A federal agency bought stock in a money-losing Kenyan cellphone company at three times the price of shares in Ford Motor Co., records show. Export Development Canada called the “investment” speculative, and said it now plans to dump the stock that cost taxpayers $15,400,000: "The rate of return on this investment is difficult to predict."
The Department of Health in internal emails rated a failed contractor as “solid” even after its Covid test kits failed clinical trials. Spartan Bioscience Inc. received a $16.6 million cash advance for rush orders of test kits never delivered before it filed for bankruptcy court protection April 6: "We are in good shape."
Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna says she needs to “do a better job of explaining” where billions have been spent on public works. Auditors in a March 25 report said they found only a partial picture of where the money went: "Even the Auditor General for Canada can’t connect the dots."
A gibe to “go back to Québec” is not a breach of the Human Rights Code, a British Columbia tribunal has ruled. The Victoria tribunal dismissed a complaint of discrimination, saying the remark was rude but not discriminatory: "It is not so virulent or egregious."
Electric cars must be equipped with noisemakers under a Department of Transport proposal. Regulators said pedestrians and bicyclists are likelier to be run over by a quietly humming electric car than a conventional one: "Do you know what the problem is?"
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, writes for Blacklock’s each and every Sunday: “Desperately need the money; tend to be late; rarely meet a deadline; have a loose understanding of your business. I demonstrate no relevant skills for this job…”
Author Robert Calderisi tells the wry story of an Alberta friend who worked eight years in Montréal and never tired of hectoring Haitian cabdrivers by giving his home address in English, “Nun’s Island” instead of Ile-des-Soeurs. “Very few drivers knew what he was talking about,” writes Calderisi. “Instead of letting them off the hook, he would jump into a different taxi, feeling triumphant. I remember hoping that he took a very long time to get home each night. I also knew that if he worked in Poland for eight years he would have learned Polish.”
Québec In A Global Light is no lament. Calderisi is refreshingly candid. After fifty years of official bilingualism Canada “is nothing of the sort”, he says: “Few Canadians arriving in Québec do not feel slightly disoriented.”
Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson yesterday promised cabinet will not further increase the carbon tax. Cabinet made a similar pre-election promise in 2019 before raising the tax 240 percent: "No, we do not intend to."
Cabinet will not tax Canadians’ home equity, the Commons finance committee was told last night. “Just for the record,” said Liberal MP Sean Fraser (Central Nova, N.S.), parliamentary secretary for finance: "Any suggestion to the contrary is entirely false."
The Commons finance committee is asking what became of billions spent to Covid-proof public school classrooms. The Canadian Teachers’ Federation yesterday said pandemic supplies have been scant, and teachers have paid out of pocket to keep children safe: "I'm shocked."
CMHC yesterday said it is “exploring opportunities for ex-prisoners” to become homeowners. The federal insurer awarded a $246,000 grant for a research "lab" on finding suitable housing for parolees: "You can imagine the challenges they face in finding a place to live, especially with a criminal record."
A proposed federal tax on “extreme wealth” would affect about 16,000 people, records show. Data indicate most Canadians with employee stock option deductions had claims worth an average $7,000: "There are so few people in the top one percent."
Auditors yesterday cited the Department of Health for failing to enforce federal laws on natural health products. The department rarely conducted spot inspections of wholesalers, failed to check products weren’t contaminated and “fell short of ensuring products are safe and effective,” said an audit by the Commissioner of the Environment: "Health Canada is responsible."
An expected hundredfold increase in mail-in voting “would be key” in a 2021 federal election, says cabinet. Privy Council President Dominic LeBlanc in a letter to MPs called it a Covid precaution. A cabinet bill would allow mail-in ballots to be received up to a day after polls close: "Major increases in vote by mail would be a critical issue."
Statistics Canada yesterday said it will update its benchmark Consumer Price Index to reflect pandemic prices. The agency yesterday doubled its official inflation rate to 2.2 percent nationwide: "We are planning another basket update this summer to better reflect changes."
