Canada Post staffer among those charged in illegal dumping sting

The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary charged five people under the Environmental Protection Act Tuesday, including a Canada Post employee, following an operation to catch people illegally dumping garbage in the St. John's area.

Using surveillance cameras, police identified 40 different dumping sites throughout the city being used to illegally dispose of garbage.

In a press conference Tuesday, RNC officers said a Canada Post employee caught dumping advertising mail is among those charged since October.

The male employee, 37, used a Canada Post truck while disposing mail in the woods.

St. John's Mayor Dennis O'Keefe said it doesn't make sense for residents to go through the effort to dump trash illegally instead of legally.

Two men caught on surveillance cameras dumping trash illegally in the woods in St. John's. The RNC have charged five people since October, with the use of surveillance equipment. (Zach Goudie/CBC)

"If you're going to put it in your truck, why not drive out to Robin Hood Bay?" said O'Keefe.

Robin Hood Bay — the regional waste management facility in St. John's — offers residential drop-off services five days a week.

Mayor O'Keefe said the city will continue to pursue and prosecute people illegally dumping in the city.

The maximum fine for illegally dumping is $10,000.

City employees have been monitoring up to 60,000 surveillance photos of illegal dumping each month.

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Election bill a cautionary tale against governing by talking point: Kady O'Malley

There is much worth mulling over in former PMO communications director Andrew MacDougall's musings on political communications in the age of the internet.

You'll find few journalists able — or willing — to counter his caveats on the dangers of the always-on news cycle.

That said, you'll find at least one — hello there! — who will argue that the trials and tribulations endured by Democratic Reform Minister Pierre Poilievre recently in defence of his efforts to rewrite the country's election law make a pretty good case for knowing when to step away from the talking-point generating machine, and listen to the response.

As Poilievre announced last Friday, his bill will itself be rewritten as a direct result of the ensuing furor.

By week two on the front lines, Poilievre must have been muttering darkly about sharper teeth, longer arms and freer hands in his sleep — presuming, that is, that he was getting any sleep by that point, what with his seeming omnipresence on television, radio and in print.

It's fair to say, in this case at least, reciting the same bumper-sticker-ready motto as an all-purpose response to questions, concerns and criticism swiftly transformed it into a sort of rhetorical white noise — a verbal tic, like an extended "um," that one could safely ignore in favour of a more substantive comment, which is pretty much the opposite of the intended goal of most strategic communications.

An example, albeit one deliberately vague on the details in order to protect the identity of the other party (a now reflexive practice for Hill journalists that likely deserves its own column at some point):

Shortly after Poilievre revealed his intention to bring forward amendments, I was chatting with a mid-level government staffer about one of the few lightning-rod elements of the bill the minister hadn't addressed: namely, the oft-repeated demand for the elections commissioner to be given power to compel testimony, as is currently the case for his counterpart at the Competition Bureau.

Instead of simply replying with the standard talking point that not even the police have that power, my friend pointed out that, unlike the Competition Bureau, which relies on a system of fines and administrative penalties, cases investigated by the elections commissioner can potentially lead to criminal charges, which is why the government doesn't believe it would be appropriate to give him the ability to force witnesses to talk against their will.

Context is key

Now, that's obviously a point wide open for debate — and indeed, had it been made in the course of the discussion of the bill, almost certainly would have been.

But every time the question came up at committee or on a political panel, the Conservative on defence duty at the time seemed to fall back on the "not-even-the-police" line without providing any additional context — context that, in this case, would have made their argument more compelling, if not necessarily convincing.

Is that, as MacDougall suggests, simply an unavoidable consequence of the 24/7 news cycle?

Not necessarily — although I'll agree it certainly doesn't help.

In the case of C-23, even the minister would likely quietly agree that, in hindsight, much of the sound and fury that has accompanied discussion of the bill thus far could have been sidestepped had the government opened up the floor to the audience from the get-go, rather than spending more than a month insisting that it was "terrific" as written.

Yes, Poilievre did claim from the start to be open to the possibility of amendments, but let's be honest: given this government's aversion to making major (or even minor) tweaks to legislation at committee, if it was always his intention to keep an open mind on improvements, he should have made it clear that this time, he really meant it.

If he hadn't allowed — and even, some might argue, tacitly encouraged — the debate to degenerate into a Mobius loop of partisan rhetoric, that message would have been quickly picked up and propagated by the very same news-famished media maw that his former colleague bemoans.

Of course, for that to happen, we of the aforementioned maw would have to do our part to boost the signal at the expense of the noise — namely, not instantly declaring any indication of an openness to reconsider or willingness to compromise as a tacit admission of defeat.

Sausage-making

Finally, one last minor plea: For heaven's sake, enough with the dismissal of "process stories" as somehow unworthy of journalistic attention.

In politics, at any rate, "process" is How Stuff Happens, which can often be invaluable in understanding why it happens and, ultimately, what it means. Without knowing what went into a legislative sausage, how can Canadians make an informed decision on whether to take a bite?

Take that same election bill — which, it's worth noting, will change the process whereby Canadians exercise their very democratic franchise by casting a vote — as a textbook example of why process matters.

Had the initial ingredients and cooking methods not been so painstakingly detailed in the press, it's entirely possible there would have been no ensuing uproar.

Without that uproar, the minister may not have been persuaded to tweak his original recipe to better suit the public taste.

Mobile users, view the full list of proposed government and opposition amendments here.

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What's fuelling the opposition to Northern Gateway and Keystone pipelines?

High-stakes oil pipeline projects have taken a public lashing lately, whether in a plebiscite in British Columbia, more protests in Washington, D.C., or from a former U.S. president and several Nobel laureates coming out strongly against billion-dollar plans to move the diluted  bitumen from Alberta's oil sands to international markets.

The anti-pipeline pressure has been mounting for a while, but observers say that the ramped-up opposition to the Northern Gateway and Keystone XL proposals is no coincidence.

Rather, the turmoil is a result of a confluence of issues ranging from deep-seated environmentalism and concern about climate change to the aggressive tactics of energy companies and governments that want to see the pipes in the ground sooner than later.

Toss in some politics — midterm elections in the U.S. this fall, and anticipation of the federal decision on Enbridge's $5.5-billion Northern Gateway project within a few weeks — and conditions have become ripe for ever more public push-back.

"I certainly don't see any chance of the opposition receding," says Michael Byers, a political science professor at the University of British Columbia who holds a Canada Research Chair in global politics and international law.

