Blacklock's Reporter

In 1926 the Manitoba Paper Co. founded a company town called Pine Falls northeast of Winnipeg. The community grew to 3,200 people by the 1950s. Raw sewage and mill effluent, 80,000 gallons a day, were dumped in the Winnipeg River, the only source of drinking water for the nearby Sagkeeng First Nation. Children were sick.

The Pine Falls Hospital had plenty of fresh, clean beds – it ran at 43 percent capacity in the 1950s – but townspeople objected to Indians receiving care in the same ward with Caucasians, so authorities built an Indian hospital instead.

Historian Maureen Lux picks up the story: “Between 1949 and 1958, in a population of less than 1300, 462 infants were admitted to the Fort Alexander Indian Hospital and 19 died. In July 1958 alone, 33 infants were admitted and one died.” The Indian Hospital operated at 128 percent occupancy.

Criminals are bypassing a multi-million dollar security system intended to keep dangerous foreigners out of Canada, says a federal report. Smugglers “found workarounds” of the electronic visa system, admits the Department of Immigration: "Those with malicious intent including associations with fraud, human trafficking and smuggling movements have found workarounds."

Canada Student Loan write-offs are up 34 percent year over year, the Parliamentary Budget Office said yesterday. Losses to taxpayers rose even as Parliament voted to ease repayment terms by eliminating interest charges: "The value of unpaid student loans will continue to grow."

More than 17,000 Canadians have signed a petition demanding Parliament conduct a special investigation of Loblaw Companies Ltd. The nation’s largest grocer yesterday reported net yearly earnings of $1.9 billion with a 4.7 percent gain in same-store food sales: "Open a parliamentary investigation into Loblaw Companies for their pandemic profiteering."

The once-thriving seal export business is reduced to shipping frozen mammal penises to two Asian markets, according to a Canadian Food Inspection Agency report. Exports of all seal products once worth millions a year are down to $275,000 annually: "We all know negative media reports and anti-sealing messaging from animal rights groups had major impacts."

A site will be selected by year’s end as perpetual home of the nation’s nuclear waste, according to regulatory filings. Two of 22 rural communities are shortlisted: "Decisions made in the near future will have repercussions decades, centuries and even millennia from now."

Data confirm middle class Canadians, especially young families, have seen inflation eat away at their standard of living, Statistics Canada data showed yesterday. “Most workers have seen their purchasing power decline,” wrote the agency: "Wages and earnings have not kept pace."

The incidence of suspected “birth tourism” is about 2,500 a year, says a Department of Immigration report. Researchers used new data in estimating the number of births by foreign mothers on short term visits to Canada: "The issue of ‘birth tourism’ has drawn considerable public attention in recent years."

Chiefs of police are endorsing a private Senate bill to permit DNA sampling of people convicted of non-violent crimes like drunk driving. The measure might have averted one of the country's most notorious wrongful convictions, they said: "You should know there are hundreds of unsolved murders in Canada."

A telecom industry consultant who exposed Laith Marouf as an anti-Semite sponsored by the Department of Canadian Heritage says “too many people in Ottawa knew about this” and did nothing. Mark Goldberg in a submission to the Commons heritage committee said he repeatedly warned officialdom of Marouf’s conduct: "I do want to see some real accountability."

The fate of helmetless curling rests with Alberta Court of King’s Bench. A judge has ordered a local school district and curling club to face civil trial for failing to meet a “required standard of care” by allowing children to hit the ice without a helmet: "The ice was slippery and could cause students to fall and become injured. That risk was obvious."

Parliament should expropriate apartment buildings owned by landlords who “violate human rights,” says a Canadian Human Rights Commission report. Federal law should also ban private lending to landlords who “contravene human rights including the right to adequate housing,” it said.

Nearly a thousand CBC employees are paid $100,000 or more, according to Access To Information records obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. The number of six-figure staffers was up 117 percent in six years: "What value are taxpayers getting?"

The House affairs committee yesterday voted for a deeper investigation of alleged Chinese interference in federal elections. One Liberal MP dismissed the ongoing probe as a “Trump-like tactic to question election results.”

Most young Canadians are frightened of climate change and tell federal pollsters they feel sad and helpless. Almost three quarters of young adults surveyed, 74 percent, said they were “afraid of the impacts of climate change on their friends and loved ones’ lives.”