Canadian contractors have filed more than a dozen complaints over the new “Buy Canadian” policy, says Parliament’s Procurement Ombudsman. “Suppliers are looking for clear explanations,” Alexander Jeglic told MPs: "We are hearing questions about whether foreign-owned multinationals operating in Canada should receive the same preferences as Canadian small and medium-sized businesses." READ MORE
The Coast Guard confirms it reclassified all 7,378 of its employees including six-figure executives as defenders of the nation to help cabinet meet NATO spending targets. They had been under supervision of the fisheries department until 2025: "A senator asked for a breakdown on the total number of employees affected by the transfer of the Canadian Coast Guard to the Department of National Defence." READ MORE
Poet W.N. Branson writes: "West of madness and East of Justice, in the traditional territories of our ancestors, a performative ritual calls the Spirits..." READ MORE
Fighting Words is a document of war, intriguing because so many of us know only peace. We learn the hanging of 1837 rebels was bungled so badly one prisoner was nearly decapitated, that rifles fired by Canadian troops in the Boer War sounded “like lightning humming birds," zzz-zzz-zzz, that Hitler on weekends wore a tweed coat one size too small. These are anecdotes of Canadian war reporting from the age of Vikings to al-Qaeda. “People seem to have a pathological need for conflict,” writes author Mark Bourrie. “They also have a very strong urge to tell stories about it.” Bourrie recounts the most poignant reporting of anonymous diarists and acclaimed war correspondents like Stewart Lyon, who pioneered Canadian Press coverage of WWI, Dieppe correspondent and future Edmonton Journal publisher Ross Munro, and Gregory Clark, who filed on deadline from liberated Paris for the Toronto Star in 1944 though his own son was killed in action days before. READ MORE
Health Minister Marjorie Michel yesterday said cabinet is still attempting to “sharpen” its multi-billion dollar dental program amid cost overruns and questionable claims. Critics faulted the health department for failing to determine whether claimants were gaming the Canada Dental Care Plan at taxpayers’ expense: "As you know with new programs, we are still looking to sharpen it." READ MORE
Grocery prices will rise by up to $1,000 next year for a typical Canadian household if high diesel costs persist, a leading food economist yesterday told the Commons human resources committee. “We have a trucking economy,” said Sylvain Charlebois, senior director of Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab. READ MORE
A 9/11 agency mandated by Parliament to track suspicious cash transactions between terrorists and organized crime yesterday was faulted by auditors as so lackadaisical it compromised police investigations. Sarah Paquet, the $292,000-a year CEO, resigned last May 19 while the audit was underway: "This is a very sobering report." READ MORE
My mother was a brilliant, beautiful woman, a woman with a passion for great literature, high fashion and duplicate bridge. She was a woman who disliked sentimentality of any kind, so I hope somewhere she’ll forgive me if I say I’m still haunted by the memory of the day I took her for that fateful neurocognitive exam, the day the specialist delivered the bleak diagnosis: Alzheimer’s. I failed my mother when she needed me most.