On the West Coast, in particular, he says, the roots of protest run deep.

In the psyche

"People in the rest of Canada need to understand the environmental movement was born in British Columbia, and it has a deep history here and is very wide-reaching," says Byers.

"It's almost part of the collective psyche here on the West Coast and that's something that Enbridge clearly did not understand, and that the Harper government at least for its first four or five years did not understand.

"And when you add that to the unextinguished aboriginal rights, and the lack of appropriate consultation that took place, you have almost a perfect storm for opposition to pipelines."

Northern Gateway Pipelines president John Carruthers listens during the Northern Gateway hearings in Prince Rupert in December 2012. (Jonathan Hayward/Canadian Press)

In Kitimat, B.C., the coastal community that would serve as the endpoint of Northern Gateway, and the place where supertankers would fill up with Alberta bitumen, residents recently voted "No" to the project.

The plebiscite isn't binding on anyone, but it sent a signal, and left Enbridge with another reminder it might have done things differently in the early days of the project.

"Something we've certainly learned is that we definitely needed an earlier, stronger presence on the ground," says John Carruthers, president of Northern Gateway Pipelines.

"We have had an office in Kitimat since 2008, but I think the key is you have to be there early and you have to be there often to work with people and build trust and provide information about what we are doing to address the concerns."

Changing the route

Carruthers says the company has won support in instances where it has sat down, talked with people and come up with solutions for particular issues such as river crossings.

"We made a number of changes to the route based on public input."

Responding to concerns from aboriginal groups, Enbridge revised 24 crossings, including for the Pembina, Athabasca, Smoky and Murray rivers, according to the joint panel review for the project.

Enbridge's Northern Gateway Project would bring diluted bitumen from Alberta to the deepwater port in Kitimat, B.C., where it would be loaded on supertankers and shipped to Asia. (Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press)

​

Carruthers says that between 2009 and 2013, there were "tens of thousands of exchanges with stakeholders through face-to-face meetings, coffee chats, presentations, public forums, technical meetings, community meetings, Community Advisory Boards, blogs, social media sites, receptions, community investment events, emails, telephone calls, letters, advertisements and website postings."

Enbridge's approach to working with communities is an "evolving process,"  he says. "It doesn't stop with the plebiscite. It doesn't stop with the joint review panel recommendation, or even the decision by the federal government.

"It's ongoing, so there will be continued consultation, discussions, all the way through the process."

However, Byers says there was a lack of serious consultation by Enbridge with the coastal First Nations in the early going, and that "is a mistake that both Enbridge and the Harper government must rue to this day. Essentially that failure to take aboriginal rights seriously in those early years I think created a situation today where the project cannot proceed."

He sees "more sensitivity" being shown around discussions of Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain project to expand capacity of an existing pipeline running from Alberta through the Fraser Valley to Burnaby, B.C.

"Kinder Morgan has made a significant public outreach effort. The Harper government has not weighed in with the same degree of passion and divisiveness that it did on Northern Gateway."

Another Exxon Valdez?

As Byers sees it, the big issue of climate change figures prominently in this debate, particularly for environmentalists. "But for the person on the street, the concern is about a repeat of the Exxon Valdez." 

"That oil spell happened just north of Kitimat on the southwestern coast of Alaska and people here look at the fact that oil continues to be found along the Alaskan coastline from that spill more than two decades later."

For his part, Byers sees some distinction between the kind of opposition that these pipeline projects in B.C. have garnered with that exerted on TransCanada's $7.6-billion US Keystone XL project, which would pipe Alberta bitumen to the Texan Gulf Coast. "With Keystone XL, the debate is mostly about climate."

A presidential decision on Keystone XL has been delayed again, and won't likely come until after the Nov. 4 midterm elections, which some are seeing as a win for its opponents.

For environmental groups that want fossil fuel production to stop, "slowing down crude infrastructure is actually one of the politically easiest targets," says James Coleman, an assistant professor in the University of Calgary's faculty of law and Haskayne School of Business.

Coleman sees a "dramatic" increase in the push-back against pipelines, something he attributes to several factors, including increased pressure for climate regulation, along with a desire for increased to "takeaway capacity" from Alberta because of the increased production there.

Times change

"People sometimes forget Keystone XL is just the second part. There was an original Keystone pipeline that was approved in the U.S. in 2008 and was defended by President [Barack] Obama's administration," says Coleman.

"But the dramatic thing is that pipeline was approved with no consideration at all of the climate effects of increased oil production."

Native Americans, farmers, ranchers and cowboys rally to protest against the Keystone XL pipeline in Washington on Tuesday, April 22, 2014. (Alex Panetta/Canadian Press)

Now, a few years later, he notes, there's a section of the U.S. environmental impact statement on Keystone XL devoted to the greenhouse gas output of increased oilsands production, and President Barack Obama says the key factor determining the project's fate is whether it's going to increase greenhouse gas emissions because of increased oilsands production.

"It's all about climate change. It's not the pipe itself," says Richard Dixon, executive director of  the centre for applied business research in energy and the environment at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.

"The issue is what's going through the pipe," he says, and how that has become a symbol of dealing with climate change.

"It's not about the amount of emissions. I mean, we're one-10th of one per cent of world emissions. It's negligible."

Finding the weak link

Dixon says the opposition to pipelines has become more organized, and that more environmental groups are involved. Environmentalists have also identified the "weak link" energy companies have in their efforts to be sustainable: access to markets.

"So they've focused on that and as they've gained more and more strength, they're able to then focus on the issue of climate change."

That was the focus of a letter signed by former U.S. president Jimmy Carter and a group of Nobel laureates who urged Obama to reject Keystone XL.

The letter sent earlier this month says the president's decision will either signal a "dangerous commitment" to the status quo, or "bold leadership" that will inspire millions counting on him to do the right thing for the climate.

Dixon argues, though, that "if the goal of the environmentalists is to get us off oil, in fact, it's doing the opposite," as the public opposition is prompting energy companies to improve pipeline technology.

"It will make sure that our pipelines are safe so that you can't really complain about them. So that's the irony of it — that it will improve pipeline technology. Quite an irony actually."

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Sailor charged with desertion was harassed, wife claims

The wife of a Royal Canadian Navy officer accused of leaving his post during a military operation is speaking out ahead of his court martial, and says her husband left his ship because of an intolerable atmosphere of harassment on board.

