Cabinet yesterday would not explain its failure to enforce a bill passed by Parliament a year ago to unmask foreign agents. The Department of Public Safety had promised a foreign registry would be in place this month: "Where is it?"
The Department of Health in pre-election focus groups found Canadians skeptical of a promised pharmacare program. People typically assumed they either didn't qualify or that promised free medication came with strings attached: "Who is eligible? Who is covered? What are eligibility requirements?"
Elections Canada must face parliamentary scrutiny for balloting irregularities including random poll closures, Bloc Québécois MPs said yesterday. Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault has apologized but failed to explain why voters in one riding were left standing outside polling stations: "Elections Canada investigates itself. They need outside scrutiny."
Covid mandates were "full Communism," Conservative MP Dr. Matt Strauss (Kitchener South-Hespeler, Ont.), yesterday told the Commons in his maiden speech. Strauss, an emergency care doctor, was an outspoken critic of pandemic controls: "I refuse to be a cog in their broken machine."
The New Democrats' foreign affairs critic in a podcast Friday compared Jews’ military action in Gaza to the murder of innocent civilians in World War II. MP Heather McPherson (Edmonton Strathcona) was silent as her interviewer likened the killing of Palestinians to the Holocaust: "We are 19 months into this genocide."
The pandemic prompted a “large shift” in parents’ views on vaccination, says a Public Health Agency report. Fears of unknown side effects are now common, wrote researchers: "The Covid-19 pandemic yielded a large shift in Canadians’ knowledge, attitudes and beliefs towards vaccinations."
UFOs are a national security issue though federal agencies decades ago deemed they were no threat, says the office of cabinet’s Chief Science Advisor. Dr. Mona Nemer's office in an Access To Information memo said Canadians should guard against “undetected intrusions” from space: "Motivation: national security."
Typical television viewers are senior citizens, says new CRTC research. The demographic profile of the TV audience follows repeated warnings that television is in steep decline: "In fact the likelihood of subscribing to a TV service increases with age."
Cabinet won’t say what if any new steps on fire prevention have been taken by Parks Canada following a disastrous 2024 blaze in Jasper, Alta. One Alberta MP told the Commons the consequences of poor forest management were obvious: "We learned."
Parliament ran its own tavern for 49 years. Sober and sadder are today’s holidays on Parliament Hill. Old-timers recalled the tavern fondly. Here the Fathers of Confederation took a bracer or entertained visitors. It was a “very natural” place, John A. Macdonald enthused.
Catastrophes inspire art. Many an 18th century painter documented the Great Fire of London and eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Artists similarly tried to chronicle Canada’s one true catastrophe as described by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The results have been jarring. Arts of Engagement spreads the canvas.
From 1867 some 150,000 Indigenous children were forced through the Indian Residential School system. The Commission appointed to examine the historical record was the product of a class action lawsuit, designed by liability lawyers. The outcome satisfied almost no one.
“Truth-telling was not to include the naming of individuals and institutions associated with wrongdoing ‘unless such findings or information has already been established through legal proceedings,’” writes Professor David Garneau of the University of Regina. “Truths were to be accounts of subjective experience, feelings and perceptions rather than the relating of facts.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday endorsed a Bloc Québécois dairy bill opposed by free trade farmers as protectionist. An identical bill was gutted by Liberal appointees at the Senate foreign affairs committee last November 7: "I am going to give a direct answer to you."
The Department of Health seven years after legalizing marijuana will mandate warning labels stating cannabis is an addictive drug linked to psychosis, schizophrenia and brain damage especially for users under 25. The department in earlier research referred to marijuana as less risky than teenage drinking: "Using cannabis before age 25 increases your risk of mental disorders like psychosis and schizophrenia."
An Alberta MP in his maiden speech to the Commons yesterday said Westerners would like to “rip this place down” and rebuild Canada. “Alberta separatism is no longer a fringe idea,” said Conservative MP David Bexte (Bow River): "The future of this country is not a guarantee."
No province may secede without Parliament’s say-so, the Government Representative in the Senate said yesterday. Senator Marc Gold (Que.), a former law professor, called it “a matter of law” but did not explain how it would be enforced: "Could you state then what hurdles a province would have to clear before it could separate?"
