Weak federal legislation has eviscerated middle-class copyright owners, the Commons heritage committee was told yesterday. Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly promised reforms to “ensure that our artists are paid fairly for their work”, but did not elaborate: "I find this testimony very upsetting."
Cabinet has no interest in compelling grant applicants to agree with government policy, Social Development Minister Jean-Yves Duclos yesterday told the Commons human resources committee. Records show 1,559 applicants for Canada Summer Jobs grants were rejected for failing to sign a federal oath: "It's very important."
The Department of Northern Affairs forecasts spending of $98.7 million this year on an Arctic grocers’ subsidy dubbed a failure by MPs. Reforms of the Nutrition North program have been promised since 2016: "This is a program that desperately needs to be fixed."
Federal departments and agencies since 2016 have spent $1.76 million on fake news content ghostwritten and edited by government employees, say newly-released accounts. Staff distributed unsigned stories free of charge to newsrooms: ‘They shed crocodile tears for print media and then do things like this.’
Health Canada paid $42,990 distributing climate change questionnaires to family doctors on the perils of extreme heat, according to records. Physicians said the research was irrelevant. Canada’s deadliest heat wave occurred in 1936: "It's a very rare problem."
The Senate has given Second Reading to a bill mandating greater disclosure by the Canada Revenue Agency. Senators described the Agency as ineffectual and untrustworthy: "There is something wrong at the Agency."
Finance Minister Bill Morneau yesterday said cabinet has fully costed its decision to nationalize the Trans Mountain pipeline, but would not disclose figures when asked 12 times by members of the Senate national finance committee. “I don’t have the exact number in my head,” said Morneau.
The chair of the Senate transport and communications committee yesterday accused the CBC of over-reaching its Broadcasting Act mandate as a de facto internet newspaper. The remarks came as cabinet launched a review of the 1991 Act: "I don't know how you guys handle that."
Environment Minister Catherine McKenna yesterday said cabinet is still calculating the cost of oil and gas company subsidies one year after the Auditor General cited officials for concealing records. “Difficult things are difficult,” McKenna told the Commons environment committee.
A former Bank of Nova Scotia employee in a Federal Court lawsuit alleges he was fired for legally growing cannabis at home. The Federal Court of Appeal earlier ordered the Canadian Human Rights Commission to review a similar complaint over Bank policy: "The government is rushing to get cannabis legalization in place without wanting to talk about the details."
Newspaper publishers yesterday blamed federal advertising policy in part for the loss of 16,500 journalism jobs in the last decade. Federal agencies tripled their spending on Facebook ads last year even as Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly lamented the state of local media: "We’ve lost over 20 percent of the newspapers in Saskatchewan over the past two years."
Canada Post secretly commissioned six separate studies and reports on postal banking, according to an Inquiry Of Ministry tabled in the Commons. The research was conducted over a five-year period: "The six reports looked at whether or not postal banking had potential."
The Canada Border Services Agency searches thousands of iPhones, laptops and other electronic devices annually, say Access To Information records. A disproportionate number of inspections occur in British Columbia. The Agency did not explain why: "These are personal things."
Small business start-ups create more than a quarter-million jobs a year but suffer a high attrition rate, says new Department of Industry research. Data show 30 percent of new retailers and 33 percent of restaurants fold within three years: "If a business starts small, its potential for future growth is very limited."
Cabinet will again delay enactment of a new food safety law until 2019, nearly seven years after Parliament passed the bill. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency did not account for the unusual delay: 'It's highly complex, to say the least.'