Lt. Derek de Jong left HMCS Preserver in September 2012 while it was docked in Key West, Fla., and was subsequently charged with being absent without leave. On that same trip there was an investigation into widespread drunkenness.

Then a military prosecutor handling the case bumped the charge to desertion — one of the most serious charges in the military. A conviction carries the possibility of imprisonment, demotion, a $10,000 fine or dismissal from the military.

De Jong's court martial begins next week.

Maria de Jong, his wife, told CBC News she's going public with her husband's story because he can't.

"He can't speak. The military would not allow him to speak," she said Monday.

"It's against the rules for him to come outright and tell you all these things."

De Jong said her husband suffered harassment at work, while serving as a logistics officer aboard the supply ship HMCS Preserver. 

One incident involved a drunk female officer who allegedly urinated on the floor of de Jong's cabin.

Maria de Jong said her husband became the butt of jokes after that incident. One superior officer, according to de Jong, told him, "Some men have to pay for that kind of service."

'I was flabbergasted'

She said someone posted a sign on his cabin door saying, 'Women's Head' — the nautical term for bathrooms.

"It's like, really? When Derek told me this I was flabbergasted," said de Jong.

She said her husband felt micromanaged and belittled by a superior officer. She said he also felt pressured to look the other way when financial accounting rules were not being followed. De Jong declined to provide any details about those allegations. 

Maria de Jong says her husband, Lt. Derek de Jong, left his ship because of an intolerable atmosphere of harassment on board HMCS Preserver. (CBC)

De Jong told CBC News her husband complained to his superiors on board, but nothing changed. She said he flew home from the ship to take his complaints up the chain of command and turned himself in as soon as he returned to Halifax.

"Derek said, 'You know what, we need to go straight to the base so I can report to the MP [military police] shack,'" she recalled.

De Jong said in the year and a half since her husband left HMCS Preserver, he has been working at CFB Halifax and has been praised for his work.

She said his complaints of harassment — as well as a letter she sent to the chief of defence staff — have been ignored.

The Department of National Defence told CBC News it won't comment while a case is before the military justice system.

'He's being made a scapegoat'

"They know what type of man he is, they know what kind of ethics he has. His work is impeccable," said de Jong.

"But those that can do something have basically put their head in the sand and said, 'Yup, let this happen. Just let it happen. Let's hang one man.'"

De Jong said her husband had a chance to plead guilty to the charge of being absent without leave in an informal summary process before the commander of CFB Halifax.

He was told his punishment could be as minor as a $1 fine.

De Jong said her husband was warned that if he chose a court martial, military prosecutors could pursue a stricter charge — such as desertion.

She said her husband elected a court martial so he could air his complaints in public.

"He's being made a scapegoat. What message are you really sending out by doing this then? On the one hand you're saying, 'Yes, report, report, report. We want to know. We want to change it, we want to change the culture of the navy,'" said de Jong.

"Yet when somebody does, this is what you do to them."

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Struggling students seek 'sugar daddies' online to pay debts

Some Canadian university and college students are paying their way through school with the help of a website featuring "sugar daddies" willing to help pay their bills and loans in exchange for dates.

Seeking Arrangement touts itself as "Canada's No. 1 sugar daddy dating website" and claims to have 130,000 Canadian members who declare themselves as students or graduates trying to pay off their post-secondary debts.

The website involves "sugar babies" making agreements with interested older "sugar daddies" or "sugar mommies."

'It's just nice to be treated to something different and to feel like you're a princess.'- 'Kelly,' Winnipeg college student

An estimated 6,200 of the site's student members are from Manitoba, including a 23-year-old Winnipeg college student who says it linked her with a married man in his 40s who gives her $300 every time they go on a date.

They meet once a week or once every two weeks, she said, adding that some of their dates have been private but many are in public.

"There's places we can go that, like, a 24-year-old guy can't afford," she said in an interview.

"It's just nice to be treated to something different and to feel like you're a princess."

CBC News has agreed to identify the woman as Kelly — not her real name — and not show her face.

'Kelly,' a 23-year-old college student in Winnipeg, is one of 6,200 Manitobans who have registered with Seeking Arrangement as students or graduates trying to pay off their post-secondary debts. CBC News has agreed not to identify Kelly by her real name. (CBC)

Kelly said she was asked by Seeking Arrangement if she wanted to talk to CBC News about her experience, but she said she was not offered any remuneration by the company.

She said she agreed to be interviewed because she believes the website is a good option for other students who are struggling financially.

"I pay for my tuition myself. I took out a student line of credit. My mom is not able to help me at all. My dad helps sometimes, but he also isn't really able to help me," she explained.

"I worked really hard this summer — like, two jobs. I was working like 8:30 to 4:30 and then I was working five to midnight all summer, so that I could save up money for school."

'Wasn't going to sugar-coat it'

Kelly said she learned about the website on the American TV show Dr. Phil, but she didn't think much about it until her boyfriend — a man close to her own age — broke up with her in February.

Forced to start over financially while juggling schoolwork, she went to the website and created a profile.

'Young women really do have to question what these men are about.'- Marian Morry, University of Manitoba

As part of her profile, she had to include a photograph of herself and state her expectations, including how much financial support she'd want from a prospective partner.

"I put down that I was looking for somebody that I could have fun with … somebody that I could find a connection with, but also somebody who is also able to help me out a little bit when I needed it," she said.

"[I] wasn't going to sugar-coat it. I'm not going to be like, 'Oh, I'm looking for fun and nothing.' It's like I'm on this because I need a little bit of support. And the guys on there know that, too, and they want to help you."

Kelly said she listed her monetary expectations as "negotiable."

Other students on Seeking Arrangement have requested amounts ranging from $1,000 to $10,000 from their sugar daddies, in exchange for other mutually agreed-upon expectations.

Brook Urick, speaking for Seeking Arrangement and its sister websites, says the online dating service is about 'mutually beneficial' relationships. (CBC)

"Most sugar babies are very optimistic in their lists of what kind of allowances and things they want. Most of the guys on the site aren't going to be forking over $3,000 a month to a sugar baby," Brook Urick, a spokesperson for Seeking Arrangement and its sister websites, told CBC News.

"But there are the girls that, you know, need to pay for college, and they meet someone on the site who's willing to sponsor them and finance that, and they're graduating debt-free."

Urick said the website has far more people seeking financial support than members wanting to provide support. The average age of someone seeking a "sugar daddy" is 26, she added.

