Cabinet could spend even more without risking national insolvency, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland yesterday told reporters. Her remarks followed a Budget Office warning that Freeland missed this year’s deficit target by 17 percent: “We could be spending even more.”
Emails by a manager of the $59.5 million ArriveCan program have vanished, the Commons government operations committee learned yesterday. MPs sought thousands of emails and texts by Minh Doan, former chief information officer for the Canada Border Services Agency: “Something is rotten.”
The Senate is “looking at bicycles” to lower its carbon footprint, the chair of the committee on internal economy Senator Lucie Moncion (Ont.) said yesterday. Senators log five million kilometres a year in air travel, by official estimate: “We are looking at bicycles, you know.”
More than a tenth of federal prisoners are diagnosed with “serious mental illness,” says the Correctional Service of Canada. The agency in a report to Parliament said it now spends more than $70 million a year on mental health programs in penitentiaries: “12% meet the criteria.”
Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay, 78, yesterday said he will seek a 12th term in Parliament. “I am prepared,” MacAulay told reporters: “You intend to run?”
Catherine Tait, $497,000-a year CEO of the CBC, yesterday confirmed she billed taxpayers $1,000 a night to enjoy a five star hotel in Paris in July. Tait said taxpayers would have been concerned if she didn’t attend the Paris Olympics: “Was this during a personal vacation?”
Members of the Commons yesterday expressed shock after a lone Liberal MP single handedly vetoed a motion to appoint a special committee on Canada-India relations. The dissenter, MP Kevin Lamoureux (Winnipeg North), parliamentary secretary to the Government House Leader, did not comment: “It may not look good on Justin Trudeau.”
Procurement Ombudsman Alexander Jeglic yesterday petitioned Parliament to adopt “common sense” reforms in federal contracting. Jeglic earlier warned MPs that federal insiders were “using the system.”
Veterans Affairs Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor yesterday had no comment over newly-disclosed figures showing her department has hired so many employees it now has the equivalent of one staffer for every 39 veterans it serves. Most Canadian veterans have no contact with the department, data show: “Half of non-clients are not familiar with the programs.”
Barely one percent of road vehicles in Canada are battery-powered electrics, Statistics Canada said yesterday. New data were released as members of the Commons trade committee questioned the feasibility of cabinet’s mandate to abolish new sales of gasoline and diesel powered cars by 2035: “Isn’t it better to remove those mandates?”
Immigration Minister Marc Miller is refusing to release a federal citizenship booklet that’s been under revision by his department since 2016. Parliamentarians complained Miller’s office ignored multiple requests to see the guide that promised “historically accurate” accounts of Indigenous history with input from the LGBTQ community: “References generally in the guide are ones that are outdated.”
Western free trade farm groups are petitioning the Senate to reject a Bloc Québécois bill on dairy quotas. Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet has warned the bill must be signed into law by 11:59 pm Eastern on October 29 or he will “bring down the government.”
The Commons public safety committee by unanimous vote has agreed to investigate RCMP murder-for-hire allegations against the Government of India. “A criminal is a criminal and a Canadian is a Canadian,” said Conservative MP Jasraj Singh Hallan (Calgary Forest Lawn): ‘This is something the Sikh community has been talking about for more than 40 years.’
Canada is a net exporter of fentanyl, says the Department of Foreign affairs. Canada “is now a source and transit country for fentanyl to some markets,” said a department briefing note: “Domestic production is likely exceeding domestic demand.”
Newly-declassified records show then-External Affairs Minister Joe Clark personally cancelled a showing of the film The Last Emperor at the 1989 grand opening of a new Canadian Museum of Civilization. “Too sensitive,” said Clark, noting the film was to be shown only days after the Tiananmen Square massacre: “The Prime Minister noted the shock that most Canadians had experienced.”
