A federal judge has overturned a quarter billion-dollar decision by then-Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. The Federal Court faulted Wilkinson for “inexplicable” conduct in the 2021 case: 'It was a matter of common sense.'
Corporate landlords have “made rent more expensive,” says a cabinet report to MPs. However Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland stopped short of proposing repeal of preferential tax treatment for real estate investment trusts in her next budget due April 16: "Corporate investors own a significant share of Canada’s rental units."
A federal program offering free snowmobiles to Arctic residents cost $32 million last year, new records show. The cost was four times the $8 million budgeted in 2022: "Snowmobiles can, yes, be available."
Federal auditors are investigating millions in payments through a Crown bank, Export Development Canada, to manage a pandemic relief program. MPs on the Commons public accounts committee said they were puzzled by the $208 million cost: "Is that normal?"
Cabinet would be better off if it could spend five minutes with each Canadian to explain the carbon tax, says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He made the remark after being called a tax grabber while touring a seniors club near Sudbury, Ont.: "If I can only have five minutes to explain it like that to every Canadian we’d be better off."
The secret author of an unsigned federal directive asking that journalists submit stories for fact-checking has been named. Maryse Durette, a former CBC employee and spokesperson for the Department of Health, was identified through Access To Information. She did not respond to questions: “A respectable reporter goes to the source for reporting.”
Working in retail is not "befitting" journalists who face layoffs without taxpayers' aid, says the president of the Canadian Association of Journalists. He made the remark while successfully appealing for renewal of a 100 percent wage subsidy for employees in select newsrooms: "What are they going to do? Are they going to work at Home Hardware?"
A third of Canadians worry they will never enjoy the standard of living their parents did, says in-house Privy Council research. The stark finding follows 2023 Statistics Canada data showing inflation was eating away at young families’ finances: 'At the moment how much do you worry you won’t be financially better off?'
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: “A beggar approaches. I offer more than he asks. Odds are he’ll spend it on drugs, alcohol…”
Nouns are revealing. We call English homesteaders “settlers” but Ukrainian ones “immigrants,” writes Professor Margery Fee. Similarly business reporters describe monthly StatsCan unemployment figures as “job creation numbers,” cabinets rename programs “action plans” and the heritage department selected as its monosyllabic themes for Canada’s 150th anniversary: “Strong. Free.” They might have chosen “Big. Snowy.” You get the picture.
Fee is a professor of English at the University of British Columbia. Her intriguing book Literary Land Claims examines the nouns and adjectives we use in describing Indigenous people. Note they are never described as Indigenous-Canadians. “The French in Canada called themselves Canadiens; this name was appropriated from them along with transfer of the territory called Canada,” Fee writes. “They became hyphenated French-Canadians. However, the label Canadian was applied grudgingly or not at all to other racialized groups.”
Iain Stewart, former federal executive censured for concealing records documenting security breaches at the National Microbiology Laboratory, retired just weeks before cabinet finally disclosed files in the case. Stewart was the first manager censured by Parliament since 1891: "This is not a game."
Canada faces anarchy after Saskatchewan launched a carbon tax strike, Energy Minister Jonathan Wilkinson yesterday told reporters. The decision to halt remittance of carbon taxes on home heating in Saskatchewan sends “a terrible signal to people across the country,” said Wilkinson: "This is all very new."
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, last federal leader to win 50 percent of the popular vote, died yesterday at 84. Word of his passing prompted tributes and tears on Parliament Hill: "You do what is right, and you let history judge you."
Cabinet yesterday approved an increase in annual funding for the CBC of more than $96 million. It followed CEO Catherine Tait’s threat to lay off 600 employees on claims of “chronic underfunding.”
Cabinet yesterday introduced a long-promised pharmacare bill outlining terms of a future universal public drug plan. “This is a historic day,” said New Democrat MP Don Davies (Vancouver Kingsway), adding that Liberals “fought us every step of the way.”