The company offers free premium memberships to members who can prove they are a student, while a "sugar daddy" pays a standard membership of about $60 a month, she added.

Manitoba professor shocked

Marian Morry, a psychology professor at the University of Manitoba, said she was shocked to learn some students at the university are seeking sugar daddies.

"The fact that these are men claiming they have lots of money and willing to pay for a date — young women really do have to question what these men are about," she said.

Urick said Seeking Arrangement is about "mutually beneficial" relationships.

It's difficult to accurately determine how many students on Seeking Arrangement come from Manitoba's three largest post-secondary institutions.

Figures provided by the website show that of the 6,200 student members from Manitoba, a small number use current email addresses from the following schools:

• University of Manitoba: 142.
• Red River College: 97.
• University of Winnipeg: 24.

"Basically it's about meeting one another's needs. So the guys on the site are generous, successful businessmen and they don't want to be texting for 24 hours a day and messaging back and forth forever. They just want to have a nice dinner with a nice girl and make it happen quickly," Urick said.

At the same time, she said, "Everyone's always thinking it's some kind of, like, 'pay for play' exchange, and that's definitely not the case. These are romantic relationships, and people are getting involved on an emotional level."

When asked if sex is an expectation during her dates, Kelly replied, "It's not an expectation. It's all about having a connection."

Kelly said she has not told her parents about the website.

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My only hope is that the punishment fits the crime: Carol Todd

It's been a week since the news that there was someone sitting in a jail in the Netherlands who had a connection to the death of my daughter, Amanda Todd.

Has anything changed for us yet? No. The investigation is of course ongoing and we continue to hear different things from the media with respect to charges, extradition, the proposed cyberbullying law, bill C-13, etc.

The connection that this man allegedly had — and now has — with Amanda is now in the form of five charges laid against him by British Columbia's Crown counsel.

These charges include one count each of extortion, internet luring, criminal harassment, possession of child pornography for the purpose of distribution and possession of child pornography.

All this can be found in detailed media release put out by Coquitlam RCMP.

As one of Amanda's parents, the question everyone seems to want to know is, how does this arrest make me feel.

This is something that I have been thinking about over and over again since my phone started buzzing last Friday morning.

Carol Todd, Amanda's mother, has been speaking to groups and other parents about the dark side of social media. (CBC)

The Canadian media has quieted down, but now it is international media that is trying to make contact, and the gamut of emotions has been vast.

Initially, when I first read the news on the internet I think it was shock that I first felt. I had to reread the headlines and even look at the date to see if it was real.

Then there was surprise, and then elation. And then came the questions.

I managed to find someone to translate the initial news stories for me from Dutch so that the words were understandable. It was only then that what I was reading sunk in.

That someone had been caught in connection with Amanda's death: Hers was the only name mentioned in the initial news stories.

Was this man her online predator? Was he the one extorting her? And all the way from the Netherlands? Was that even possible?

Another chapter

Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined an act like this happening so far away from home.

How far exactly is the Netherlands from Port Coquitlam, B.C.? Over 7,700 kilometres it turns out.

It only shows us how far away people can be physically from the harm they can do, yet how close they can be with the advent of the internet, smartphones and social media. Literally in each other's living space.

In our case, there were many who disbelieved that Amanda had been exploited and extorted.

RCMP who confirmed the arrest in the Netherlands of a man linked to the online sexual extortion of B.C. teen Amanda Todd and possibly dozens of other victims say other Canadian children might have been targeted in a case that is focusing on the man's computer. The suspect has been identified in court documents as 35-year-old Aydin Coban, a Dutch national who faces numerous charges in Canada and the Netherlands in connection with the Todd case. (CBC)

Some people wrote on social media that she might have made up her story for attention.

Knowing my daughter and her emotional background, it was hard for me to believe that Amanda would ever make up a story like the one we have all come to know through her You Tube video, which has now been viewed almost 30 million times across the world.

In any event, the arrest in the Netherlands, a case that has taken over three years of investigative time, according to police, should resolve that claim once and for all.

And now, another chapter has been started. The first chapter started in December 2010, when the exploitation started with the first image being sent out. The second chapter was from Oct. 10, 2012 onwards, when the world first heard of Amanda Todd and her death.

Now with the announcement of the Dutch arrest, this third chapter will go on to whenever. We don't know what will happen next. We don't know when anything will happen.

Songs, smells, favourite places

Media articles are talking about extraditions and court trials. There is certainly more investigative work that is being done.

People ask what I would like to see happen? If I would consider going to the trial when and if it ever happens?

I have to answer truthfully — I don't know. It is hard to answer a question that isn't out there in real time.

All I know is that the emotional rollercoaster has started again. It had been slowing down before last week with only a few dips and turns.

Now it feels like it has been oiled and lubed, and is aiming for the bigger hills and tighter turns.

No one can even imagine the inner turmoil that I often feel. Not being a person that shares a lot of my words out loud, I hold it in — most of the time.

I am able to speak to groups about Amanda's legacy because I know it can help others. But deep inside, all this continues to hurt, and it is a pain that is so hard to describe unless you have experienced the same life changing events.

In my private moments, that is when the box opens and that is when it is important to have three things available — a shoulder to lean on, soft Kleenex and chocolate (preferably dark).

Police say the suspect may have victimized others, in Canada and in other countries. Lawyers say overlapping charges in multiple jurisdictions may complicate prosecution, but other countries may defer extradition applications to allow Canada to pursue extradition in the high-profile case involving Amanda Todd. ((RIPAmandaTodd/Facebook) )

Still, there are triggers. Songs. Smells. Favourite places. These may appear out of nowhere, there are no warnings when, and then everything falls apart.

No one can judge how it feels to lose a loved one, especially your own child. And as I have written before, the only people that I have found who can relate to this loss are other parents who have had the same experience.

We might look strong one day, but the hollowness of loss is ever present. All we want is our child back and we know that it will never happen.

In our case now we know there is a man in jail in the Netherlands who allegedly might have been the one responsible for the start of the vicious cycle of online and offline harassment that Amanda had to endure.

I will be waiting anxiously to hear more about the investigation and what further information arises.

Different countries have different laws and penalties. It is my hope that whatever country this man goes on trial in that the punishment fits the crime.

It is also my hope that we learn the lessons of safe practices for using the internet and share them with family members young and old.

