Prime Minister Mark Carney has yet to comment on federal data showing Canada fell into recession for the first time since the pandemic. Figures were confirmed Friday, one day after Carney mistakenly told New York business leaders that Canada would “have the second-fastest growth in the G7 this year.” READ MORE
Attorney General Sean Fraser says as a former Catholic schoolboy he would never enact legislation restricting freedom of religion. Fraser spoke in defence of his Bill C-9, opposed by Catholic Bishops, that would permit prosecution of hate speech "based on a belief in a religious text" in specific circumstances: "I read Scripture in church every week." READ MORE
Labour inspectors must ensure no illegal immigrants are working on federal public works, says Conservative MP Kyle Seeback (Dufferin-Caledon, Ont.). Cabinet has admitted it does not know how many, if any, of an estimated 500,000 illegal immigrants in Canada are drawing wages in subsidized construction: "Can the Minister cite one investigation?" READ MORE
Federal figures confirm cabinet granted Beijing the equivalent of half the battery electric car market in Canada through 2031. The Minister of Industry had downplayed the China concession as “a small quota.” READ MORE
Civilian trades at Department of National Defence shipyards have lost a key labour ruling. Federal judges ordered a new hearing into whether unions' expression of support for picket lines during a 2023 dispute breached an Act of Parliament: "Strikes and lockouts pose challenges." READ MORE
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: "Bovine Respiratory Disease; the most common illness of beef cattle in the world. Calves lose appetite; develop fever; experience breathing difficulties..." READ MORE
Subsidized media today are so self-pitying it is no surprise they missed the biggest scoop of their lives, the death of subsidized media. Spy the columns and TV punditry and you encounter the same excuses. It was Russian bots or internet poaching of Chevrolet dealer ads or misinformation or Instagram micro-shocks or inflation. It was always someone else’s fault. Tara Henley, podcaster and former CBC producer, gets the answers. “If media want to restore public trust, we have to examine our own actions,” she writes. “Unpacking our role is essential for making sense of the crisis in media.” “Most people do not distrust the media for vague, rote reasons but instead for achingly specific ones,” writes Henley. “Indeed, they frequently cite the specific wording in the specific stories that they believe falls short.” Canadians do not expect infallibility. They expect hard work and honesty. It is not too much to ask. The Trust Spiral notes the descent of media under withering scrutiny blew wide open in the pandemic, an "overheated moment." READ MORE
On February 15, 1996 then-Prime Minister Jean Chretien attended a Flag Day ceremony at a park in Gatineau, Que. Dozens of us had arranged to demonstrate. It was a peculiar moment, seeing and hearing the Prime Minister lose control and behaving in an erratic manner. It was a powerful image. Here was the head of government attacking a protestor. There was symbolism here that went beyond the event itself.
