Taxpayer holdings in a Kenyan phone company have declined by two thirds despite millions spent on shares, records show. Lori Kerr, CEO of FinDev Canada that bought the shares, had assured MPs the agency was “an investor with impact.”
Almost all Canadian retailers conduct cash transactions and a majority still take cheques, the Bank of Canada said yesterday. The research followed Bank monitoring of “digital” currency like bitcoin: "Merchants will continue to accept methods of payment consumers choose to use."
Pandemic ventilators purchased from an ex-Liberal MP’s company but never used have been donated to Ukraine as war surplus, records show. Thousands of the Baylis Medical machines remain warehoused: "What are the known location of each ventilator?"
An ArriveCan supplier faces a summons to the bar of the House of Commons to name friends in government who provided inside tips on millions in contracts. Conservative MP Michael Barrett (Leeds-Grenville, Ont.) sponsored the summons, the first involving a federal contractor since 1913: "Who was in charge?"
Dozens of federal employees logged thousands of hours on the ArriveCan app despite the hiring of 32 contractors at a $59.5 million charge, new records show. The Canada Border Services Agency said staff logged 134,000 hours on the program it falsely claimed had saved lives: "It was value for money,"
Canadian shippers are pleading with cabinet to delay the May 13 launch of a digital Customs collection scheme already 42 percent over budget. “If it launches and launches poorly this will land on the government’s feet because they have been warned,” Conservative MP Kyle Seeback (Dufferin-Caledon, Ont.) told the Commons trade committee.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland provoked outrage Friday after asking senators to pass a budget bill they hadn’t read. Senate managers sought approval to spend another $8.9 billion without disclosing the legal text of the bill: "This is not the first time."
One of Canada’s longest running tax investigations has ended in a Brampton, Ont. court. The partner in a costly charity kickback scheme was jailed three years: "Most agree it is important that everyone pays their fair share of taxes."
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: “I consider running for office…”
Any history of racial politics of the Victorian era is alive with booby traps for reckless pundits. Were colonists hardy survivors or plain bigots? The historical record is riddled with trigger wires. Researchers are left with fragments of paper. No eyewitness is available for questioning.
Dr. Doris Jeanne MacKinnon, a Red Deer historian, takes the field with Metis Pioneers, a thoughtful account of interracial politics in an era where serious people ascribed characteristics to blood lines for humans and cattle alike. Society manufactured a descending scale of racial superiority. Indigenous women were always at the bottom.
Metis Pioneers chronicles compelling biographies of Victorian women on the Prairies. The reader is guided pleasantly along by MacKinnon’s meticulous research – until. Time freezes on page 125. The gentle lead-up makes it all the more arresting. MacKinnon is a scholar, not a headline writer for the Police Gazette.
Attorney General Arif Virani yesterday said the internet “frankly terrifies me.” Virani defended a federal censorship bill even Liberal MPs questioned as far-reaching: "We need to make the internet safe."
Addictions Minister Ya’ara Saks yesterday bristled over criticism over her posing in an official photograph by holding hands with a Holocaust denier, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Saks described herself as a proud Jewish Canadian: "I take offence to your comments."
Union executives yesterday asked MPs to rewrite a cabinet bill that delays enforcement of a ban on replacement workers until after the next election. Quick adoption of Bill C-58 was “the very least elected officials can do,” said Lana Payne, national president of Unifor: "Not 18 months from now, not a year from now."
The Ukrainian Canadian Congress played no role in a Commons tribute to a Nazi collaborator, the group yesterday told the House affairs committee. Cabinet had blamed the Congress for the incident involving ex-Waffen SS member Yaroslav Hunka: "We had no involvement and never spoke to the Speaker’s office."
Illegal marijuana dealers remain a danger to public safety six years after Parliament legalized cannabis, a Department of Health panel said yesterday. The statutory review of Bill C-45 An Act Respecting Cannabis said marijuana use among postsecondary students was also worrisome: "We are concerned with the criminal activity that persists."