Our family has learned through tragedy that it is so easy to make the kinds of digital mistakes that can never be erased.

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Foreign worker program suspension leaves Alberta restaurant short-staffed

The suspension of the federal foreign workers program is leaving some Calgary restaurants struggling with a labour shortage.

In Alberta, the hungry oil and gas industry has consumed much of the local labour pools and the shortage of workers is particularly affecting the restaurant industry. At one popular Calgary sushi restaurant, the Temporary Foreign Workers Program moratorium could mean big trouble for managers grappling with the high turnover prevalent among local workers.

Roughly 30 per cent of Globefish staff across three locations are foreign workers. (CBC)

"Throughout three locations, 30 per cent of our workers are foreign workers and we depend on them quite a bit," said Amane Kanai, manager at Globefish. "I do hire people [locally] but then they get another job, an office job, in the oil field — it's big in Alberta."

In light of the program suspension, Globefish says it will have to begin closing one day per week to make up for a lack of staff.

Several potential employees from Japan were set to move to Canada to work for the restaurant but now, Kanai says they are in limbo.

"That's a lot of big trouble for us."

This isn't the first time Alberta's food services sector has felt a labour drought.

The province and the Conference Board of Canada have both called for action on the shortage and in 2006, warned the problem was likely to continue over the next 20 years despite high numbers of migrant workers attracted by the booming resource economy.

Within the last decade, employers have been offering wages above minimum wage to try and attract committed workers.

Some, like Globefish, had to start shutting down on certain days.

And while many may be panicking over what the program suspension means for their business, Calgary Conservative MP Joan Crockatt says people should stay calm.

"This isn't a permanent measure," she said. "It's a temporary measure so we can rejig and make corrections as needed."

The decision to suspend the Temporary Foreign Workers Program came on Thursday following a government investigation of allegations raised during a series of CBC News investigations.

In a written statement announcing the suspension, Employment Minister Jason Kenney said "serious concerns" remain following the government's' investigation.

CBC's Go Public team produced a series of stories about how some McDonald's franchisees were allegedly abusing the Temporary Foreign Workers Program.

The CEO of McDonald's Canadian operations, John Betts, called the recent criticism of its use of foreign workers "bullshit" during a private conference call provided to CBC earlier in the week.

"This story has been brewing for a lot of years. And you know at the end of the day we just happen to be the business that got tapped into it and we weren't the first. Obviously, RBC was," said Betts, referring to a previous CBC Go Public story.

He also accused the CBC of being unfair and unbalanced in its reporting of the story, but CBC's director of journalism standards and practices, David Studer, said "CBC News stands by its stories."

The moratorium will remain in place until Kenney's department completes its review.

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If today's an average day, 3 Canadians will die on the job

Today is the National Day of Mourning to remember workers injured, killed or afflicted with an occupational illness while on the job. And if it turns out to be an average day for workplace safety in Canada, three workers will die.

In 2012, the most recent year for official statistics, there were 977 workplace-related fatalities in Canada, according to the Association of Workers' Compensation Boards of Canada. But those numbers only cover workplaces where workers can receive provincial compensation benefits.

"Hundreds more die from under-reported illnesses and occupational diseases that go unrecognized in the compensation systems," says the Canadian Labour Congress, which first established the National Day of Mourning exactly 30 years ago this year.

The AWCBC statistics show that the official number of 2012 fatalities was very close to the average of 972 for the years 2000-2012.

Construction industries accounted for 22 per cent of fatalities, with manufacturing was in second place with 19 per cent.

Health and social service industries accounted for the highest number of injuries on the job, according to the AWCBC. That's 17 per cent of the 245,365 workplace injuries in Canada in 2012.

Manufacturing was second  and construction third on the injuries graph.

The number of work-related injuries has fallen dramatically since the late 1980s, according to federal government and AWCBC statistics. In both 1986 and 1987, there were almost 50 work-related injuries per 1,000 employed workers in Canada, according to federal government calculations. By 2010 that number had fallen to about 15 per 1,000.

The AWCBC numbers, which only cover workplaces under the workers' compensation systems, suggest that ratio likely continued to drop in 2011 and 2012.

The labour movement attributes much of that drop to improving health and safety standards in the workplace.

Nevertheless, an average of 672 workers were injured every day on the job in Canada in 2012, as counted by the AWCBC.

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Mulcair takes credit for election bill changes, wants details

NDP Leader Tom Mulcair says he wants to see details of amendments the Harper Conservatives say they'll make to their contentious fair elections act.

In a speech to his caucus, Mulcair takes credit for forcing the Tories to make changes to their electoral reform package, Bill C-23.

On Friday, after weeks of insisting there was nothing wrong with the bill, Democratic Reform Minister Pierre Poilievre announced that portions of the legislation would be deleted or amended.

The bill had been criticized by everyone from the current and former chief electoral officers to elections experts from across the country.

The government says it will remove a requirement for all voters to show residency identification in the next election.

Voters will now be allowed to sign an oath attesting to their residence, but must still provide at least some form of personal identification.

The government is also removing a provision that would have allowed parties to contact former donors during election periods without incurring an election expense under their campaign cap.

Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand had characterized that as a huge spending loophole that would be unenforceable.

Mulcair says it was his party's push for changes to the legislation, threats of legal action and a massive petition against the bill that forced Poilievre to blink.

"We said we'd join democrats of every stripe to fight this bill in the courts, if we had to," Mulcair told New Democrat MPs.

"And thanks to our hard work, Conservatives are now saying they'll back down. We'll wait to see the fine print."

Among the other changes to the legislation is a recasting of a restriction on how the chief electoral officer can communicate with people.

While Elections Canada will still have to focus its advertising on how, when and where to cast a ballot, the chief electoral officer will be able to speak publicly about any "anything he wants," Poilievre said Friday.

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Afghan mission Day of Honour to include parade, memorial breakfast

A May 9 National Day of Honour commemorating the Afghanistan conflict will include a parade in Ottawa and a breakfast for families of soldiers and others who died during the mission, the government announced today.

A total of 40,000 veterans will be honoured, as well as the 158 soldiers, one diplomat, one journalist and several civil servants who were killed in the conflict.

Rick Hansen, the B.C. Paralympian whose Man in Motion world tour in the mid-1980s raised money for spinal cord research, and whose foundation still raises money for the cause, will emcee the event.

The breakfast will be sponsored by the organization True Patriot Love, which raises money to support soldiers, veterans and their families, and is receiving offers of financial support from the private sector.

