Indigenous contracting is rife with unscrupulous practices by “token Indians,” a director of the Assembly of First Nations yesterday told MPs. The Commons governments operations committee is investigating incidents of fake claims to take advantage of an Indigenous set-aside in procurement: "This is huge."
Canada’s largest theatre chain is challenging a record $38,978,000 penalty imposed by federal anti-trust lawyers. Cineplex Corporation denied claims it breached the Competition Act by charging online customers a $1.50 booking fee: "We are shocked."
In-house Privy Council researchers have polled Canadians’ willingness to adopt a vegetarian diet for the sake of climate change. Only seven percent of people surveyed identified themselves as vegetarian or vegan: "How frequently or infrequently have you made efforts to eat a more plant-based diet?"
Taxpayers must “rally around” Northvolt, the subsidized Swedish electric auto battery maker, Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne said yesterday. Northvolt confirmed sweeping job cuts at its Swedish operations: "We have to rally around them and help them."
Green technology supply chains are tainted by slave labour, the Commons trade committee was told yesterday. Chinese concentration camp inmates are forced to mine lithium and manufacture solar panels, one witness testified: "Uyghurs are being used as a source of slave labour."
Green Party leader Elizabeth May (Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.) yesterday told the Commons that climate change is driving farmers to suicide. May gave no source for the claim: "People living on farms are experiencing suicide because it is an extremely difficult life right now."
Telecom service to thousands of Canadians has been disrupted by copper theft, says Telus Corporation. The company in a petition to MPs appealed for tougher penalties under the Criminal Code: "Most of these crimes result in minor charges."
The Canada Revenue Agency’s Taxpayer Bill Of Rights is not a bill and does not convey any rights, says a federal judge. The ruling came in the case of a tax filer who appealed reassessments dating back 24 years: "It would probably be better if the document were given a different name."
Ex-Conservative leader Erin O’Toole in a sworn statement says "lovely" and “flirtatious” young Chinese women approached his campaign in incidents “he believes may have constituted foreign interference.” It followed the targeting of a former Conservative MP by a friendly female employee of the state-run Xinhua News Agency: "Mr. O’Toole described them as ‘lovely.'"
The federal Liberal Party’s national director testified he did “not know” if Chinese Communist Party agents helped elect a Liberal MP in 2019. Azam Ishmael’s comments came under rapid-fire questioning at the Commission on Foreign Interference: "I don't know. I don't know. I don't know."
MPs by unanimous vote have ordered committee hearings into the Jasper, Alta. fire. Cabinet has blamed climate change though records show Parks Canada managers had a “big concern” regarding forest management: "I saw with my own eyes the destruction."
The Canada Border Services Agency will bill taxpayers the equivalent of more than $16 million a year to temporarily hold deportees in jails, figures show. Costs include “compassionate detention conditions” like daily access to doctors, nurses and psychologists: "They have received due process upon due process."
One of the nation’s largest telecom companies is petitioning MPs for the same newsroom subsidies paid to newspapers. Rogers Communications Inc. said excluding TV and radio employees was unfair: "Who is to say that print is more important?"
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: “Canadians throw out 35 million tonnes of food each year. Much of it edible…”
Lawyers are unloved and jokes are legion: how does a lawyer sleep? First he lies on one side, then he lies on the other. “In the public’s mind lawyers are not only adept at the dubious arts of manipulation and double dealing, but also moral hypocrites because they defend these practices in the brazen name of ‘professional ethics,’” write editors of In Search Of The Ethical Lawyer. “Along with used car dealers and telemarketers, lawyers are considered to be the least trustworthy and least respected of all professions.”
Yet there is no criticism of barristers that has not been made by barristers themselves. They are capable of raw self-analysis that’s rarely practiced by journalists, morticians, accountants or any other trade you can think of. It speaks to plain integrity and a passion for the profession. Imagine a volume In Search Of The Ethical Engineer written by engineers.
