-Kopa has never turned a profit since FinDev bought shares at taxpayers' expense: "Did any cabinet member approve the M-Kopa investment?"
Justice Marie-Josée Hogue yesterday opened a year-long federal inquiry into election meddling by Chinese agents with a pledge to “uncover the truth whatever it may be.” Evidence uncovered by parliamentary committees to date shows authorities knew foreign agents were targeting Opposition MPs but took no action: "Get to the bottom of this."
ArriveCan supplier GC Strategies Inc. of Woodlawn, Ont. landed millions in sole-sourced contracts with no record it even complied with procurement rules, a federal report said yesterday. Kristian Firth, a company partner, earlier denied any favouritism in federal contracting: "I wasn’t prepared for that question."
Any future Conservative cabinet would curb federal deficits with a one-to-one rule mandating every dollar of excess spending is offset with corresponding cuts, Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre said yesterday. A similar Balanced Budget Act passed in 2015 was repealed a year later: "We want a dollar of spending to match a dollar of saving."
The Commons government operations committee yesterday by a 6 to 4 vote rejected a Conservative motion for crash cuts to red tape. An earlier 2015 law to repeal obsolete regulations achieved little, according to the Treasury Board: "Get out the chainsaw."
A federal agency FinDev that spent $15.4 million with a Kenyan cellphone company on a promise it would sell its shares in 2024 instead spent millions more, records show. The phone firm M-Kopa Holdings of Nairobi has never turned a profit: "FinDev Canada has not deliberately or inadvertently misled Parliament."
The Department of Foreign Affairs says it suspected Chinese agents used WeChat to meddle in the 2021 federal campaign but didn't act since the media platform wouldn’t take questions. WeChat is owned by a Shenzhen conglomerate: "It was not interpreted to be our job."
A typical Canadian spends about half their work day on social media with little interest in what the Government of Canada has to say, according to in-house federal research. Data document a dramatic rise in the popularity of Twitter, Facebook and other platforms: "A very small number commented they seldom used social media or did not use it at all."
Convicted fraudsters may not work for the Government of Canada, a federal labour board has ruled. The decision came on the appeal of a Québec manager fired and jailed for pocketing thousands in a Department of Social Development grant scheme: "The bond of trust has been irreparably broken."
Federal employees should counter disinformation by telling the whole truth, says a cabinet guidebook for public servants. “Acknowledge what you don’t know,” said the guide: "This approach can help build trust."
