Your Incompetent and Unfeeling Government And You

It will only get worse:

Government transparency in the form of access-to-information requests was famously frustrating well before the pandemic. But the already broken system got even worse during the pandemic, critics say.

Access to information is used by journalists, academics, and others to request information from government that wouldn’t be available otherwise. It can capture documents such as briefing notes prepared for ministers, and department documents and emails. That’s if the system works as advertised, which it never really has.

Even before the pandemic, “the system wasn’t working,” said lawyer Michel Drapeau, an adjunct professor at the University of Ottawa, who specializes in access to information and privacy law.

He said institutions already couldn’t meet the deadlines set out in legislation to respond to requests. Government institutions are supposed to respond within 30 days to an access-to-information request, although they can ask for extensions if there’s a large volume of records or if they have to consult with other departments or other third parties before releasing information.

The performance standard the government sets is to close 90 per cent of access to information and privacy (ATIP) requests within legislated time frames. Excluding data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, which accounted for most of the closed ATIP requests that year, in 2020–21 “49.3 percent of institutions that closed a request met this standard, a decline of 11.6 percent,” according to the Treasury Board.

Drapeau said once the pandemic started, public servants were working from home, and the records involved weren’t necessarily available electronically. The work of an ATIP co-ordinator can also require face-to-face contact with colleagues to figure out where to find the relevant records.

 

Read the whole thing.

** 

A Trudeau government report is putting farmers next on the carbon emissions chopping block, using UN data that accuses Canadian grain growers of producing crops with the highest “emissions intensity” in the world.

A new “discussion document” released by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada titled “Reducing emissions arising from the application of fertilizer in Canada’s agriculture sector” singles out wheat, barley and other cereal producers for emission reductions. 

The report outlines a framework to meet Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s 2020 climate plan target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the agriculture sector by 30% below 2020 levels within ten years. 

“The fertilizer target’s objective is to contribute to lower GHG emissions from the agriculture sector, building on and leveraging public and private programs and initiatives,” Agriculture Canada writes. “The target applies to both direct (following fertilizer application) and indirect (from nitrogen leached from fields and volatilized to the atmosphere as ammonia) emissions from the application of fertilizer.”

 

Attempts to do the same things in the Netherlands are not going well at all.

Because this is Canada, I expect people will start going hungry this winter.

**

The federal Privacy Commissioner is being asked to determine if the Freedom Convoy bank freeze complied with an Act of Parliament. Committee testimony from bankers suggested the blacklisting of convoy sympathizers may have breached the Privacy Act, said an MP: “What was the information shared?”

But you helped the government without warrants or cause, banks, so, what are we doing here?

**

The only thing that is consistent is what a vile load of reptiles the entire House of Commons is, especially the Liberals and its rancid leader:

The Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery is in breach of federal sanctions against the Kremlin. Cabinet would not comment on Gallery dealings with a blacklisted entity, the official Russian news agency Itar-Tass, in breach of Special Economic Measures Regulations: “The Russian propaganda machine must answer for its lies.”

 

Surely they mean the CBC.

** 

Ottawa has bowed to German pressure and will return a Russian gas turbine to Germany that Moscow has deemed critical to the flow of natural gas to Europe.

Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson announced the decision in a statement Saturday. He said the Canadian government is sending back the turbine at the urging of Germany and other European countries, which are trying to replenish gas stocks for the winter months ahead.

**

This all smells:

Canada’s major telecommunications companies have 60 days to come up with a formal agreement to provide mutual assistance to avoid the disruption of a massive network outage such as the one that hit Rogers Communications Inc.’s wireless and internet services on Friday, rippling across payments, banking and emergency services.

**

Federal Heritage Minister, Pablo Rodriguez, fresh off spearheading two other censorship bills, C-11 and C-18, has been caught planning his greatest feat yet – to censor all electronic communications within Canada. Going all-in against freedom of speech has become a pattern for this government it seems.

Minister Rodriguez recently appointed a 12-person “expert advisory group” and commissioned them to come up with a plan on how to tackle “misinformation” among other things.

**

Because slave labour:

A federal agency invested millions in a green energy firm accused of profiting from slave labour in China, records show. The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board disclosed in its latest filings it holds shares in a company named in a human rights report: “We are responsible for anything that is in our portfolio.”

**

The Department of Employment granted dozens of permits to foreign “massage therapists” working as migrant labour in Canada, records show. Employers were not checked for links to human trafficking: “The department does not conduct criminal investigations.”

And let's not forget this institution too big to fail:

Canadian nursing leaders say they’ve sent a message to the premiers as they meet this week that patients and nurses are suffering through a “dire staffing crisis” that threatens the sustainability of public health care.

A statement from Linda Silas, president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses, says the system is “on the brink of disaster” and nursing leaders shared proposed solutions today as the premiers start their Council of the Federation meeting.

Silas says nurses have been “struggling through extreme staffing shortages, forced overtime and cancelled vacations, with no end in sight” to untenable conditions.

The federation says its proposals focus on retaining nurses, encouraging them to return to the profession and the public health-care system, and new measures to recruit and train the next generation.

Silas says provincial commitments to strengthen health care are welcome, but “no one province or territory can solve this on their own” and federal funding will be key.

 

The same federal government that caused the problem in the first place?

The healthcare system, such as it is, can no longer be sustained. 

Surely we know that by now.