Some of Canada’s largest corporations seek waivers under a pending federal ban on replacement workers in strikes and lockouts. The labour department yesterday was noncommittal but reiterated a bill will be introduced by year’s end: "These stakeholders consider all or at least part of their work as essential."
Oil companies should pay costs of wildfires, a New Democrat yesterday told the Commons. MP Charlie Angus (Timmins-James Bay, Ont.) said it was unfair to charge firefighting expenses to taxpayers since oil companies were “burning the planet.”
Tax evasion is "prevalent" in high priced real estate markets, says in-house research by the Canada Revenue Agency. An Agency report concluded tax cheating was commonplace and deliberate: "Non-compliance in real estate is prevalent throughout Canada and is likely more widespread than many are aware of."
A four-month vacancy at the Office of the Ethics Commissioner left a backlog of complaints, Interim Commissioner Konrad von Finckenstein said yesterday. Von Finckenstein said reviews are pending on allegations against 11 public office holders he would not name: "Let’s not pussyfoot around."
Canadians without adequate housing should call City Hall, Housing Minister Sean Fraser said yesterday. Fraser acknowledged it will take years to build enough homes to meet demand nationwide: "What people who are sleeping rough today need to do is contact local authorities."
Trans Mountain Pipeline operators must consider increasing tolls to limit mounting taxpayer losses on the project, the Commons natural resources committee said yesterday. MPs in a report said a huge loss appeared unavoidable: "The pipeline operator may be unable to charge high enough tolls to cover the costs."
Canada’s largest public sector union is petitioning MPs to repeal federal corporate tax cuts by former finance minister Jim Flaherty. Repeal is worth billions a year, said the 715,000-member Canadian Union of Public Employees: "These cuts have left a huge hole in federal budgets."
Cabinet yesterday ordered an Indian diplomat out of the country over allegations of official ties to the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Surrey, B.C. activist. The claim “if proven true” was grave, said cabinet: "We will seek the truth."
The newspaper lobby is demanding its $595 million “temporary” bailout be extended with double the federal subsidies. “Address this,” lobbyist Paul Deegan, CEO of News Media Canada, wrote MPs: "The financial situation for most news publishers is extremely challenging."
Cabinet is hiking Employment Insurance premiums by $1.4 billion despite a promise by Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland that rates would be “holding steady.” Freeland in her March 28 budget promised “more money in Canadians’ pockets after a hard day’s work.”
Parliament must “require home prices to stall” since inflation mainly benefits longtime homeowners over 55, a CMHC-sponsored group wrote MPs. The Prime Minister last Wednesday said “house pricing cannot continue to go up” but stopped short of advocating price controls: "It's not fair."
About 15 percent of Canadians, as many as six million people, are conspiracy theorists, says a federally-subsidized media monitor. The Canadian Anti-Hate Network says it requires more subsidies to counter those who would “do away with our liberal democracy.”
Anti-China slavery groups have lost a legal challenge to force federal agents to seize products made by forced labour. The Federal Court of Appeal said human rights advocates could not sue on principle, alone: "Our enforcement to this point has been terrible."
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: “U.S., Cuba restore ties. Canada claims credit. We were the host, the facilitator, the neutral ground. Let no one think the former foes could have done it without us…”
In Canada’s tortured postwar history of “reconciliation” with Indigenous people not a single deputy minister has been called to the witness stand. That’s odd. There have been twenty of them since 1953, yet blame for repeated failures was pinned on churches, social workers, Indian Residential School superintendents, the police or Canadian society as a whole. When everybody is to blame, nobody is to blame.
Professor Jim Miller of the University of Saskatchewan pulls back the curtain on the historical blame game. Residential Schools And Reconciliation documents Ottawa’s handling of Indigenous issues. This is not ancient history. It just happened.
Methodically, step by step in infuriating detail, Miller recounts the costly failures, a “pettifogging” dispute resolution system and bureaucratic cross-piling of sawdust that left Canadians with a process that satisfied no one.
