Blacklock's Reporter pauses today with gratitude and warm regards to all our friends and subscribers, sponsors, writers and staff as we enter our fourth great year on Parliament Hill. We couldn't do it without you. -- The Editor
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday: “The Liberals blame the Conservatives for only balancing the budget in election years…”
Parliament hangs by the thin cotton thread of government-issue gloves. Once a week the Commons speaker parades down the corridors in a tricorn hat accompanied by security guards marching in spotless white gloves. It is a display of ancient parliamentary democracy in form, if not in fact. The effect is mildly infuriating and mainly pathetic.
Professor David Schneiderman of the University of Toronto’s law faculty argues the Prime Minister’s Office has cut the brake line on Parliament and gone full throttle with executive control. “This is not meant to be a polemic directed at the Harper Conservative government,” he writes. It is what it is, and has been going on for some time.
Cabinet granted a contractor permission to hire non-union migrant workers though it violated the Employment Department’s own rules. Confidential memos disclosing the order were obtained through Access To Information: "They prefer to be an employer of non-unionized labour".
One of Canada’s largest companies is again being cited for firing sober workers under its random drug test policy. A labourer at a J.D. Irving Ltd. subsidiary was fired a week before Christmas though he’d tested negative for drugs and alcohol: "What I don't understand is the rush to judgment".
Recessions drive more Canadians into self-employment, according to two decades’ worth of tax data. Analysts at Statistics Canada said figures suggest the worse the economy, the likelier more people will resort to working for themselves: "You would expect the recent recession would have a bigger impact".
A Canada Revenue Agency error resulting in the loss of a multi-million dollar judgment is headed to Tax Court. A judge earlier ruled tax collectors failed to produce “precise evidence” they ever mailed a notice to an oil company on underpayment of royalties: "It wasn't written in pencil".
The Elections Commissioner is determining whether the post office breached federal law with a carefully worded mail-out justifying service cuts. All parties but Conservatives in the last Parliament pledged to halt cuts to home mail delivery: 'We expect them to play by the rules'.
Federal tax collectors see nearly a half-million errors a year on Social Insurance Numbers, according to newly-released data. The figures include tens of thousands of invalid numbers submitted after cabinet cancelled the issue of SIN cards: 'This could help'.
New security systems including “panic buttons” are being installed at a federal border crossing alarmed by last June's escape of American fugitives near Québec. Canada Border Services Agency did not comment: "These are killers".
A greying Canada will be calling for greater government assistance, says a new national study. The Institute for Research on Public Policy said Parliament’s stated aim of seeing pensioners avoid institutional care will require planning: "They don’t much care about whose mandate it is to do it".
The CBC is in court for the second time in two years on complaints it breached copyright law. The Crown corporation is accused of broadcasting famous images of a 2014 winter storm without permission: "There is frustration".
A federal judge has ordered a businessman be jailed for violating the Trademarks Act and ignoring a court order to pay thousands of dollars in penalties. The unusual ruling follows three years of litigation: 'It was brazen indifference'.
A national panel is devising Canada’s own version of the U.S. Energy Star program on efficiency. Executives commissioned Duke University to research an equivalent system for sub-Arctic industry: "We want to give ourselves the same benchmarks".
Canadian retailers in the first quarter of 2015 saw the largest three-month decline in employment of any sector in fifteen years, according to new Statistics Canada figures. The massive job losses coincided with layoffs and store closures at Future Shop, Sears Canada and other chains: "There is considerable restructuring going on".
