Blacklock's Reporter

The greatness of Canada is that it’s even here. We’ve had every reason to be at each other’s throats for 155 years yet kept the federation together. Anyone who doubts the achievement should ask Czechs and Slovaks, Tutsis and Hutus, Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants, Confederates and Yankees. The roll call of nations that absorbed bitter factionalism without revolt or disintegration is a very short list.

Canada’s Odyssey: A Country Based On Incomplete Conquests documents this remarkable story. In 1867 the Dominion Bureau of Statistics estimated the population was 28 percent French with few surviving Indigenous people, about 118,000. Today it is 22 percent French and the Indigenous population has grown tenfold.

“Canadians have not agreed that they belong to a single ‘people’ whose majority expresses the sovereign will of their nation. The holdouts are the French Canadians and members of the nations indigenous to North America whose historic lands are in Canada,” writes author Peter Russell, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto’s political science faculty.

Climate change rewrites to the National Building Code will have a cost impact, the National Research Council warned yesterday. The Council said it will hire consultants to calculate the additional expense for new home construction: "Until we talk real numbers we can’t talk reality."

The Department of Public Works says taxpayers could save a fortune on office space if federal employees continue to work from home. The department has estimated 230,000 staff are working remotely: "Infrastructure is the second largest expense to the Government of Canada after salary expenses."

Canadians rate plastic a lesser environmental risk than marijuana smoke or flushing prescription drugs down the toilet, says in-house Department of Health research. Only a third of Canadians, 34 percent, said they worry about single use plastics: "Fewer are concerned."

Federal excise taxes on marijuana totaled more than a quarter billion a year prior to the pandemic, according to Canada Revenue Agency tables. Cabinet had pledged to initially limit its share of taxes to $100 million a year to aid provinces with enforcement expenses: "Organized crime does not share its data with us."

The number of family-run small businesses crashed in Canada from pre-pandemic levels, the Department of Industry said yesterday. The figures are the latest to gauge the scope of the small business recession: "There has been a substantial decline in the percentage of small and medium sized enterprises owned by members of the same family."

A federal board is reviewing posthumous honours for Alexander Graham Bell due to his “controversial beliefs,” according to records. Bell died a hundred years ago. Designation of Canadian landmarks like the Halifax Citadel and Crowsnest Pass are also up for review under a cabinet policy against “colonialism, patriarchy and racism.”

Most vehicles in cabinet’s multi-million dollar motor pool are American made, records show. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had pledged to ensure “vehicles of the future are made right here in Canada.”

A Department of Public Works manager has been fired for cronyism. The department would not name the person but said in a notice that conflicts of interest would not be tolerated: "Public servants must act at all times in a manner that will withstand the closest scrutiny."

Cabinet must consider steps to “secure a foothold for French in the public realm by way of political, cultural and economic status,” says a guide issued by Languages Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor. Staff complained after 53 years of federal bilingualism only seven percent of English-speaking Canadians know French words: "There is a decline in French across Canada including in Québec."

Refusal to take a ratepayer’s cheque as payment for a bus pass has prompted a formal apology and change of policy by the City of Calgary. The dispute is only the latest over use of paper cheques: "Cheque recipients have become harder to engage."

MPs, provincial legislators and city councillors are known to be in the pay of foreign agents, a former espionage officer yesterday told the Commons ethics committee. The foreign agents’ source country was not named though cabinet has accused China of clandestine activities: "What we know for sure is we have various foreign countries that succeeded in recruiting elected officials – again, municipal, provincial or federal."

The Commons ethics committee yesterday by a 6 to 5 vote ordered the RCMP to comply with its demand for data on any spyware surveillance of MPs. The Mounties earlier dismissed a similar request: "Nobody is talking about preventing the spyware from being used in the first place."

Federal departments from the outbreak of the pandemic increased by 66 percent the number of managers earning $100,000 or more, according to Access To Information payroll records obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Cabinet to date has resisted attempts to name individual six-figure earners under a federal Sunshine List: "All they saw was political landmines."

Senator Sarabjit Marwah (Ont.), a Liberal appointee who doubled his legislative pay with corporate directorship fees, has taken another board appointment. Senate ethics rules do not prohibit legislators from serving on corporate boards while drawing a salary from taxpayers: "The Senate itself is not considered a full-time job and that you can maintain interests."