The military is reviewing minimum “medical requirements” for new recruits in a bid to attract more volunteers, records show. Defence Minister Bill Blair earlier told reporters he’d take other measures like cutting minimum enlistment to as little as 18 months: "We will undertake a wide array of new and innovative measures."
Cabinet’s "two billion trees" program was overrated from the start and will have no climate impact for 50 to 100 years, says the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society. The program was launched in the Liberal Party’s 2019 election platform: "This program is overrated as a means to fight climate change."
Legal marijuana is linked to accidental poisoning of small children, says the Department of Health. Data show “significant associations” between Parliament’s repeal of a criminal ban on cannabis and emergency room visits by children, it said: 'It's primarily children younger than 5.'
Blacklock's pauses for the August bank holiday with warmest regards to subscribers. We wish you a safe, happy holiday. We're back tomorrow -- The Editor.
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: “You all walk red-handed waiting to get caught by the law, by my lines. None of you can hide. You who had let your voters down…”
“All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy,” said Al Smith, cigar-chomping governor of New York. But Smith liked people. Every politician loves democracy. It’s just people that some of them can’t stand.
In 1988 Conservative MP Patrick Boyer (Etobicoke-Lakeshore, Ont.) introduced Bill C-311 the Canada Referendum & Plebiscite Act that proposed a legal framework for referenda. It was “awkward,” Boyer writes in Forcing Choice. “A number of MPs told me referendums were a bad idea because members of the public are too ignorant to vote intelligently on complex issues, so it would be a danger for public affairs to start down this ill-conceived path.”
Boyer’s bill lapsed in the Commons though he reintroduced it six times. “Not every issue should be litigated in court or made the subject of a royal commission,” writes Boyer. “Not every person suited to a task needs appointment to a public body or a consultant’s contract.”
Nearly 4,000 hotel rooms for illegal immigrants and refugee claimants are being billed to taxpayers monthly, says the Department of Immigration. Cabinet has acknowledged a more “permanent, sustainable” solution is required: "The department’s hotel footprint consists of approximately 3,810 rooms in 29 hotels."
Parks Canada fire preparedness in Jasper, Alta. was a model for the nation, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault yesterday told reporters. Guilbeault’s office refused to say how many thousands of hectares of dead pine were left standing in Jasper National Park as a known fire risk: "All of these things were done."
Failing to pay the GST on all-cash deals is immoral, says a Nova Scotia judge. The courthouse comment follows in-house Canada Revenue Agency research showing many taxpayers consider cheating commonplace: "A dollar you don’t pay is a dollar that someone else has to pay or that has to be borrowed."
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."
