The Department of Industry yesterday tried to assure the Commons public safety committee a cybersecurity bill will not be used to censor dissent on the internet. MPs questioned a provision for warrantless measures against “any threat.”
The Commons today will vote on a surprise Opposition motion targeting Prime Minister Mark Carney’s stock holdings. Conservative MP Michael Barrett (Leeds-Grenville, Ont.) asked that the House launch an unprecedented ethics investigation with questioning of Carney’s chief of staff and former associates at Brookfield Asset Management: "Should a Prime Minister have investments in tax havens?"
The future of television in Canada is “uncertain,” says a Department of Heritage report. Researchers noted only 15 percent of households subscribe solely to traditional TV: "Fewer people are watching."
Immigration Minister Lena Diab yesterday was accused of “cheapening Canadian citizenship” with a bill to grant Canadian status to the grandchildren of citizens abroad. Conservative and Bloc Québécois MPs have attempted to amend the bill prompted by a 2023 Court ruling: 'Strangers cannot pass on Canadian citizenship in perpetuity.'
Cabinet should completely revoke an electric vehicle sales mandate currently suspended for 2026 models, domestic automakers yesterday told the Commons industry committee. An auto lobbyist called it punitive and ill-timed: “It could be done today."
The reporter whose coverage drove a Liberal MP from office yesterday testified legislators should create a federal anti-corruption agency. Sam Cooper of The Bureau News made the recommendation after noting connections between the Chinese Communist Party and Brookfield Asset Management formerly chaired by Prime Minister Mark Carney: "An independent anti-corruption agency is needed."
The National Research Council tried to conceal the six-figure cost of Brazilian walnut lounge furniture in its financial accounts after an executive complained she did not like picnic tables, records show. Access To Information documents disclose managers spent more than a year selecting lounge chairs for a rooftop party patio: "The only thing I have asked for was no picnic style tables."
Liberal MPs today will attempt to clear their first post-election budget bill through the Commons finance committee after four months’ delay and stiff opposition. MP Ryan Turnbull (Whitby, Ont.), parliamentary secretary for finance, complained of Conservative proposals for tax cuts: "It’s important to realize who is actually in the driver’s seat."
Federal managers billed more than $7 million in pay with overtime to develop a pandemic app few Canadians ever used, Access To Information records show. Then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had urged Canadians to download the app as a civic duty: "The application was developed by the government in 45 days."
Almost a third of Canadians, 31 percent, are carrying credit card balances typically charged at 19 percent or more, federal data show. The findings of a Financial Consumer Agency survey were disclosed ahead of Wednesday’s Bank of Canada Monetary Policy Report update: "About half, 49 percent, have had to use credit cards, overdraft or borrow from savings for daily expenses."
An order limiting federal employees’ work from home feels uncaring, says a Department of Foreign Affairs report. “You need more than just words,” the department’s Well-Being Ombudsman wrote staff. “You need real and accessible support that helps you feel safe, understand and cared for."
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: “Audre Lorde wants us to celebrate our differences. An American. Woman. Lesbian. Black…”
Every town has its own strain of a Chekhov short story. In northern Ontario, historian Stacey Zembrzycki revisits her hometown to interview oldtimers on the Ukrainian-Canadian experience. One elderly man in a wheelchair recounts his father’s death in 1932.
“‘What happened?’ I asked. ‘It was an accident,’ Paul began. ‘At the mine?’ I wondered. ‘No…He went with his friends to drink, and drinking some moonshine from Montreal, he caught on fire.’ ‘Oh God,’ Baba whispered. Paul fell silent. ‘Nobody found out who because they put him out on the sidewalk…They hushed it up,’ Paul muttered.”
A long-ago homicide in a small city still burns. It’s an arresting moment in According To Baba, a compelling oral history of working people in Sudbury before the war. Zembrzycki and her grandmother Olga journey from home to home, interviewing witnesses to an era now vanished.
It is “not an easy job” taking calls from taxpayers, Canada Revenue Agency Commissioner Bob Hamilton yesterday told the Commons public accounts committee. Hamilton praised the Agency despite two audits in eight years that concluded 1-800 call centres were costly, slow and incompetent: "We think we’re doing a pretty good job."
A federal wanted list of foreign fugitives numbers 32,000 people, the Canada Border Services Agency disclosed yesterday at the Commons public safety committee. Conservative MP Frank Caputo (Kamloops-Thompson, B.C.), a former Crown prosecutor, expressed astonishment at the figure: "I beg your pardon? There are 32,000 warrants?"
