One cabinet member yesterday expressed alarm after U.S. President Donald Trump demanded 50 percent of the $6.4 billion Gordie Howe International Bridge at Windsor, Ont. The threat in a social media post prompted Prime Minister Mark Carney to call the White House: "When President Trump talks, we listen."
A Department of Finance executive who oversaw a 192 percent hike in the deficit yesterday apologized after laughing about his inability to calculate basic interest. “I don’t find it very funny,” one MP told Deputy Minister of Finance Nicholas Leswick.
RCMP in an internal report admit mismanaging crime labs in three provinces. Service was so slow investigators were hiring private labs for testing despite the higher cost, wrote auditors: "Only 50 percent of surveyed clients were satisfied."
Some 100,000 illegal immigrants and refugee claimants in Canada are awaiting security screening, the chair of the Immigration and Refugee Board said yesterday. MPs earlier expressed unease with months-long delays in conducting background checks: "We don’t know if they are safe to be in the country because we are waiting for a security screening?"
The Commons industry committee yesterday voted to scrutinize cabinet’s decision to expand market access for Chinese battery electric autos and revive $5,000 rebates for American-made electric imports. The unanimous vote came after Industry Minister Mélanie Joly said she could not understand why anyone would oppose the measures: "You were against EV mandates, okay, we got rid of them."
The Commons yesterday gave Second Reading to a private bill to name corporate tax delinquents. Conservative MP Adam Chambers (Simcoe North, Ont.), sponsor of the bill, called it “offensive to every sensible person” that the Revenue Agency quietly negotiated settlements with companies that owed millions: "Behind the cloak of secrecy officials within the Revenue Agency and the government in general are waiving millions and millions."
Parliament should stop allowing cameras in Question Period, says a spokesperson for the Government House Leader. Canada’s Commons was the first to televise proceedings 49 years ago: "Maybe we could take away the television cameras during Question Period."
Elections Canada is placing orders for 700,000 poll tally sheets and other balloting supplies in anticipation of the next national campaign. Cabinet has denied interest in going to the polls for a second time in two years, though one MP noted “people here are getting worked up.”
A digital identification system will cost $6.64 billion but not a dollar more, federal managers promise the Commons public accounts committee. The ten-year program to digitize claims for Employment Insurance and other benefits is “the largest IT transformation ever undertaken by the government,” wrote the Department of Employment.
Spending on Canadian consulates in the U.S.A. under then-Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly jumped 13 percent in two years to more than $130 million, says a new audit. Federal agencies still hired American consultants to promote Canada's interests: "No U.S. mission had previously undergone an audit."
Taxpayers should not expect any repayment of billions in Canada Post loans for “several years,” says management. The post office required the second loan in a year to avoid insolvency, according to a cabinet order: "It gets us to break even by 2030."
In 1911, when Richard Bedford Bennett first arrived in Ottawa as the bachelor MP for Calgary West, his choice of accommodation was the Rideau Club. No finer meal could be had. Bennett loved food. “He believed if he put on weight he would present a more impressive appearance,” a friend recalled. In the end Bennett ate his way to diabetes and heart disease and the Rideau Club burned to the ground. But once both were in their glory.
In 1919 an Arctic promoter devised a scheme to convert Baffin Island to a vast reindeer ranch, bigger and more spectacular than anything in Texas or Argentina. More than 100,000 square kilometres of tundra were leased as ranchlands. The scheme collapsed by 1923 – the reindeer died – but the promoter, Manitoba-born explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson, proved the venture was at least nutritionally sound by sticking to an all-meat diet for an entire year. Stefansson lived to 87.
The Baffin ranches and other believe-it-or-not episodes are detailed in A Historical and Legal Study of Sovereignty in the Canadian North, an encyclopedic work rich in compelling anecdotes. It documents decades of schemes – some tragic, some comic – to plant the flag north of the 60th parallel and make the Arctic pay.
Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree yesterday declined comment when asked if China was a country of laws. “I’m not here as a foreign policy expert,” he told MPs when questioned over the scope of an RCMP cooperation agreement with Chinese police: "There is a need for Canada to expand its trading partners."
MPs yesterday were driven to anger after Veterans Affairs Minister Jill McKnight refused to describe the impact of spending cuts on programs. “I am absolutely furious right now,” said one member of the Commons veterans affairs committee as McKnight appeared confused and distracted: "My 14-year old would have understood my question by now."
