Private “cost effective” managers hired to run a federal grant program brought in first-year spending sixty percent under budget, according to Access To Information records. The Department of Public Safety hired private accountants to manage the Memorial Grant Program to avoid any hint of favouritism in payments: 'It requires highly specialized expertise we do not have.'
A Manitoba judge has awarded $109,804 in damages to a female university student targeted by campus gossip. Court of Queen’s Bench was told the remarks were especially hurtful to women of Muslim faith: "Such insinuations could travel."
A third of suspects shot dead by the RCMP over a ten-year period were Indigenous men, according to an internal Department of Public Safety memo. Mounties acknowledged the number “may appear disproportionately high” but denied racial profiling: "All persons are treated equitably."
Federal employees write too many English emails, says Official Languages Commissioner Raymond Théberge. The Commissioner in an Access To Information letter faulted public service managers for ignoring his repeated complaints on the subject: "They cannot be accepted."
Three Green MPs will never support a Liberal motion of confidence in the minority Parliament without tougher climate change targets, Party leader Elizabeth May said yesterday. May proposed lowering greenhouse gas emissions to levels not seen since the 1982 recession: "It’s past time for Liberals to stop pandering."
Tax Court has dismissed appeals by taxpayers stung in an audit of an Ontario charity suspected of running a receipt mill. Thousands of participants donated software and CDs to a children’s charity for inflated receipts: "They were to a certain extent willfully blind."
Newly-released figures indicate only one in six voters watched the election campaign’s lone national English-language television debate. More CTV viewers tuned in to an episode of The Good Doctor, data show: "We will have to work very hard to make people care."
A new cabinet will take office November 20 and won't include any opposition members, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau yesterday told reporters. “It is not in our plans at all to form any kind of formal coalition,” he said. Trudeau added the first legislation in the 43rd Parliament will be a budget bill to amend the Income Tax Act: "Next decisions will be made in the coming days."
A Canadian class action lawsuit over Equifax privacy breaches has been dismissed by Québec Superior Court. Equifax last July 20 settled similar American claims with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission for US$700 million: 'That does not change anything.'
Statistics Canada yesterday said it will spend $308,305 on electronic monitors to measure how much people sleep. The agency said it needs “more robust indicators of health”.
The Office of the Auditor General yesterday said it will hire private accountants to review one Crown agency’s budget. Staff earlier complained they were so short of funding they had to cut audits to save money: 'It allows the office to better manage its resources.'
Former Senator André Pratte (Independent-Que.) yesterday released a confidential ethics report detailing a mild reprimand for an “apparent conflict of interest”. The Liberal appointee abruptly quit the Senate Monday: "This played no role at all in my decision to resign."
Elections Canada yesterday said it has no idea how many foreigners were on voting lists in Monday’s general election. The agency in an Access To Information memo confirmed it was aware of dozens of cases of illegal balloting since 2015, but concluded prosecution was “not in the public interest”.
Shares in SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. yesterday jumped fourteen percent following opposition parties' election defeat Monday. Critics had sought an independent investigation of Lavalin influence in the Prime Minister’s Office to avert a pending trial on fraud and bribery charges: "Canadians deserve to know the truth."
A compensation fund intended to save taxpayers the cost of cleanup from a catastrophic rail oil spill totals just $44.1 million in its third year. Claims from the 2013 Lac-Mégantic disaster were nearly ten times as much, a total $409 million: "It was a matter of ensuring that we have something in place."