However, the government will pick up any extra costs for the families' travel, meals and accommodations while in Ottawa.

The day will also feature a relay called Soldier On — runners will carry the last flag from Afghanistan from Trenton, Ont., to Ottawa.

The Afghanistan memorial consisting of 190 plaques within eight panels will be on display in the Hall of Honour on Parliament Hill.

The memorial, which does not yet have a permanent home, will go on tour across Canada after the ceremonies.

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CRA fails to create new strategy for cheats after 3-year effort

After a three-year effort, the Canada Revenue Agency has failed to produce a new national strategy to combat the underground economy — despite repeated requests to do so from cash-starved provinces.

The provinces, especially Ontario and British Columbia, have been pressing the agency since late 2010 to update its strategy for extracting taxes from the underground economy, estimated to be worth more than $35 billion annually.

'We seek to detect [underground economy activities] early, to bring taxpayers into compliance quickly and in serious cases of non-compliance the agency files charges.'- CRA spokesman Philippe Brideau

The current guiding document is a decade old, and changes since then — including the advent of cash-register "zapper" technology that conceals sales — have made it increasingly out of date.

The agency regularly audits offenders in three most-active underground sectors, that is, construction, retail trade and food services, including table-waiting staff.

In 2011-12, the last year for which statistics are available, the agency carried out almost 11,000 underground-economy audits, finding more than $300 million in unpaid taxes.

But internal documents from last October show that an updated strategy for targeting the right businesses and workers, with enough resources and agency-wide co-ordination, has eluded officials.

"A number of stakeholders have been consulted, all with varying opinions and suggestions as to what the focus and direction of the strategy should be, such that a strategy has not emerged," says an Oct. 23 report to the CRA's senior management.

The report suggests there were too many differing views among provinces and agency officials about exactly what constitutes the underground economy — and warns against bad targeting.

"The risk of future non-compliance increases if compliance interventions are targeted at the wrong people or if taxpayers feel they are not treated respectfully," it says.

"The CRA has finite resources and deterrents such as audit are costly. As such, deterrents should be focused on the highest-risk UE [underground economy] participants."

The document was obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.

The failure to update a key guidance document echoes a similar finding by Canada's auditor general last fall.

CRA praised for efforts to recover taxes from people who hide money in offshore accounts.

Michael Ferguson's Nov. 26 report to Parliament generally lauded the agency's efforts to recover taxes from people who had hid their money in offshore accounts in Liechtenstein.

But he criticized CRA for using an outdated guide that has failed to keep pace with modern banking practices, especially as they relate to hiding taxable funds offshore.

"The current audit guide for offshore banking is from 2001 and was developed before the agency received large informant leads such as the [Liechtenstein] one in 2007," says his report.

Ferguson noted the agency was developing a "wiki-type" online page to enable its auditors to share information.

A Statistics Canada report commissioned in 2012 estimated that the underground economy has been shrinking somewhat, to 2.3 per cent of GDP in 2009 from 2.9 per cent in 1992.

The types of businesses failing to report taxes are also changing, with more emerging in mining, oil-and-gas extraction and others.

The Canada Revenue Agency, for example, has in recent years targeted the unregulated couriers, paramedics and drivers who work on contract for big resource firms in British Columbia's remote Peace River region.

That two-year probe into tax cheats working in the area's resource sector uncovered almost $2 million in unpaid taxes, and officers levied another half-million dollars in fines and interest.

"Zapper" technology, responsible for up to $3.25 billion in unreported sales, has also been a recent focus, with new sanctions recently implemented by Parliament to combat electronic suppression of sales software.

A spokesman for the agency confirmed that a 2004 document continues to guide tax-collection efforts in the underground economy, but is "complimented by new measures developed in response to emerging risks."

"The CRA makes UE activities a priority," said Philippe Brideau. "We seek to detect it early, to bring taxpayers into compliance quickly and in serious cases of non-compliance the agency files charges."

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Raptors stress limiting turnovers against Nets

A whopping 59 turnovers in three post-season games.

There've been times the Toronto Raptors' playoff series against the Brooklyn Nets has resembled a kick-ball tournament, with balls bouncing wildly off feet.

The Nets lead the best-of-seven playoff series 2-1 heading into Sunday's Game 4 at Barclays Center (7 p.m. ET), and the Raptors know they desperately need to clean up their act to avoid heading back to Toronto trailing 3-1.

'You are not going to turn some of our guys into Magic Johnson overnight but we can make better decisions of things we control in our turnovers.'- Coach Dwane Casey

"If we can get it down to 13, 12, somewhere in that area we are happy with that," said Raptors coach Dwane Casey. "Some of the no-look passes, passes where we think our teammates are going to be, are things we can correct.

"You are not going to turn some of our guys into Magic Johnson overnight but we can make better decisions of things we control in our turnovers."

Giveaways have been a theme of all three games, and each time, the Raptors have come away vowing to do a better job of protecting the ball. Yet the kick balls and the crazy passes continue. They coughed it up 19 times in Game 1, 21 times in Game 2, and 19 times in Friday night's Game 3, a 102-98 loss.

The Raptors practised at Pace University on Saturday, just across the bridge from Brooklyn. It was a long morning of making adjustments on both the offensive and defensive end, said Casey, ahead of Game 4. The Raptors are looking for their first playoff victory on the road since a win over Philadelphia way back in 2001.

At least for part of the practice, Casey addressed turnovers. He said aggression has something to do with it — players are getting bumped and giving up the ball.

He spoke of working on players' "dispositions," which goes for both their aggression in holding onto the ball, and playing with aggression period. The Raptors were manhandled by the Nets for the better part of four quarters Friday, finally fighting back late in the game to come within a point.

But disposition isn't an easy thing to coach with just a day or two between easy games.

"Well, you have to appeal to the guys' pride, their ego and intelligence and we have some intelligent players on this team," the coach said. "Again, it's playoff basketball. If you can't get a disposition in the right order at this time of year, this is what we play for.

"Our franchise hasn't been there for a while so if we can't get excited now about being tough, physical and fighting through the screens, not complaining about it but fighting through the screens and not letting them hold you and getting to your spot, all those things are disposition plays."

DeMar DeRozan and Jonas Valanciunas have been Toronto's best two players this series, but they've also turned the ball over more than anyone. Valanciunas has turned it over 13 times, one more than DeRozan.

