A federal manager who called racism a “Canadian reality” has been appointed chair of the Canadian Museum of Immigration. Daniel Quan-Watson’s appointment followed complaints from Museum curators of a “shift in Canadian attitudes towards immigration.”
A simple but serious error affecting the outcome of an election should count as an irregularity under the Canada Elections Act, the Supreme Court of Canada wrote in an explanation Friday of its landmark decision to void the outcome in a lone Québec constituency. Incumbent Bloc Québécois MP Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné (Terrebonne, Que.) lost the riding but set the legal precedent: "I think this is an issue that goes beyond party politics."
Poet W.N. Branson writes: The old Company wound down and out of the ashes, rises the Phoenix. A people put on clearance, a pelt for a skin, the Phoenix arises anew…”
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.”
Confidential 1995 cabinet records declassified yesterday indicate then-Prime Minister Jean Chretien threatened the President of France not to act if Québec voted for independence. France would “find itself isolated in the United Nations,” Chretien said.
A cabinet bill to penalize taxpayers slow to comply with Canada Revenue Agency demands for documents is needlessly harsh and likely unconstitutional, tax experts have told the Commons finance committee. One group, Tax Executives Institute Inc. of Toronto, said under Bill C-31 a single parent in a $750 tax dispute with auditors could be charged $1,500 in penalties: 'It is grossly disproportionate.'
Benefits for seniors and children will cost more than $140 billion annually by 2030, the equivalent of a quarter of the current federal budget, data show. The Budget Office yesterday calculated payouts of children’s benefits grew 16 percent in the past three years: "This is all tied to debt growth."
A federal agency responsible for airport security proposes to introduce face and fingerprint scanners for passengers by 2031, according to a report tabled in Parliament. The Canadian Air Transport Security Authority yesterday did not comment: "The Authority will implement biometric deployments at pre-board screening to improve efficiency."
A Whitehorse judge in a rare order has jailed two businessmen in a civil dispute with municipal authorities. Operators of a local trucking company never said they were sorry for defying an order to stop operating in a City quarry and ignoring a $7,500 fine, said the Yukon Supreme Court: "Once our laws are flouted and orders of our Court are treated with contempt, the whole fabric of our freedom is destroyed."
Security at the Canada Border Services Agency is so haphazard a team of auditors posing as passersby was able to wander through high-risk facilities pulling confidential documents out of filing cabinets and accessing employees’ passport numbers, says an internal report. It was the second failed security audit at the Agency in two years: "Failure to adequately protect and ensure physical security can result in serious consequences."
Conservatives have identified $150 billion in savings in the federal budget, Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre said yesterday. MPs were “scouring budget information” ahead of Monday’s resumption of Parliament following a 13-week summer recess, he said: "Our number one priority when we get back to the House, number one priority, is to save you money."
Newly-disclosed records show cabinet in secret session in 1992 feared consequences of rising immigration quotas. “Canadians perceived the immigration system to be out of control,” then-Immigration Minister Bernard Valcourt told cabinet: "The refugee system was being abused and the number of failed claimants who could not be removed was growing at the rate of 1,000 per month."
Many homebuyers tell federal focus groups they would not buy prefabricated houses as promoted by Prime Minister Mark Carney. A Privy Council report said that, while buyers acknowledged factory-built homes were less expensive, many preferred traditional construction: "Several were of the impression that traditional homes typically had better plumbing and electricity systems."
Hotelkeepers say they could help ease the housing crisis with a change in federal mortgage insurance rules. Hotels Canada, the industry lobby, petitioned MPs to extend insurance to developers of mixed use buildings: "This policy could create 21,000 new rental units."
Opposition MPs seek parliamentary hearings into an attempt by the Department of National Defence to conceal a 2023 training session with members of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. “Canadians deserve answers,” Conservative MP James Bezan (Selkirk-Interlake, Man.), vice-chair of the committee, said yesterday.
