SecondStreet.org recently asked governments across the country a simple question – when was the last time you cut pay for your employees?
The question followed many news stories in Canada about businesses struggling during the pandemic and having no choice but to cut employee pay – movie chain Cineplex, the Winnipeg Free Press, Chrysler, Canadian Football League teams, energy giant Cenovus and countless others.
File this under “Things that will never happen”
Despite a dramatic drop in government revenues last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the average Canadian family still paid more in total taxes than for the basic necessities of food, clothing and shelter, according to a new study by the Fraser Institute.
Governments at all three levels hired over 52,000 new bureaucratic administrators during the pandemic, according to the CTF.
Really!? Governments in Canada didn’t already have enough managers managing managers before?
I guess it’s no shock that StatsCan found more than 520,000 private-sector workers lost their jobs during the pandemic.
52000 thousand more votes in favour of stealing the bread from our mouths.
A requester seeking access to a week’s worth of emails and messages from the head of a federal agency embroiled in controversy has been told to wait five years or more for a response under Canada’s information law.
The applicant recently asked the Public Health Agency of Canada for emails, texts and messages that president Iain Stewart had sent or received from June 14 to 21.
What a farce.
Premier Doug Ford could have saved himself a lot of political grief from the usual suspects if he had simply done what Quebec premiers have done for years when passing French-language legislation.
He should have included a clause in his bill to restrict third-party advertising in election campaigns beyond what the previous Liberal government had done, invoking the Canadian constitution’s notwithstanding clause.
The only complaints are from our Public Service Union Predator Class and their media buddies.
The fact that 80% of Canadian workers who are in the private sector can no longer afford to pay the salaries, benefits, and pensions of the 20% in the public sector was a crisis before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Coming out of the pandemic, it’s going to be a disaster.
Hundreds of workers at Canada’s foreign signals intelligence agency have voted to strike — a move that comes as the threat of state-sponsored cyber attacks related to the pandemic appears to be rising.
The Public Service Alliance of Canada represents 2,400 employees working in cryptography, applied mathematics, advanced language analysis and cybersecurity at the Communications Security Establishment (CSE). PSAC announced the results of the vote Wednesday.
Quick, without using Google, name the superintendent of Financial Institutions. Can you do it? Could you name the president of the Public Service Commission?
You should know their names because they are among the most important public servants in Canada, among the 53 bureaucrats in Ottawa given a full-time car and driver. That’s right, they and many others, have a chauffeur on standby to shuttle them around Ottawa.
We are ruled over not governed by a corrupt, entitled permanent political class.
At the centre of an alleged scheme to defraud the provincial government of $11 million in COVID-19 relief payments are more than 400 bank accounts.
All of them were opened this spring in quick succession at the Bank of Montreal and TD Canada Trust, which then processed more than 40,000 electronic transfers from the province for $200 to $250 each — money that was supposed to be for families with young children or children with disabilities.
The volume and frequency of the banking activity is so suspicious that financial crime experts say the banks should never have let it happen.
“The banks have acted as a catalyst for the money laundering,” said Garry Clement, a former director of the RCMP proceeds of crime unit. “There is zero reason for the banks to have catered in this manner.”
A probe into the alleged theft of $11 million in pandemic relief cash will also examine contractors and subcontractors linked to a fired government computer employee, the Star has learned.
Queen’s Park and the Ontario Provincial Police anti-rackets squads are conducting separate investigations into the alleged embezzlement from the $378-million Support for Families program.
Government sources, speaking confidentially in order to discuss a matter that is before the courts, say their internal audit is looking into past data projects involving Sanjay Madan.
The head of the city’s real estate agency offered apartments with below-market rents exclusively to his own employees earlier this year, in violation of city policies on affordable housing, the Star has learned.
Internal emails, obtained through a freedom of information request, show Brian Johnston, then CEO of CreateTO — an arm’s length city agency started under Mayor John Tory’s administration that’s responsible for selling and leasing land to developers to build affordable housing — also sought a below-market unit for his niece from The Biddington Group, which, earlier this year, was renting out the newly built J. Davis House near Yonge Street and Davisville Avenue.
An Ontario government computer specialist — fired after allegations that $11 million in COVID-19 funds was stolen — allegedly erased his ministry-issued iPhone before surrendering it.
The province alleges that “some or all of” Sanjay Madan, Shalini Madan, their sons Chinmaya Madan and Ujjawal Madan, and associate Vidhan Singh perpetrated “a massive fraud” to funnel pandemic relief cash payments to hundreds of TD and Bank of Montreal accounts.
The investigation into the alleged embezzlement of $11 million of pandemic relief funds is being expanded to include past information technology projects at Queen’s Park, the Star has learned.
A Toronto couple and their two adult sons, who all worked as Ontario government computer specialists, are alleged to have been involved in the theft of millions of dollars in provincial COVID-19 aid.
Documents filed with the Ontario Superior Court say “some or all of” Sanjay Madan, Shalini Madan, their sons Chinmaya Madan and Ujjawal Madan, and their associate Vidhan Singh allegedly perpetrated “a massive fraud” to funnel cash to hundreds of bank accounts.
A Toronto couple and their two adult sons, who all worked as Ontario government computer specialists, are alleged to have been involved in the theft of more than $11 million in COVID-19 relief funds, the Star has learned.
According to documents filed with the Ontario Superior Court, “some or all of” Sanjay Madan, Shalini Madan, their sons Chinmaya Madan and Ujjawal Madan, and their associate Vidhan Singh, allegedly perpetrated “a massive fraud” by funneling millions of dollars in pandemic payments to a slew of bank accounts.
While the Ontario Provincial Police Anti-Rackets Branch is investigating, no criminal charges have been laid.
The allegations have not been proven in court.
