Blacklock's Reporter

Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: “First came the roofer. ‘Your insulation is only 20 centimetres thick,’ he said. ‘Kyoto Protocol requires 40; I can fix it so your house will be cool in the summer, warm in the winter’…”

Chester Ronning was a renowned Canadian diplomat and Sinophile so admiring of Chinese culture he spoke fluent Mandarin and into his 80s still prepared his own meals of steaming vegetables and noodles in broth. He was also a Mao apologist.

The Communist leader was not a mass-murderer but a “teacher” and “liberator,” Ronning enthused. When visiting Peking in 1971, he was invited to view May Day celebrations alongside Party functionaries atop Tiananmen Gate. He was “wild with excitement,” Ronning said. Here he could “feel the presence of a new power.”

The decision was all his. If Ronning loved the Chinese people he must love its dictatorship, too. China like all police states demanded no less. “Westerners with no actual experience of what China was like before the People’s Republic cannot possibly understand what the early reforms meant,” he said. It was an outrageous claim.

The Senate proposes to increase its spending this year to a record $134.9 million, new budget documents show. Increases including 10 percent more for administration costs follow cabinet’s promise to cut discretionary spending in 2024: "You will see that all the ministries need to ensure they are doing their part to reduce wasteful spending."

Cabinet quietly polled Chinese Canadian electors on how to improve relations while rejecting demands for a public inquiry into foreign agents, records show. Federal focus group researchers asked, “Are there any challenges impacting Chinese Canadians that the federal government should be prioritizing?”

A federal bill to construct more rental housing is so poorly drafted it “could inadvertently discourage the supply of rental housing,” warns the Canadian Bar Association. Housing Minister Sean Fraser said he's counting on builders for “200,000 to 300,000 new homes” as a result of the bill that passed Parliament three weeks ago: 'It is all or nothing.'

Taxpayers should hire free lawyers for tenants facing eviction, says a report issued by Federal Housing Advocate Marie-Josée Houle. The report complained renters are at the mercy of landlords seen as “being more desirable citizens than those who do not own property.”

The Green Party is “going to surprise people” in the next election, MP Elizabeth May (Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.) yesterday told reporters. The Party has elected four MPs in the past 40 years: "We stand here alone. I don’t see anybody else."

Federal regulators may draft a pre-election “code of conduct” for newsrooms, cabinet yesterday wrote in a legal notice. The Department of Heritage said under Bill C-18 the Online News Act already in effect, newsrooms are subject to CRTC guidance on ethics: "We will have to get precise on that."

Canadians are indifferent to pharmacare and see more pressing health care problems, says in-house Privy Council research. The federal polling predated cabinet’s decision to renege on a vote pact with New Democrat leader Jagmeet Singh to pass a pharmacare bill by December 31: "Few felt this to be a significant issue."

Costs of most foods went up not down after Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne claimed to “stabilize" prices, Statistics Canada figures showed yesterday. Champagne promised “the best possible deal for Canadians” at supermarket check-outs following a September 18 meeting with grocers: "What does that mean?"

The Canada Revenue Agency has been found blameless after misplacing a tax filer’s claim for some $200,000 in credits. The outcome was “very frustrating” but followed the letter of the law, said a Tax Court judge: "Unfortunately even when an error has been committed by the Canada Revenue Agency the requirements of the Income Tax Act must be met."

Former Gender Equality Minister Maryam Monsef, now a motivational speaker, won a single government client last year, records show. Monsef lost re-election in 2021 following mid-campaign remarks in which she called the Taliban “our brothers.”

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland billed thousands for limousines and taxis in Toronto despite claims she relied on her climate-friendly bicycle and public transit, Access To Information records show. Canadians expected cabinet to “ask ourselves what we did today to fight climate change,” said Freeland: "I can live that way."

Canadians don't need cabinet's help in safely using the internet, says in-house Privy Council research. Federal pollsters warned of censorship worries as Attorney General Arif Virani studies “best practices” on regulating legal content: 'They expressed reservations about the potential for censorship by the federal government.'

Canada continues to pay millions in foreign aid to China, records show. Opposition MPs four years ago proposed an immediate end to all foreign aid to a “Communist dictatorial government that abuses human rights.”