The Nets have turned the ball over 31 times combined over the three games, and the discrepancy in giveaways is the one glaring statistic in a series that is otherwise so even. The Raptors have outscored the Nets by just a single point — 678-677 — in the seven meetings between these two teams this season.

"Man we've just got to be strong with the ball," said Raptors point guard Kyle Lowry. "They're definitely physical when we drive the lane but we've got to be a little bit stronger. It's playoff time. We've got to be stronger with the ball when we're driving."

Casey said the previous night that Lowry looked like he'd been through a "15-round bout," and the gritty point guard looked similarly the worse for wear Saturday morning.

Parked on a bench before addressing the media, the team's medical staff inspected his right knee and his busted lip that required a stitch to close Friday night. Lowry's knee was sore from a knee-on-knee collision.

"I'm going to get treatment around the clock to get healthy. Ice, stim (muscle stimulator). . . we've got a great training staff. We did some work this morning, we'll do some work when I get back. Get to as close to 100 per cent as possible right now," Lowry said.

"Right now it's very sore but I have no doubt that I'm going to play."

DeRozan — who scored 30 points on Friday to become the first player in Raptors history to record 30-plus points in back-to-back playoff games — likes the quick turnaround between games.

"I can't wait to play [Sunday]," the Raptors all-star said. "Honestly, get back out there and get a game."

"[One day between games] is a lot better," DeRozan added. "I think we could use that to our advantage too, with the quick turnaround. Just come out with high energy knowing we need to get at least one game in their place before we go back home."

While the Raptors expected a hostile crowd in Brooklyn's Barclays Center — especially after GM Masai Ujiri's now famous F-bomb when mentioning the city — it was a pretty docile crowd that awaited them Friday.

"It felt like another game to me, like a regular-season game," DeRozan said. "When you talk about atmosphere, honestly, it didn't have nothing on Toronto at all. That's just our fans though, so it was a lot different. Playing out there felt like another game. I felt comfortable out there. We just have to clean up some things."

The Raptors have to hope for better from starters Terrence Ross and Amir Johnson. Ross, who scored 51 points in a game earlier this season to tie Vince Carter's franchise record, has struggled mightily. He has yet to score anywhere near double figures, finishing with five points on Friday.

Johnson, while given the tough assignment of guarding perennial all-star Paul Pierce, has been hit or miss. He had seven points and four rebounds on Friday.

Their teammates continue to be supportive of the two who were key in the Raptors getting to the playoffs this season.

"He's still the same Terrence," DeRozan said, when asked about how Ross fared in practice Saturday. "We all understand everybody's not going to have their best nights. We all understand that. Our job is to keep everybody's confidence high.

"Amir, Terrence, they understand what's at stake in this next game and they're going to definitely come through for us."

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Women in trades: Veterans say changes needed to boost numbers

The B.C. government is encouraging young women to pursue blue collar careers, but has met with mixed success. The founders of Vancouver Women in Trades recently gathered to discuss the challenges they faced breaking into the trades over the past three decades, as well as some of the things that have changed and what still needs work.

"I got into construction when I was living on a small [west coast] island," says Kate Braid. "And one night at a party I was talking about having to leave, because I couldn't get a job."

It was 1977 and she was in her twenties, daughter of a middle class family from Montreal. "One of the guys said why didn't I go down and apply for a job as a carpenter building the new school."

On CBC radio's The Sunday Edition on April 27 starting at 9 a.m. EDT:

• Michael Enright's essay: A new Cold War? From Dr. Strangelove to U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove.
• Chinese Labour: Han DongFang advocates for the legal rights of 700 million Chinese factory workers. 
• "Nothing personal, but you're a woman":  Karin Wells profiles carpenter Kate Braid and others in the group, Vancouver Women in Trades.
• Corporate tax avoidance: Many of this country's largest companies pay little or no corporate tax. An interview with John Manley, president and CEO of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives.
• Tribute to Alistair MacLeod: On-stage interview with MacLeod exactly one year ago (April 27, 2013).
• Erin Shields:  The playwright's latest work is about the seedy world of child sex tourism, but it also explores the tensions between men and women, rich and poor, young and old.

She looked round the little circle of men, and said: "But I can't build anything, for starters. And one of the guys said 'Lie.' And they all nodded as if this was normal … and later I found out that among construction guys it is!"

Kate Braid got hired on at the school. The foreman told her later the guys had been slowing down on the job, "so he figured that even though I'd probably be useless – which I was - they'd speed up just to show off…. But within a week it turned out I was in love with construction."

She loved building forms and pouring cement, loved working 17 floors up, and ultimately loved perfecting her craft. She worked on the tools for 15 years, became a red seal carpenter and started teaching her trade to others.

Braid also took her day's work home with her and wrote it all down every night, two or three single-spaced pages about the frustrations and the triumphs. Her journal became the raw material for 10 books of poetry, memoir and prose, and was the way she coped with the solitary life of a woman in the trades.

There weren't many other women who had forged a path in the trades at the time.

In the '70s when Braid researched the numbers on B.C. trade workers, only 3 per cent of the plumbers, carpenters, welders and other blue collar workers  were women.

Some of them found each other and formed Vancouver Women in Trades – a combination of advocacy and support group that existed from 1979 until 1987.  

When they reunited recently, some of them hadn't seen each other in decades. Besides Braid, there was Marilyn Lanz, a high-pressure welder and the first woman at the Halifax shipyards; Heather Tomsic , Canada's first woman boilermaker; Janet Lane, an avionics mechanic;  Judy Doll, a carpenter and teacher ; and plumber Tamara Pongrancz .

There was some laughing over old photographs, but there was nothing sentimental as they reflected on what Vancouver Women in Trades had meant to them 35 years ago.

"Going to work every day and being the only woman was like going to a foreign country," says Lane. She was the first mechanic hired at Vancouver Sky Train and wrote the manual on how to fix the trains.  "Without Women in Trades I wouldn't have made it."

"The consensus on what we were doing and where we were going to go was really significant in terms of feeling like you were of one mind," adds Doll, the carpenter and senior member of the group.

Kate Braid (left) worked in trades for 15 years, became a red seal carpenter and started teaching her trade to others. Welder Marilyn Lanz is still working at her trade in northern B.C. (CBC)

"There weren't many women in the same trade," says Tomsic. "The really amazing part was that we all shared the same joy of the work."  

