Federal spending on consultants will jump 13 percent this year, says a Budget Office report. “It has shown consistent growth year over year,” wrote analysts: "More than half of spending on professional and special services is consistently comprised of five departments alone."
The Senate human rights committee outspent all other committees combined last year with a detailed study of Islamophobia. Hearings resume this week after the panel heard from 135 witnesses in five cities: "How does the Senate human rights committee define the term Islamophobia?"
Conventional TV is on a “downward trajectory” that will see networks fight over an ever-dwindling pool of revenue, says a CRTC report. All television programming with the exception of sports is now a money loser, it said: "Each year a larger share of ad spending in Canada is flowing to the internet."
An Iqaluit judge has sent to trial a landmark Charter case, first of its kind, on whether Inuit schoolchildren have a constitutional right to public education in their own language. “The action must proceed to trial,” wrote Justice Paul Bychok of Nunavut Territorial Court.
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: “In Paris, cartoonists killed in the line of duty just one day after Canada had announced its support for freedom of expression, transparency, and access to global information…”
On April 11, 2000 a supermarket employee in Williams Lake, B.C. called police after spotting a drunk passed out at a storefront picnic table. A constable arrived and threw the man, Paul Alphonse of the Williams Lake Indian Band, into a police vehicle. Hold that image for a moment: the hopeless drunk, a peevish clerk, an angry cop. It was a very ordinary incident
Except Alphonse was mysteriously dead in police custody within a week. He suffered broken ribs and had a purple bruise on his chest the size of a boot, Alphonse’s boot. The man could not have stomped himself to death. At the inquest, Constable Bob Irwin testified Alphonse was so violent he’d slapped him around and pinned him against a wall at police headquarters. None of this was corroborated by precinct video cameras. They weren’t operating that day.
Alphonse was 67, weighed 120 pounds, and had been arrested for drunkenness more than 70 times. He was a small, sick old man. Constable Irwin stood over 6’, weighed 240 pounds and enjoyed martial arts. “The pathologist believed the stomping had probably occurred just prior to Alphonse’s arrest and may not have been due to the actions of police,” writes Professor Sherene Razack, a sociologist at the University of Toronto’s Institute for Studies In Education. “There remained only the sinister possibility that someone deliberately stomped on Alphonse while wearing his own boot.”
The House affairs committee yesterday by a vote of 6 to 5 ruled Parliament must order a public inquiry into claims of foreign election interference. Liberal MPs opposed the motion now expected to be endorsed by the entire Commons following its return from recess Monday: "This is just taking cheap shots at the Prime Minister."
Federal campaign monitors “were seeing implications that foreign interference could be occurring” in the 2021 election but kept suspicions to themselves, the House affairs committee was told yesterday. MPs expressed astonishment that no one was told: "What prevents you from taking pre-emptive action?"
Nearly half of foreign border crossers flagged as security risks were let into the country by the Department of Immigration, according to an internal audit. The report did not detail any follow-up on thousands of foreigners permitted to stay in Canada despite "admissibility concerns."
"Mental illness" accounts for almost half of all disability claims by federal employees, says a departmental report. It follows an earlier study that found employees are “drowning in a pool of repetitive, menial and uninspiring tasks.”
Canada’s federal delegation to the last climate conference burned through $622,000 in air fares, accounts show. Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault called the meeting in Egypt “the next step forward for climate ambition.”
Conservatives, Bloc Québécois and New Democrat caucuses yesterday pledged enough votes, 172 against the Liberals’ 158, to force an independent public inquiry into alleged Chinese election interference. The House affairs committee today is expected to send the recommendation to the Commons: "Not a single individual has been hauled to the bar to account for any of this."
Cabinet signed for billions’ worth of vaccines yet to be delivered, records show. Vaccines under contract for shipment are enough for another four booster shots for every Canadian adult already fully vaccinated: "There are currently 90.8 million remaining doses to be delivered in 2023 and 2024."
The Senate yesterday said it will offer staff “recognition awards” like gold bracelets. The prizes are to help employees "feel a strong sense of belonging” to the institution that has run its budget up 70 percent since 2016: "We’re lucky."
The Department of Immigration yesterday budgeted for war in Ukraine to continue into 2024. Managers set aside millions to cover free hotel bookings for unsponsored refugees who land in Canada with no place to stay: "There is no limit to the number of people who will be welcomed."
