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."
Most Canadians limit their gambling to lottery and raffle tickets with 92 percent reporting they never placed a sports bet, Statistics Canada said yesterday. Analysts compiled the figures to gauge the impact of a bill that legalized bookmaking in Canada for the first time since 1892: "The results serve as an important baseline of gambling behaviour in Canada."
RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki refuses to say whether federal police used spyware to monitor MPs’ smartphones. The chair of the Commons ethics committee yesterday described the secrecy as “troubling.”
Members of the Commons ethics committee yesterday expressed alarm over RCMP use of spyware capable of activating microphones and cameras on smartphones. MPs only learned of the practice in a routine House tabling of cabinet documents: "A lot of work has to be done to ensure privacy is actually respected in our government."
The CBC says it is tightening editorial controls after publishing a website commentary depicting white pensioners and Conservative Party voters as bigots. “It was not okay,” wrote Jack Nagler, network ombudsman: "Declaring a politician to be hateful should be based on their policies and their actions not just the colour of their lawn signs."
The Commons transport committee yesterday by unanimous vote agreed to summon Transport Minister Omar Alghabra for answers on how to “fix the mess” at federally-regulated airports. No Liberal MP spoke in Alghabra’s defence: "All the warning signs were there."
Federally-subsidized art programs must embrace “social activism,” says the Canada Council for the Arts. Management in a series of reports said it seeks “a decolonized future for the arts.” The Council spent $428.6 million last year: "The Council should support the arts sector in promoting social activism."
The Public Health Agency faulted in audits for Covid mismanagement is awarding a pandemic hero’s medallion to every single employee. Medal presentations include a velvet box to commemorate “their commitments towards pandemic relief efforts” that left 43,000 Canadians dead: 'It is a special Covid-19 coin in a velvet presentation box.'
The Commons transport committee today opens rare August hearings into continued snarls at federally-regulated airports. Hearings requested by Opposition MPs follow disclosures less than half of flights through Toronto’s Pearson International Airport run on time: "This is not a number I would normally tout."
Handgun imports will be banned in Canada under the same law used to block American dairy products at the border, cabinet said Friday. “We will use every single tool at our disposal,” Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino told reporters: "The number of handguns in Canada will only go down."
Young Canadians are pragmatic but “more individualized” than past generations, says a Department of Heritage report. Staff compiled a personality profile of Canadians under 25 as part of an audit of youth program spending: "The world has changed."
Taxpayers should not directly pay cash prizes to Canadian Olympic and Paralympic athletes who win international competitions, says the Department of Canadian Heritage. Paralympians have complained they do not receive $20,000 prizes awarded to Olympic gold medalists through organizing committees: 'The sport support program does not permit use of federal funds for prize money.'
Alberta does not have a provincial sales tax because Albertans do not want one. They tried it 86 years ago. It was not successful. Robert Ascah, former director of the University of Alberta’s Institute for Public Economics, recounts the little-known experiment. “An unpopular and misunderstood tax is something to avoid if you are gunning for re-election,” Ascah wryly observes.
In the teeth of the Dust Bowl and facing insolvency, the Social Credit cabinet introduced a two percent sales tax on May 1, 1936. Ascah recounts the dreadful circumstances. Four hundred school districts were in default, wheat was down to 32 cents a bushel – a price not seen since the Middle Ages – and ratepayers were reduced to eating rodents.
A 1933 Alberta Taxation Inquiry Board endorsed a sales tax in bloodless terms strikingly similar to those used by advocates today. It was “simple,” “easily understood,” “flexible,” “easily modified.” The legislature repealed the tax a year later on September 1, 1937 and never mentioned it again.
