Blacklock's Reporter

Lobbyists representing the bailout press endorse cabinet censorship of the internet. News Media Canada called itself the nation’s “most precious guardian” of free speech but proposed the Department of Canadian Heritage extend censorship to critics who use legal but hurtful words against media: "The news publishing industry remains under threat from the unregulated and unchecked social media."

Bauer Hockey Limited received a multi-million dollar sole-sourced contract for medical supplies without first receiving certification from the Department of Health, according to internal emails. Document show the order for plastic face shields was rushed for a next-day announcement by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: "I want to share a quintessentially Canadian example of this collaboration."

The Green Party’s Annamie Paul yesterday resigned after describing her year-long tenure as federal leader as a bitter experience that had her “spitting up blood,” calling it the “worst period in my life.” Party support fell by two-thirds in the September 20 general election: "I knew."

Skilled trades are stigmatized in Canada, says internal research by the Department of Employment. A survey of teenagers and young adults found many considered the work too hard, boring and “not as respected” as other jobs while acknowledging trades paid better than many university degrees: "It's a chronic situation."

MPs are more likely to read letters than emails from constituents, says an academic study. Handwritten notes are “the most impactful” on parliamentarians, said researchers: "100 emails about one issue will make us think but 100 letters would really give you pause."

Most Canadians consider online information reliable and are confident they can tell when it’s not, says internal polling by Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault’s department. Guilbeault has proposed “concrete action” to police news and information on the internet: "66 percent feel confident in their ability to tell if online content is fair and balanced."

Federal agencies quietly arranged to ship hundreds of thousands of Covid masks to Québec when all other provinces faced shortages, according to internal emails. Political aides in the Prime Minister’s Office stressed “we should be careful about what we say” in giving Québec preferential treatment: "The plan is for them to go to QC."

Cabinet will fully implement a facial recognition system for 25 million Canadian passport holders within two years despite little proof of identity fraud. The program would see federal agencies compile a database of millions of Canadians’ faces: "Don’t you think it’s a bit too late to prevent the misuse of that information?"

A fifth of Canadians believe match fixing is commonplace in football, hockey and other professional sports, says federal research. Cabinet legalized bookmaking August 27: "My hope is we won’t wait for that scandal to happen in Canada before we take some serious and significant action."

Records in a British Columbia court case detail the decades-long impact of wrongful conviction in a notorious 1981 murder. The number of Canadians jailed for crimes they did not commit is not known, though cabinet since 2019 has reviewed 47 claims: "Exoneration and eventual compensation was long and arduous."

Membership in hate groups has long been linked to economic failure. Few millionaires joined the Aryan Nations. More contentious is a theory that all human beings are prone to irrational impulses that pit Catholic versus Protestant, English versus French, white versus Black. “We are hardwired to be ethnocentric,” writes Kenneth Stern, director of New York’s Bard Centre for the Study of Hate.

Stern argues we are programmed through millennia to instincts that long ago meant survival but today make no sense whatsoever. Consider the story of the spider and the sedan. He quotes social psychologist James Waller: “Automobiles kill far more people today than do spiders or snakes. But people are far more averse to spiders and snakes than they are to automobiles. Why? Because for most of our ancestral history, spiders and snakes were a serious threat to our survival and reproduction, whereas automobiles did not exist.”

“Very, very busy” diplomats and regimental commanders scrambled to host a 2019 vanity trip to Latvia by former governor general Adrienne Clarkson, according to Access To Information records. Clarkson’s junket included a night at the opera, request for a field uniform and questions on whether to wear her ceremonial medals: "What is the purpose of this visit?"

Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino yesterday would not comment on an internal report documenting racist hate speech by managers in his own department. Mendicino has publicly stated all Canadians must do the “hard work” of fighting bigotry: "My message is that we are with you and we will condemn any and all examples of hate and racism."

The Canadian chapter of the Internet Society has petitioned Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault’s department to drop a censorship bill so sweeping it would ban satire or jokes, impact news gathering and blacklist free speech “on social and political issues,” it said. “It cannot be justified in a free and democratic society,” said the Society whose members include a former federal judge: "This is completely wrong."

Elections Canada yesterday insisted it sent a mail-in ballot kit to every eligible elector who asked for one. However Blacklock’s documented cases in which voters correctly applied for a ballot and never received it: "We have no way of knowing that."