The Mounties have written off millions’ worth of vehicles as scrap metal, new records show. It follows cabinet’s 2021 suspension of police vehicle auctions as a public safety measure: "The RCMP has the largest law enforcement land fleet in North America." READ MORE
Cabinet yesterday would not release a statutory cost-benefit report detailing direct costs of a proposed cap on oil and gas emissions. “You owe it to Canadians,” Conservative MP Shannon Stubbs (Lakeland, Alta.) told the Commons natural resources committee: "If Canada did not have contributions from oil and gas right now, Canada would be in a recession." READ MORE
MPs yesterday discovered bonuses and severance pay have not been ruled out for managers of a disgraced federal agency disbanded over conflicts of interest. Ziyad Rahme, chief operating officer of Sustainable Development Technology Canada, would not answer the Commons public accounts committee though he was asked seven times: "It's a yes or no question." READ MORE
A $2.14 billion Telesat “Lightspeed” satellite loan announced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on a promise of universal high speed internet does not require that any specific number of households actually get connected, records show. Trudeau had called it a taxpayers’ investment in “really cool stuff.” READ MORE
It is “astonishing” to question if politics played any role in forest management prior to a disastrous fire in Jasper National Park, Liberal MP Adam van Koeverden (Milton, Ont.) said yesterday. Van Koeverden, parliamentary secretary for the environment, made no mention of Access To Information memos showing Parks Canada feared “political perception” in managing fire risks. READ MORE
Immigration Minister Marc Miller’s department in an internal report admits it took no steps to determine if foreign workers took Canadian jobs or kept wages low. “Impacts are not monitored,” said the report: "The program is less aligned with commitments to consider Canadian workers first." READ MORE
Cabinet must be forthright in telling Canadians climate programs will be painful, says David Dodge, 81, former governor of the Bank of Canada. “We are all going to pay for it one way or another,” Dodge testified at the Senate energy committee: "I'll call it pain." READ MORE
Father was a man of few words. He’d left school in Ontario to take up Saskatchewan land with his brothers, then left to fight at Vimy and Passchendaele. He suffered afterwards from the effects of gas attacks in the trenches. I remember a hot summer day, driving in the 1935 Ford near our place when Father pointed to a relief work gang scrubbing out brush in the ditches: “Do you want to do that or do you want to go to school?” he asked. At 17 I took the train from Melville to Ottawa to study journalism at Carleton College. It was my first time on a train. I sat up the whole way.
