Treasury Board President Mona Fortier yesterday would not say how much it will cost to recover funds from ineligible applicants who received Canada Emergency Response Benefit cheques. One Canada Revenue Agency estimate said nearly $150 million had been spent to date: "It makes you wonder."
Cabinet discussed seizing funds held in Freedom Convoy sympathizers' bank and credit union accounts, according to minutes of a secret meeting. Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino told cabinet that Emergencies Act powers “enabled the seizure of funds.”
Cabinet had to bring “the full power of the federal government” against the Freedom Convoy, says the head of the federal public service. Janice Charette, the $343,000-a year clerk of the Privy Council, wrote in a secret memo the protest threatened “social cohesion” and “national unity.”
Fewer than 5,000 firearms have been seized at the border in the past six years, according to the Canada Border Services Agency. Federal authorities acknowledged they do not know the extent of gun smuggling: "There is still more work to do."
The federal payroll will top $50 billion this year, says the Parliamentary Budget Office. Analysts counted 391,000 federal employees: "Spending on public servant salaries and benefits is forecast to climb to almost $55 billion this year or about $130,000 per full-time employee."
Conservative and New Democrat MPs have joined in condemning cabinet for weakening a private bill to protect workers’ benefits in company bankruptcies. “I am sick of it,” New Democrat MP Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood-Transcona, Man.) told the Commons: "There always seem to be roadblocks."
Poet Peter Gibbon is a Canadian who has lived in South Korea: “My favourite Korean folk tale is designed to teach children proper hygiene although it plays out like a nightmare. If you cut your toenails & forget to clean up the clippings, rats will eat it, become an exact replica of yourself & turn up at your door…”
Liberal MPs last night asked that GoFundMe identify how much the Freedom Convoy raised in Russia. It follows a discredited CBC News report that questioned whether the Kremlin financed Parliament Hill protests: "Can you confirm to the committee that no donations were received from China?"
Jody Thomas, national security advisor to the Prime Minister, yesterday pointed to protesters’ tweets in justifying her claim the Freedom Convoy was a “threat to national interest.” Thomas was appointed as $306,000-a year security advisor last January 11 just two weeks before protesters arrived on Parliament Hill: "It is a threat to democracy."
The Department of Finance had no opinion “one way or another” whether Freedom Convoy protesters were terrorists, Deputy Minister Michael Sabia testified yesterday. “I’m not going to give you a yes or no,” Sabia said under questioning on why cabinet used a 9/11 anti-terror law to freeze millions in accounts held by protest sympathizers: "Who takes responsibility for the fact these accounts were frozen, that people couldn’t pay their rent, that people couldn’t buy their groceries?"
Protests in the 2021 federal campaign did not appear to be aligned with “any specific ideology” or hate group and saw threats against all major party leaders, say RCMP files. Demonstrations against vaccine mandates prompted Parliament to pass a bill threatening 10 years’ imprisonment for protesters at hospitals and clinics: "Threats against protected persons encompass a range of rhetoric including vague adverse comments."
A federal landlord, the National Capital Commission, yesterday closed the Prime Minister’s official residence for costly repairs expected to take years to complete. The manor house at 24 Sussex Drive was last occupied by the Harpers in 2015: "What is the pegged cost?"
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland told a secret cabinet meeting that Canadians with bank accounts frozen under the Emergencies Act should be denied their money unless they first reported to police. “Banks were pleased,” said confidential minutes.
RCMP in an internal email acknowledged there was “no serious violence in Ottawa” with the Freedom Convoy despite claims by Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino. One police commander said allegations of violence were “the main reason for the Emergencies Act.”
Chinese-Canadians in an internal Privy Council Office poll say cabinet must “stand up” to China's Communist Party even if it brings worsening relations. “Canada was not currently doing enough to speak out against human rights issues,” citizens of Chinese ethnicity told federal pollsters: "Very few wanted to see the development of stronger ties."
