Blacklock's Reporter

In Ottawa in 1941 Oscar Skelton, Canada’s first deputy foreign minister, was driving on O’Connor Avenue on his lunch break when he suffered a fatal heart attack and ploughed his Packard into a streetcar. Back at the office, Skelton had secretly filed away a memo seething with frustration. His biography by acclaimed historian Norman Hillmer is worthy of a Chekhov novel: the unassuming functionary whose daily plodding concealed a boil of thwarted aspirations.

A Portrait Of Canadian Ambition is outstanding: “His grey exterior and natural reticence covered a vast range of ambitions – for an extraordinary life, for power and influence, for social standing and prosperity, and for an important place in the remaking of Canada as an independent and progressive country,” writes Hillmer, professor of history at Carleton University.

Cabinet is committed to long term aid for money-losing news media, the Department of Canadian Heritage said yesterday. The department said it was unaware of impending newspaper closures amid an ongoing $595 million bailout set to expire in two years: "News businesses have seen their revenues significantly decline."

Cabinet yesterday said it is “exploring” online passport renewals so Canadians can avoid hours-long waits at federal offices. It was merely a possibility, said Social Development Minister Karina Gould: "I remain seized with resolving this unacceptable situation."

The Freedom Convoy inquiry yesterday moved a step closer to public hearings with recommended taxpayer funding for participants' legal fees and expenses. Lawyers for convoy organizers did not ask for a subsidy: "Applicants who requested funding provided varying degrees of detail in terms of the amounts they requested."

Freedom Convoy coverage put “significant pressure” on CBC employees, according to corporate records. Cabinet earlier said it relied on CBC News for justification in using emergency powers against truckers, while one cabinet minister said he spoke personally with unnamed reporters covering the protest: "For journalists, trust me, I reached out to some of them."

Zoom meetings at clubs and associations are invalid unless spelled out in members’ bylaws, a British Columbia court has ruled. The Victoria Canoe and Kayak Club had its entire annual general meeting declared void since old bylaws required a “show of hands.”

Canada’s success depends in part on migrant labour though it accounts for a small fraction of the national workforce, Immigration Minister Sean Fraser’s department said yesterday. Fraser earlier said record high immigration quotas were essential to “pay for all the things we enjoy.”

Rising grocery prices have shoppers paying 20 percent more for spaghetti, flour, cabbage and other staples, new Statistics Canada tables showed yesterday. The cost of even the cheapest meats increased by a third or more year over year while basic white bread averaged $4 a loaf: "Canadians are feeling left behind and ripped off."

Cabinet yesterday doubled a loan program that requires Afghan refugees to repay funds advanced to cover their cost of resettlement in Canada. Ukrainian refugees were given free grants: "Canada is treating Afghan refugees and Ukrainian refugees differently."

Fewer than half the job vacancies in one federal department are now advertised to the general public, says a newly-released audit. The Department of Canadian Heritage confirmed only 46 percent of postings are made public, a practice criticized by the Public Service Commission as prone to nepotism: "That is certainly something we are on the lookout for."

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s department yesterday approved taxpayer-guaranteed lines of credit for small business borrowers at nine percent interest. “Lines of credit are inherently riskier,” wrote staff: 'It was assumed the rate at which borrowers default was 15 percent.'

“Misleading political communications” should be federally regulated, say censorship advisors appointed by Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez. Unregulated political discussion and disinformation was a kind of pollution that “erodes the foundations of democracy,” said the group: "By polluting the information environment with false, deceptive or misleading information, disinformation undermines citizens’ rights to form their own informed opinions."

The Department of Health is hiring publicity agents to draft hashtags in promotion of “Clean Air Day” on complaints the federal observance has a low profile after 23 years. The department will pay an undisclosed sum to marketers to “engage the public,” the department said yesterday: "The objective of this contract is to increase awareness."

An aircraft maintenance engineer fired for declining to wear a face mask at work has won nearly $9,000 in damages. Evidence at the Alberta Labour Board indicated the employee protested “he was not a sheep.”

Private companies subject to proposed bilingualism rules should have to pay cash for non-compliance, says Languages Commissioner Raymond Théberge. The Commissioner would not detail how much scofflaws should pay but earlier remarked, “We want to change their behaviour.”