Liberal MP Michael Ma (Markham-Unionville, Ont.) yesterday questioned whether accounts of slave camps in China were “hearsay.” The remarks prompted an outcry at the Commons industry committee: "It is something I have never experienced before, that a Canadian politician would be defending China’s human rights." READ MORE
The finance department's senior director of forecasting yesterday boasted Canadians were enjoying “real gains in income.” MPs on the Commons finance committee questioned Brian Torgunrud's claim by pointing to household debt levels, poverty rates and homelessness.: "I have a statistic here." READ MORE
Use of bitcoin to finance political campaigning would be outlawed under a cabinet bill introduced yesterday in the Commons. Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon said cabinet was unaware of any suspicious use of cryptocurrency in campaigns but was “trying to be as responsive as we can.” READ MORE
Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday said Canada met its NATO obligation to spend $60 billion or 2 percent of gross domestic product on military preparedness. No budget document substantiates the $60 billion figure: "It’s focus." READ MORE
The Canada Revenue Agency will no longer mail T1 tax returns to paper filers at a $1.8 million annual saving. Traditionalists will have to download and print their own forms: "The Agency sent educational letters to them." READ MORE
The taxpayer-backed Canada Infrastructure Bank yesterday acknowledged it knowingly approved a $206 million loan to a Nova Scotia wind farm operated by friends of the Liberal Party. CEO Ehren Cory confirmed Liberals would not have to make payments until their venture proved profitable: "That’s why the Bank exists." READ MORE
It will take decades to begin searching for purported graves at an Indian Residential School site in Kamloops, B.C., the chief of the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation said last evening. “Holocaust investigations have continued for more than 75 years,” Chief Rosanne Casimir told senators. “Truth takes time.” READ MORE
We all have buttons you can push. In Canada the regional buttons are there to be pushed. But the problem is once you push the buttons what are you left with? Are you left with a configuration of people who can solve problems? Or are you left with simply a fragmentation of power and the people who’ve been angry and said, “We’re going to show you.” Our time in government had been very tumultuous. We were in a recession, the economy wasn’t growing. There were just a lot of things happening, and people were mad. And who do you take it out on? You take it out on the government.
