There are no traitors in Parliament, Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc yesterday testified at the Commission on Foreign Interference. LeBlanc said while some legislators “may have lacked judgment” none have betrayed Canada: "It is a gross partisan exaggeration."
The Privy Council is concealing hourly rates charged by lawyers at the 2022 Freedom Convoy inquiry, Access To Information records show. Law firms pocketed six figure payments: "Agreements were governed by a maximum number of hours, not a maximum dollar amount."
Young Canadians have never heard of the Tyco Magic-8 Ball, says a federal report. The novelty paperweight rated one of the greatest toys of all time drew a blank from respondents in Department of Industry focus groups: "Cheesy."
Defence Minister Bill Blair says he cannot explain why his office waited nearly two months to approve a security warrant placing Liberal Party organizers under surveillance over suspicious contacts with members of the Chinese Communist Party. “I agree I was at all times responsible,” Blair testified at the Commission on Foreign Interference: "Was this a politically sensitive warrant?"
About 100 Canadians are being held in Chinese prisons, says the Department of Foreign Affairs. The latest figures follow an appeal from the Chinese Embassy that Canadian visitors should not fear arbitrary arrest: "If you walk on the Chinese streets, it’s quite safe."
Hiring of Black, Indigenous and LGBTQ students is a “national priority” under next year’s Canada Summer Jobs program, says the Department of Employment. Program managers said preference will also be given to “jobs that support climate change mitigation.”
Animal rights protesters use terror tactics, says a member of the Senate agriculture committee. Senator David Richards (N.B.) told a hearing that protesters seek to “destroy the very industry they are protesting” at livestock and poultry barns: "It’s a terror tactic."
Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault on Saturday approved a pre-election cut in Employment Insurance Premiums. Boissonnault has called Employment Insurance the nation’s most important income support program: "We're in a good position."
We are grateful this holiday to friends and subscribers as Blacklock's embarks on a 13th great year of independent, all-original Canadian journalism. On behalf of our contributors, please accept our thanks. We're back tomorrow -- The Editor.
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: “Budget cuts send duty travel to the chopping board…”
The film classic It’s A Wonderful Life recounts the story of George Bailey, a frustrated everyman trapped in a small town with unfulfilled dreams of travel and adventure. But what if George left Bedford Falls? He’d have become Conrad Kain. It is a story too poignant for filmgoers. Instead it is a compelling title from University of Alberta Press.
Kain is renowned among Canadian mountaineers as a pioneering guide so accomplished they named a British Columbia peak for him, Mount Conrad. He escaped grinding poverty as a miner’s son in rural Austria and travelled the world from Honolulu to Ulaanbaatar.
“As far back as he could remember his ‘chief ambition was to travel,’” notes Letters From A Wandering Guide. “As a boy, despite the constraints of unremitting poverty, he never missed an opportunity to speak with tourists who passed through the alpine valleys near his home. ‘I would ask a great many questions,’ Kain wrote. ‘Where he came from, where intended going, what the place was like where he stopped last.’”
Opposition MPs yesterday pressed Defence Minister Bill Blair to explain why his office waited 54 days to approve a warrant targeting Liberal Party contacts with Toronto’s Chinese Consulate. “The truth will be revealed,” Conservative MP James Bezan (Selkirk-Interlake, Man.) told the Commons defence committee: "A warrant sat around your office."
A Liberal MP yesterday disrupted a hearing of the Commons public accounts committee with a profane rant against Conservative members. “F—k right off,” said MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith (Beaches-East York, Ont.): "Come on. Come on. Come on."
The carbon tax has an “overall negative economic impact” including a net cost to households, the Budget Office said yesterday. Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault disputed the findings: "That’s not what this report says."
The Senate last evening on a voice vote passed cabinet’s pharmacare bill into law. Advocates called it short of its promise but a necessary first step to public prescription drug insurance: "This is not universality. But it is the first step towards universality."
