The Royal Canadian Mint will not divulge costs after failing to find a U.S. buyer for electronic currency software it once lauded as “the future of money”. The so-called MintChip program was cited for a ten-fold increase in research budgets totaling $34 million: "A great name, mint cookie".
The National Energy Board spent nearly $300,000 on a “national engagement tour” that didn’t include any public meetings. The initiative followed 2012 amendments to the National Energy Board Act limiting public testimony at licensing hearings: "We need to be far more attentive".
The Department of Social Development admits little progress in a red-tape reduction measure passed by Parliament last year. The reform was calculated to save $47 million a year by simplifying the reporting of a taxpayer’s death to numerous federal agencies: "Its implementation will take place incrementally".
Federal regulators are reviewing the state of local TV news following dire financial reports pointing to station closures. The CRTC said its “open to any other proposal” after cancelling $100 million-a year grants to smaller stations: "It's not working".
A “promising” federal anti-crime program for Canadian youth did not in fact reduce crime, new data show. The Department of Public Safety admitted “mixed findings” in a venture that saw delinquents taken camping and zip-lining at a cost of more than $7,000 for each participant: 'It's an unconfirmed crime prevention model'.
In a sign of a slowing economy, a federal agency proposes a new user fee on marine shippers to cover a growing deficit. The Pacific Pilotage Authority said its shortfall is due in part to a downturn in coal and forestry: "We burnt up almost all our surplus".
A federal manager who claimed post-traumatic stress disorder from working in the Department of Human Resources has lost a claim for $100,000 in damages. The Federal Court of Appeal upheld a lower ruling that the woman’s tears were “short of proof” of mental suffering: "She became very stressed".
Indigenous rights do not include driving without insurance or auto registration, a Court has ruled. The judgment came in a lawsuit by a member of Ontario’s Mohawks of Grand River fined $6,170 for motoring outside the Highway Traffic Act: 'It is a fool's errand'.
The Supreme Court tomorrow hears a landmark challenge on fracking. An Alberta rancher claimed Encana Corp. poisoned her well with toxic groundwater chemicals, then refused to answer complaints unless she stopped talking to reporters: "It is incredibly problematic".
The defence department is assigning up to 40 employees to monitor social media in a bid to “identify trends” deemed a threat to national security. The program follows expansion of Facebook creeping by domestic media monitors in the Department of Public Works: "Insidious".
The public works department is refusing comment on delays in its multi-billion-dollar renovations to Parliament Hill. Completion of one project ran six months late, and contractors have been told all scaffolding and other work must be off the grounds for 2017 celebrations of Canada’s 150th birthday: 'It's just a few weeks'.
Chemical flame retardants cited for possible health risks are more commonly used in Canada than the U.S. or Mexico, says new research. The Commission for Environmental Cooperation also warned of limited data on chemical use in imported products: 'Should we be using them in the first place?'
What happens when you put a group of artists and historians in a room and ask them to write about science? The result is Sustaining The West, a fresh and eclectic collection of essays on the environment. “If we are going to be honest about the environmental crises we face, the problems before us lie with people,” note editors Liza Piper and Lisa Szabo-Jones of the University of Alberta.
The people behind Sustaining The West are poets and naturalists, authors and filmmakers. “The role of humans in twenty-first century environmental change is clear,” editors write. “Framed as such, who better to grapple with the cultural issues at the core of our environmental crises than artists, writers and scholars in the humanities?”
Cabinet points to climate change as one of the nation’s foremost worries, though the impact is uneven. If farm production is at historic levels, Regina naturalist Trevor Harriot notes 80 percent of prairie grasslands have been ploughed up as cropland – a loss rate four times greater than the vanishing Amazonian rainforest: “What this means, of course, is that native biodiversity of the prairies is in rapid retreat.”
Another bill to sanction Vegas-style sports betting appears dead on arrival in Parliament. The measure earlier lapsed in the Senate on protests from the Toronto Blue Jays. One Liberal senator said the new bill preys on problem gamblers: 'It makes no sense whatsoever'.
In an estate settlement legal analysts describe as unusual, a frugal hermit who spent his life in a tumble-down Prairie cabin without indoor plumbing left $2 million at his death. Details of the Dickensian case emerged in Court of Queen’s Bench documents: "It's kind of sad".
