Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree’s department yesterday said it is “extremely close” to launching a registry of foreign agents. The same department said it was “very close” six months ago: "There are going to be consequences."
Overdose deaths went up with decriminalization of narcotics in British Columbia, then fell once police resumed enforcement of drug laws, federal Department of Health figures confirmed yesterday. Cabinet has denied the B.C. experiment was a failure: "We need to leave aside dogmatism."
A newly-declassified 1992 federal memo predicted Islamic extremists would attempt to bypass federal security checks by filing refugee claims in Canada. The memo to the Department of Foreign Affairs complained that refugee claimants were “extremely difficult to control."
Statistics Canada yesterday revised its benchmark inflation calculator to more accurately account for rising costs of auto insurance and other necessities, and reduce the “basket weight” given to the price of books and cigarettes. Adjustments to the Consumer Price Index take effect June 22: 'It must reflect how Canadians are spending their money."
Senators yesterday were urged to pass what one proponent called an "easy, beautiful" bill to promote organ donation. The Commons has already given unanimous consent to the proposal by Conservative MP Ziad Aboultaif (Edmonton Manning) to award a federal medal to living donors: "How about the hundreds and thousands of lives we can save?"
Cuban repression remains strictly enforced even as the nation’s economy grinds to a standstill, a Commons subcommittee on international human rights was told yesterday. Prison rations were down to 300 calories a day, testified one human rights advocate: "Do Cubans have a real chance against this tyranny? None."
Cabinet would gain exclusive powers to exempt China from a slave labour ban under a new Commons bill. Prime Minister Mark Carney has already guaranteed Chinese automakers market access for 278,989 vehicles with slave-made parts."Do you believe there is forced labour in China?”
Suppliers submitting bids under cabinet’s Buy Canadian program must promise not to hire foreign subcontractors, says the Department of Public Works. The new paperwork followed MPs’ complaints of numerous loopholes benefiting foreigners: "A new Declaration Form has been introduced."
Canada is soon welcoming a “high level delegation” from Cuba, says the chair of the Senate foreign affairs committee. “Cuba needs friends,” said Senator Peter Boehm (Ont.), who singled out the United States for criticism.
Health and medical benefit claims in the RCMP will cost more than $1.1 billion this year, an enormous figure, said one senator. The Mounties’ chief financial officer expressed alarm: "The rate of active regular members on long term off-duty sick leave has increased by 128 percent."
The number of Canadian businesses using artificial intelligence remains marginal, fewer than a fifth, and typically only for mundane chores like drafting a Word document, says a federal report. It follows claims by Industry Minister Mélanie Joly that Canada was a world leader in AI: "Overall levels remain low."
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: “This questionnaire is anonymous. Data collected will be used exclusively for statistical purposes. We aim to improve workplace experience…”
Nobody’s published an anthology of celebrity draft dodgers though there are many: William Lyon Mackenzie King, Pierre Trudeau, Bill Clinton. Robert Menzies, the Australian prime minister, as a law student enthusiastically joined his campus militia unit but declined to fight overseas in the First World War. Menzies for decades afterward faced Opposition jibes that the war had interrupted his military career. Boxer Jack Dempsey took work as a longshoreman with a draft deferment. As heavyweight title holder, “reference to the new champion as a fighter often elicited sneers about the kind of fighting he had done in previous years,” historian Joseph Furnas wrote in 1974.
None of the personalities in Crossing Into Canada are celebrities. They would not even publish their surnames. One declined to be photographed. All came to Canada to evade U.S. military service. “Support for draft evaders and deserters during the war in Vietnam was not homogenous or guaranteed in Canada,” writes editor Alison Mountz. “Resistance was controversial then and remains so today.”
The Canada Dental Care Plan will go billions over budget for years to come, says the Department of Health. Patient fees will cost taxpayers more than $18 billion over five years, a third more than cabinet’s original estimate of $13 billion: "We have just no clue."
Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne yesterday expressed indignation over criticism of his wife's hiring by a Crown corporation seeking budget concessions. “I am an honorable member of this House, not you,” he told one MP on the Commons ethics committee.
