The health department wasted about 20 percent of the $5 billion it spent on Covid vaccines, auditors said yesterday. It included millions of doses that were thrown away: 'They were unsuccessful in efforts to minimize wastage.'
A federal anti-terror agency in an internal memo said it saw no evidence millions raised by the Freedom Convoy were intended to bankroll terrorism. "Seems unlikely,” wrote experts three weeks before cabinet froze accounts of convoy sympathizers under the Proceeds Of Crime And Terrorist Financing Act: "It wasn’t cash that funded terrorism."
Cabinet is “figuring out how we can improve the system” that sees air passengers wait two years for federal regulators to review complaints, Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said yesterday. The current backlog at the Canadian Transportation Agency is 30,000 complaints: "I know the Agency is doing their best."
The failed Covid Alert app saw as few as 12,600 downloads a month before it was cancelled by the Department of Health, new data show. The figures follow in-house research that showed the program failed in part because Canadians didn’t trust the government: "There are certain segments of the population who do not trust the government."
The typical smoker is spending $170 a month on cigarettes, says Department of Health research. The department has targeted a reduction in smoking rates from about 18 percent of Canadians to five percent by 2036: "One third of Canadian smokers, 35 percent, say the cigarettes they smoke are unaffordable."
The nation’s largest grocer Loblaw Companies Ltd. yesterday denied profiteering. An executive told the Commons agriculture committee Loblaw’s profit margin is no greater than it was before food inflation averaged 11 percent: "It’s been flat since inflation took off."
Parliamentary Press Gallery executives accompanied by armed police on Friday evicted Blacklock’s. All questions were referred to a House of Commons employee. Blacklock’s said the eviction, first of its kind in the history of the National Press Building, was clear reprisal over its continued protests against media subsidies: “Failure to observe these prohibitions could result in further and potentially more serious sanctions.”
Cabinet’s latest budget bill is unlikely to survive a court challenge, lawyers have written the Senate. One clause of the bill would require lawyers to report clients to the Canada Revenue Agency: "This requirement would infringe upon solicitor-client privilege."
An innocuous cabinet bill on national parks violates the Charter Of Rights, say Conservative MPs. The bill grants park wardens rare powers to search vehicles or “enter any place” without a Court order: "Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure."
A federal report questions whether homeowners who suffer flooding after declining to buy insurance should be disqualified from receiving disaster aid. It follows a proposal that Parliament mandate the purchase of flood insurance for property owners at risk: "Adopt the strategy of refusing disaster financial assistance payments to households that do not avail themselves of flood insurance."
The Department of Environment that proposes to mandate electric cars by 2035 is now researching whether the vehicles are cost effective. Electric manufacturers have claimed their cars save money in the long run despite higher sticker prices: "Batteries are so costly."
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: “Fairmont Hotels offer authentic, non-westernised Chinese cuisines to attract tourists from Asia. They may have figured it out…”
How do you create a profitable, secure and much-loved professional sports franchise in a city of fewer than 300,000 people? Community ownership. This is no Rubik’s Cube. Hometown economics are the only reason they play football in Regina or Green Bay, Wisconsin. The mystery is not that Roughriders and Packers thrive but that other cities have not figured this out.
Power Play delves into the dark world of billionaire club owners, weak mayors and unconscionable subsidies that litter the world of professional sports. The names and dollar values change but these grinding sagas are all the same: One false move and the dummy gets it. Pay up or you lose the team. So, taxpayers pay and pay.
Expression of anti-government views on the internet may pose a terrorist threat, the director of a federal security agency said last night. “We are seeing that kind of narrative, very like anti-authority, anti-government," said Marie-Helen Chayer, executive director of the Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre.
An expected winter recession will “hurt small businesses significantly,” a former federal Budget Officer yesterday told the Senate banking committee. Both the Bank of Canada and Department of Finance forecast a recession is likely: "We have to be careful."
