Blacklock's Reporter

The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada did not follow up any of more than 27,000 consumer complaints it received against banks in the past five years, Access To Information records show. Parliament created the Agency to "protect the rights" of bank customers. Judith Robertson, cabinet’s $285,000-a year Commissioner responsible for the Agency, refused an interview: "Thank you and have a nice day."

Food costs continue to rise faster than the headline inflation rate, Statistics Canada figures showed yesterday. Prices of the most basic family staples were running at 10 to 18 percent more year over year ahead of today’s Bank of Canada interest rate announcement: "We have been surprised."

The CRTC yesterday rejected a 12 percent increase in rates for “skinny basic” cable and satellite TV. Data show more than a million Canadians subscribe to $25 monthly packages introduced in 2015: "I can’t remember the last time I’ve had a $25 bill for television."

A ban on clown pants for police on duty has been struck down by a Québec judge. Wearing irregular clothing to illustrate labour grievances is a constitutionally protected act of free expression, ruled Québec Superior Court: "It protects not only accepted opinions but also those which disturb, even those which shock."

Canadians most likely to save for their children’s education don’t need subsidies to do it, new data show. Parliament has paid out grants to savers for nearly two decades: 'Families more likely to save for postsecondary education had higher incomes and owned a home.'

The Department of Health warns taxpayers are “sensitive to cost considerations” of pharmacare, citing a Fraser Institute poll indicating Canadians won’t pay more taxes for universal public drug insurance. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to pass a pharmacare bill by year’s end under a vote deal with New Democrat leader Jagmeet Singh: "Support fell by almost half to 40 percent if the program was to be financed by an increase in the GST."

An internal federal memo admits mismanagement was to blame for extraordinary delays at the passport office. Half of employees were sent to work from home and 20 percent quit during the worst of the backlog last year, said the memo: "There needs to be a crack of the whip, big time."

Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge in a regulatory surprise says enforcement of the Online News Act will begin by year’s end, scrubbing months of public consultation. St-Onge in a legal notice Saturday acknowledged the timing was “aggressive” and “accelerated.”

Young Canadians, women and British Columbians and Ontarians are the biggest climate change worriers, says in-house research by the Department of Environment. The findings follow an earlier federal report that most young people feel frightened, sad and helpless about global warming: 'How worried are you?'

Canadian banks use “customer stickiness” techniques to prevent clients from comparison shopping, says a Competition Bureau report. The practice makes it difficult for any new rival to challenge the nation’s Big Five banks, it said: "There are frequently direct costs associated with customer switching."

Blacklock's Reporter pauses today for the 129th observance of Labour Day in tribute to Canadian workers nationwide. We will be back tomorrow -- The Editor

Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: “Welcome aboard Federal Government Airlines. Our flight will be two hours longer than usual as we’re still looking to repair the left engine, following last year’s inspection…”

Dr. Peter Edmund Jones is the most interesting Canadian you never heard of. His accomplishments were many, yet he died in poverty. He left a mark in science and public affairs, yet stumbled in drunkenness and despair.

The son of a Mississauga chief and English mother, Jones was the first Status Indian to graduate from a Canadian medical school, Queen’s University in 1866. His thesis was “The Indian Medicine Man.” Jones was the first to publish an Indigenous newspaper in Canada, The Indian, in 1886. He was a chess master, an archaeological advisor to the Smithsonian Institute, a political organizer for John A. Macdonald, a federal Indian agent.

“Jones appears to have been a romantic who felt his early success would carry him onwards,” writes biographer Allan Sherwin. Of course this could only end badly. To read Bridging Two Peoples is to sense the creep of petty humiliation and raw bigotry that crushed this Victorian romantic in the end.

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault's department yesterday praised China for environmental leadership without mentioning its use of slave labour to make solar panels. A member of Guilbeault's own caucus earlier noted China used slaves to export renewable energy products: "41.7 percent of polysilicon used to produce solar panels, for all the environmentalists in the House, comes from Xinjiang."

Federal conflict investigations yesterday resumed with the appointment of Interim Ethics Commissioner Konrad von Finckenstein, 78, a retired federal judge. A vacancy had forced a four-month halt to ethics probes: 'Our hands were tied until there was a new Commissioner.'