The Department of Industry spent $76 million since 2016 in recycling government-issue computers for use by schools and charities, says an internal audit. It was better than throwing them away, wrote auditors: "These results represent a significant second life for equipment."
Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault’s department says it does not know the extent of ecological damage caused by an all-Canadian contaminant, road salt. Tonnes are used annually, mainly in Ontario and Québec, though federal researchers have rated it a bigger environmental threat than fracking: "Freshwater ecosystems have shown increasing chloride concentrations."
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: “Exploring the landscape of the English language, I find Fee in Coffee, Off in Office. There’s Cat in Catastrophe, Dog in Dogmatic, and Water in Waterloo…”
Mississauga, like Winnebago or Pontiac, is a vaguely colorful name popularized to describe the bland and conformist without much thought as to what it means or who it represents. Business reporters call this “branding.” In 1967 voters in a Toronto suburb chose “Mississauga” as the name of their city. Few knew then or now who the Mississauga were, or why they vanished.
Mississauga Portraits is a rich, vibrant account of a people who thrived for generations on the north shore of Lake Ontario. Their whole history is erased from the landscape in the same way that revisionists would retouch a painting.
Historian Donald B. Smith recalls that, as a student finalizing his 1975 doctoral thesis, he looked up a 19th century portrait of the Mississauga’s Joseph Sawyer in the art collection of the Toronto Reference Library: “In the oil painting, the head chief of the Mississauga of the Credit appears strong and resolute, neither happy nor sad, without any apparent attitude.”
Two Liberal MPs held shares in Facebook even as cabinet vowed to lead a national advertising boycott against the company. Neither MP commented yesterday after cabinet said it was “doing our part” to cut dealings with Facebook: "If the government and politicians don’t stand up against that kind of bullying or intimidation, who will?"
Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough’s department fired 64 employees as security risks, according to records. One was confirmed as a foreign spy: "For sensitivity reasons we cannot provide additional information on specific cases."
Cabinet yesterday approved billions more subsidies for battery factories in what the Canadian Taxpayers Federation criticized as a free for all for foreign automakers. Aid totals more than $31 billion for three Ontario plants: "The feds need to draw the line somewhere."
A federal tribunal yesterday saved General (Ret’d) Jonathan Vance from a summons to testify in a human rights case. Vance last year pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, a first for a Chief of Defence Staff: "He was untouchable."
The Conservative Party yesterday released an email from a Liberal cabinet aide as proof of double dealing on suspected election fraud by foreign agents, it said. The email was dated only hours before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Conservatives were obstructing a public inquiry: "They don’t want answers."
An order by Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez to pull all federal ads from Facebook and Instagram will cost the company $11.4 million, less than one tenth of one percent of annual revenues. It comes seven years after newspaper publishers pleaded with cabinet to stop sending ad dollars to Silicon Valley: "Will ministries in the government and members of your caucus stop posting on Instagram and Facebook?"
Higher prices for basic groceries like cabbage and spaghetti are running at three and four times the rate of general inflation, new Statistics Canada figures showed yesterday. Details of price spikes for specific foods followed cabinet’s celebration of the last Consumer Price Index report as “good news for Canadians,” said Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland.
Military recruitment fell 35 percent last year, records show. Volunteers were harder to find amid “Canada-wide labour shortages,” said a federal briefing note: "The Canadian Armed Forces is experiencing a shortfall in personnel."
Cabinet effective August 1 will eliminate all credit checks on Canada Student Loan borrowers. “It only creates a barrier,” said loan managers at the Department of Employment: "Difficulties affording postsecondary education can be expected to have long term impacts for all Canadians."
Canadians asking to see public records must first show their birth certificate, driver’s license or other proof of citizenship or residency under new legal requirements enacted yesterday by Treasury Board President Mona Fortier. The ID mandate was never put to public consultation: "No consultations were deemed to be necessary."
New Democrats will not grant the necessary unanimous consent required to speed any federal legislation to end a strike by British Columbia port workers, Party leader Jagmeet Singh said yesterday. Parliament nine times in the past 50 years has forced an end to Pacific port disputes with emergency legislation: "They should not at all be forced back to work."
