Taxpayers facing new capital gains costs hope to block Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s proposal before it becomes law, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business said yesterday. The remarks followed a Budget Office estimate the measure will cost $17.4 billion: “We see the potential for many losers because of this.”
Tobacco manufacturers would pay to finance enforcement of the Tobacco And Vaping Products Act under a health department proposal detailed yesterday. Enforcement currently budgeted at $66.2 million a year is charged to taxpayers: “A significant number of people in Canada are still smoking.”
Cabinet has abruptly scrubbed dozens of Government of Canada webpages detailing more than $24 billion in payments to Covid contractors. The publicly-accessible database was deleted only weeks after Treasury Board President Anita Anand promised to “make sure we have transparency in government contracting.”
Media and Opposition MPs are manipulating voters into believing the federal government is scandal-ridden, Liberal MP Vance Badawey (Niagara Centre, Ont.) said yesterday. Badawey made the remarks at a Commons industry committee hearing into a scandal: “It is just once again a narrative they continually try to gain and of course utilize the media to get out there and try to manipulate public opinion.”
Canada has quadruple the number of shipwrecks and abandoned boats originally estimated, says the Coast Guard. Cabinet proposed a special tax on all boats from cabin cruisers to tugs to help pay the cost of clean-up: “Taxpayers can’t fund every single one of these,”
A federal farm loan program dating from 1945 is now irrelevant, say auditors at the Department of Agriculture. Loan guarantees once touted as crucial have not kept up with rising costs and land values, said a report: “The program is no longer relevant.”
Prisoners have no right to keep guitars behind bars, a federal judge has ruled. The decision came in the case of a convicted strangler ordered to surrender his electric guitar with removable steel strings: “I understand that playing music is therapeutic.”
Undocumented foreigners in Canada could number as many as a half million, according to estimates by Immigration Minister Marc Miller’s department. The figures do not include lawfully landed immigrants or permit-holding students and migrant workers: “We have made a conscious decision to be an open country.”
Cabinet billed taxpayers $600,000 to subsidize 10 days’ worth of stand-up comedy in Montréal, accounts show. Federal managers had refused to disclose the cost when first contacted by Blacklock’s July 10: “I am proud.”
Parks Canada managers four years ago said fire risks at Jasper National Park were a “big concern.” The agency yesterday would not explain why it failed to take all measures needed to save the Town of Jasper from a July 24 wildfire that destroyed 358 buildings: “What is the fire emergency plan?”
Fewer Canadians say they’d buy an electric car despite billions in federal aid for the industry, says in-house research by the Department of Natural Resources. Drivers complained electrics are still too costly and unreliable in winter: “I would only buy or lease a zero emission vehicle if the price were about the same as an equivalent gas or diesel powered vehicle.”
Canadians are unsure of continued aid for Ukraine, says in-house Privy Council research. Federal focus groups said they no longer closely followed news from Ukraine and questioned the point of billions in aid: ‘There is declining interest.’
Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault yesterday said it was “simply not true” that Parks Canada mismanaged fire preparedness at Jasper, Alta. However documents show the agency from 2015 halved the number of controlled burns needed to create firebreaks at Jasper and other parks: “There is still much work to do.”
Privy Council Office managers used the n-word on the job and subjected Black employees to “tokenism” and “harassment,” says an Access To Information document disclosed yesterday by union executives. Crude bigotry was detailed in staff interviews after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised reforms amid Black Lives Matter protests: “We are just checking off the boxes.”
A hundred percent of people questioned in Privy Council focus group research say cabinet is “headed in the wrong direction” on immigration, records show. Researchers acknowledged universal opposition to record-high immigration levels: “All believed it was headed in the wrong direction.”
