In this regard, they never fail to disappoint:
Canada is not a leader on the international stage. In his 2012 book Every Nation for Itself, global affairs expert Ian Bremmer wrote that: “Leaders have the leverage to co-ordinate multinational responses to transnational problems. They have the wealth and power to persuade governments to take actions they wouldn’t otherwise pursue. They pick up the checks that others can’t afford and provide services no one else will pay for. On issue after issue, they set the international agenda.” Name the last time Canada did any of those things.
Partly because of a decade of weak economic growth, Canada is no longer a serious player in the world economy. And we are unlike the rest of the G7, none of which is little brother to a big brother next door. Our relationship with the U.S. is more like Austria’s or Holland’s with Germany. Unless we prove we deserve a seat at the adults’ table, we should be talking with other middle powers about how to live next door to an elephant. Canada will not regain its stature on the world stage until renewed economic growth provides the money needed to rebuild our military capacity and the economic heft that makes others covet access to our markets.
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The Government of Canada paid a foreign contractor blacklisted by allies as a Russian war collaborator, records disclose. Payment was made even after the contractor was censured by allies: “Canada is actively exploring options on next steps.”
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Tax measures should support Canadians who work past 65, says Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne. The number of pensioners who remain in the workforce is currently the highest in history, according to federal data: “The tax system should not create undue barriers for seniors who wish to return or remain in the workforce.”
Rather, people are working and living beyond sixty-five years of age, much to the dismay of the government.
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It's called a shakedown for the lousiest media controller in North America:
The regulator has begun a series of consultations on how to implement Bill C-11, which became law in April. The Online Streaming Act sets up the CRTC to begin regulating streaming platforms, requiring them to showcase Canadian content on their platforms, and to make them pay into the Cancon fund for the creation of Canadian movies, TV shows and music.The regulatory process could take years to fully play out, but in written submissions the platforms opposed the CRTC’s suggestion to have them pay an “initial base contribution,” in which they would pay a percentage of their Canadian revenues toward funding in support of Canadian content.The CRTC is currently holding written consultations and will hold an in-person hearing in November on contributions towards Canadian and Indigenous content. It will hold other consultations on implementing the Online Streaming Act at a later date, including on a new definition of Canadian content.
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It's time to collect some pensions:
Long-time Liberal MP and cabinet minister Carolyn Bennett announced ahead of an expected cabinet shuffle later this week that she will not be running in the next election.
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Defence Minister Anita Anand will be moving to an economic portfolio in Wednesday's shuffle, CBC News has learned — one of many major shakeups coming to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's cabinet.
Sources with knowledge of the shuffle (who are not authorized to speak publicly about it) said seven ministers will be leaving cabinet, including Justice Minister David Lametti, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino and President of the Treasury Board Mona Fortier.
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Definitions are for the proles:
Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault yesterday renewed a 2016 pledge to phase out “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies without defining “inefficient.” Enforcement is scheduled for 2025: “The term ‘inefficient’ fossil fuel subsidy lacks a commonly accepted definition.”
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Canada's environment minister was in Alberta this week speaking to handfuls of stakeholders and politicians about decarbonization and clean energy.
But Minister Steven Guilbeault turned down a request for a meeting with major oil and gas company CEOs during the trip — amid industry anxiety about federal policies and timelines to reduce emissions.
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Sometime this month, the office of Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault says it will be releasing its plan to ban what it calls “inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.”It’s long been a perennial claim in Canadian politics that obscene amounts of government money are being diverted every year into the coffers of the oil and gas sector. As has been claimed multiple times in the House of Commons, Canada’s “oil and gas subsidies” are in excess of $22 million each day; the equivalent of taking the entire GDP of Prince Edward Island and simply signing it over to Big Oil.But even the most cursory look into what actually constitutes a “fossil fuel subsidy” reveals it to be one of the more abused terms in Canadian politics. A diesel bus being converted to run on natural gas? A research program to stop oil spills? An environmental activist being arrested for blocking a road? All of these have, at one time or another, been tallied up as an “oil and gas subsidy.”
The conditions of our city streets after a generation of policy-making by our current experts should be a national scandal. But instead of responding with outrage and action, our governing class has doubled down on their failures, insisting that the right of every Canadian to squat semi-comatose in filth is such an essential component of human dignity that we cannot question it, let alone intervene. Human rights, they say, require us to supply the severely mentally ill and the addicted with the drugs to fry their brains and then abandon them to collapse alone in alleys. The reasonable desire of residents to feel safe in local streets and parks is met with impatience, as though the concerns of the law-abiding are an irritant to the lawless, and not the other way around. And all this, we are told, is the compassionate policy choice.
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Being comfortable in summer is for proles:
Most Canadians have home air conditioners, Statistics Canada said yesterday in the first national survey of its kind. The research was prompted by worries over climate change, wrote analysts: “This study is the first to quantify air conditioning prevalence in Canada at the personal level.”
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How many are Liberal Party donors?:
About 9 out of 10 companies in Canada are exempt from a federal bill mandating disclosure of ownership, says a Department of Industry briefing note. The vast majority of companies are registered in their home province or territory and not covered by the legislation: “Who is actually exercising control?”
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Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland has rejected a request from Toronto's new mayor for hundreds of millions of dollars in financial support for Canada's biggest city.
In a letter sent to Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow on Monday, Freeland says the federal government has contributed over $6 billion to the city since it was elected in 2015. And if further help is needed, Toronto should either pull money from its reserve accounts or approach Premier Doug Ford's provincial government.
"The ability of the federal government to spend is not infinite — and the emergency support we provided during the pandemic led directly to the excellent fiscal position that the province of Ontario currently enjoys," Freeland writes in the letter to Chow.
The city of Toronto faces a near billion dollar budget shortfall this year and Chow is just the latest member of city council to ask for federal and provincial assistance. Both former mayor John Tory and deputy mayor Jennifer McKelvie waged public campaigns to get funding from both levels of government to cover the shortfall which is largely related to continued costs from the pandemic.
In recent years, both the federal and provincial governments had provided billions in funding to help the city cover those costs. But 2022 marked the first time the federal government did not provide that funding even as the province gave Toronto several hundred millions to help address the gap.
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I believe the lax laws are part of the problem:
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The committee struck to review the matter “recognized that news of the transfer, including the nature of notification caused emotional distress for victims.”Letting them know earlier “could have reduced the shock impact of notification on the day of the transfer, as well as allowed time and opportunity for victims to become informed of the implications of a transfer to a medium-security environment,” the report says.
Senior officials within Correctional Service Canada (CSC) and Public Safety Canada said the then-looming transfer of serial killer Paul Bernardo to a medium-security prison needed to be kept “low profile” and under a “close hold” just days before it happened, internal emails show.
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The whole fiasco around the transfer of one of Canada’s most notorious murderers, the appalling treatment of the families of his victims and the failure to honour and respect the memories of Leslie Mahaffy, 14, and Kristen French, 15, can be pinned squarely on the Trudeau government, which instituted reforms that allow monsters like Bernardo a less restrictive life.
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