Parliament must regulate spyware following disclosures the RCMP used technology to hack phones, the Commons ethics committee has been told. A group of academics warned the practice is “cloaked in secrecy.”
New hiring by the Department of Immigration to process a chronic backlog of passport applications totaled 15 form checkers and 63 mail clerks, according to records. Cabinet withheld the figure while claiming to take extraordinary steps to clear three-month wait times for applications by mail: "We're doing everything we can."
The federal Conservative Party leadership contest was the biggest political fundraiser of the modern era, according to Elections Canada filings. Partial returns indicate all candidates combined raised $8.3 million from 55,000 donors under a federal law that caps individual contributions at $1,675. More than half was raised by Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre.
A federal Covid contractor awarded millions for medical gowns twice missed delivery deadlines after blaming the weather, says the Department of Public Works. The company’s local Liberal MP Irek Kusmierczyk (Windsor-Tecumseh, Ont.) called the contractor “an excellent example of Canadian industry.”
Unpublished data confirm Covid vaccination rates for expectant mothers are far below the national average, says a federal science committee. The disclosure follows pre-pandemic research showing pregnant mothers often resisted routine immunization like winter flu shots: "“The uptake of Covid-19 vaccine has been lower among pregnant people."
An 18 percent interest charge on unpaid legal fees has been upheld by a British Columbia tribunal. The rate was written into a client’s contract two years ago when the Bank of Canada was charging 0.25 percent on interbank loans: "She agreed to pay it. She signed the contract."
Poet and essayist Tim Lilburn recalls his grandfather, a sodbuster who landed near Wolseley, Sask. in 1902. He built a life in the wheat boom, lost everything in the Dustbowl and ended his days in a Regina rooming house with a bed and a chair. “Everything I write, I sense, is about this life or is somehow founded by this life.”
The epilogue does not diminish the triumph, writes Lilburn. Immigrants fled “Europe’s two most intractable social ills: landlessness and classism. Many experienced the homestead years as euphoric as a result.”
“It must have been dizzying,” writes Lilburn. “Of course there was an incredible amount of work to be done, but this was set against all night dances in people’s houses, local families providing the music, furniture piled in the yard; beef rings; the excitement of threshing crews coming for the rich crops; Christmas concerts at the school; horse-drawn cutters with heated stones set on the floor for warmth – autonomy and a bracing freedom flourished; a local culture was made up as people went along. I’ve heard tale after shimmering tale.”
The Bank of Canada yesterday warned of “bumps along the way” to beating inflation. Another increase in the 3.25 percent prime Bank rate is due October 26, the sixth hike this year: "We’ll take the next decisions with the information we have in front of us at the time."
Praise and reflection yesterday marked the passing of a Canadian monarch for the first time in 70 years. Commons Speaker Anthony Rota said members of the 44th Parliament would not be required to swear a new oath to the King: "Allegiance is automatically extended to our new sovereign."
YouTube, Apple Music and other lobbyists are petitioning the Senate to slow final passage of Bill C-11, the first in Canada to regulate the internet. “We urge this committee to pause,” executives wrote in a letter to the Senate transport and communications committee: 'It is the wrong approach.'
A labour arbitrator has rejected one municipality’s complaint that Truth and Reconciliation Day should be a “day of learning” instead of a paid holiday. Scores of arbitration rulings have expanded the September 30 federal holiday to municipalities nationwide: "The fact this is not a federally regulated workplace is not relevant."
Most Indigenous dialects in Canada are endangered despite millions in annual funding to save lost languages, says a Department of Canadian Heritage report. Of some 90 dialects a total 35 are “critically endangered” and 27 more “severely endangered.”
Adjusting interest rates is "not my job," Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said yesterday. Her remarks followed another increase in the Bank of Canada rate to the highest level since 2008: "What is the trigger point for when you decide to do something?"
Two more cannabis companies have filed for creditor protection amid a crash in the federally-licensed marijuana market. A total 34 wholesalers and retailers have become insolvent since 2020: 'The current cannabis market downturn has made it impossible.'
A five-year Canada Revenue Agency campaign to promote tax filing by phone was not successful, says a federal report. Less than one percent of tax filers submit returns by telephone. Cost of the program was not disclosed: "Many are not interested."