Welder Marilyn Lanz is still on the tools, still carrying her rod-oven to jobs in northern B.C.

"What it meant for me was to come in from the isolation," she says. "It put some humour in this. If you didn't have that group to show you how to laugh, you would lose your sanity."

"The bathrooms," says Braid. "The foreman told me when I came on, 'You know we don't have bathrooms here.'" That's OK, she answered, she'd just go in the bushes like the guys. "He had a bathroom there within two hours."

"People want to talk about the harassment," adds Braid, "what one friend called 'the haters.' I didn't run into a lot of those guys."

She says it was more the passive criticism: "Who are you what are you doing here … As one guy said to me, nothing personal it's just that you're a woman."

Today there are more women taking trades courses. But when asked whether things are better now Marilyn Lanz simply said, "it's different."

Braid pointed out that the young men in the trades today are not as uncomfortable with women on-site as they were in her day. "I can't help but think that must be having some impact."

Pongrancz , the plumber, says schools have been trying to encourage a shift in the demographics, offering women-in-trades programs for years. She now teaches at British Columbia Institute of Technology.

'Something is stuck. We need a new approach.'- Kate Braid

The B.C. government has also mounted a renewed push to bring more young women into blue collar trades to meet the shortage of skilled workers. 

On International Women's Day this year,  B.C. Labour Minister Shirley Bond  said the province was looking at more than a million job openings in trades and technical operations. "Connecting women with the skilled trades can help put them at the front of the line."

"But yet there's not a really significant increase of woman in the trades is there?,"  says Doll.

She points to the years she spent teaching technical education to Grade 8 boys and girls. At a recent conference of tradeswomen in British Columbia, she says, "one of my students came up to me she said I was in your Grade 8 class."

The rest of the women smiled and said how wonderful that is. "Yes," Doll agrees, "but ONE, only ONE, and I must have taught 2,000."

Braid went back and checked the employment numbers again. In the past 40 years law schools and medical schools have seen the numbers of women go from 10 per cent to more than 50 per cent.

It is not the same in the trades.

"The authorities will tell you there are 10 per cent women in trades now," Braid says, "but when you take hairdressers and chefs out, it's still 3 per cent. Something is stuck. We need a new approach."

[Listen to Karin Wells' full audio documentary, "Nothing Personal, It's Just that you're a Woman," on The Sunday Edition site or in the link at the top-left of this page.]

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Advice for politicians caught in the media firestorm: Stockwell Day

For bad news buffs, particularly those of a political bent, recent headlines themselves have been bad news.

That's because some political news of late relating to the federal government has been, well, good news:

My reason for highlighting these is not to cheer or jeer any individual or party. It is to focus on that most feared of political phenomena, widely known as the "media feeding frenzy" or "media firestorm."

Speaking from painful experience (sometimes as a result of my own mistakes), it's my observation that anybody who engages in public life with a desire to make a contribution will sooner or later, and probably more than once, go through this "living hell."

Being savaged day after day across all forms of media from coast to coast in a relentless scorching really is something you should never wish even on your worst enemy. (Though I have to admit, when your worst enemy is getting fried in that furnace it's hard to not to feel a teeny bit of glee.)

Add to the countless self-appointed flame throwers on social media. Many of these folks seem infused with a prior condition of bitterness towards anybody who dares to have a different view than theirs.

Focus this incendiary mix on the apparent missteps of one individual or organization and you have all the components of a personal thermonuclear experience.

I need to add I am a sincere advocate of the democratization of freedom of expression through the availability of social media. Though I'm often dismayed at the inability of some to engage in robust debate without spewing invective, I will always vigorously defend their right to do so.

As a matter of fact, though I decry bullying and intimidation, I worry when we see rulings that are an encroachment of freedom of speech just because a particular opinion is unpopular or may make some people feel uncomfortable.

But for those who face or will face the firestorm, there is hope for recovery.

There is increasing evidence the broader public is becoming a tad dismissive of what some in the media refer to as an "explosion in the Twitterverse" on any particular issue.

When people start to do the math, one or two themes may emerge.

First, the "universe" that is exploding is often only a tiny — albeit activist — sliver of the overall population.

Second, many times the apparently spontaneous expression is actually a result of coordination among groups that have well-honed lists of responders willing and able to fire out intimidating messages to media networks or even to advertisers on those networks.

This observation is not to diminish the importance of any view, enraged or not. It is simply to advise the recipient of attacks to not overreact, especially if the attack is unfair or untrue.

If the attackers are correct, it's never wise to cover up — better to 'fess up. But don't rush to confess to something that is not accurate just to turn down the heat.

As my three examples at the start of this article demonstrate, patience and grace under fire are not easy virtues, but often they will have the last word.

I often recall the advice given to me as a young, newly elected rookie by a seasoned veteran of political wars.

"Just because somebody in media says 'Boo!,' doesn't mean you have to jump."

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1-year-old girl taken to hospital after pit bull attack

A one-year-old girl suffered severe cuts to her face after a pit-bull attack in Ottawa's Centrepointe neighbourhood, paramedics say.

They responded to the 90 block of Draffin Court at about 9:10 a.m. ET Sunday where they found the baby girl with "multiple severe lacerations" to her face.

Paramedics took the baby to hospital in serious but stable condition.

Ottawa police, who are now investigating, also took the pit bull into their custody.

In Ontario, it's illegal to own, import or breed a pit bull or similar breeds.

People who owned pit bulls before the ban was put in place in August 2005 were allowed to keep their animals, but owners are ordered to ensure the dogs are spayed or neutered. The dogs also have to be muzzled and leashed in public.

The law also gives judges the right to put down the animals if they've been involved in an attack.

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• On mobile? Click here to find out where the attack happened.

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Greg Weston: If Supreme Court nixes Senate reform, is referendum next?

Now well into its second century of political futility, Senate reform is about to reach another historic milestone Friday when the Supreme Court rules on the Harper government's power to overhaul the upper chamber.

The answer may well be that it can't.

Unless the high court is in a mood to deliver shock and awe, history and a legion of experts suggest the noble cause of Senate reform will probably continue down the same long road that so far has gone largely from here to where we are.

In a nutshell, Stephen Harper's government is hoping to fulfill its longstanding promise to either fix or abolish the Senate without having to drag the country through a protracted constitutional battle with the provinces.

Polls show that reform is a mission popular with Canadians repulsed by the recent Senate spending scandals and long angered by the image of the red chamber as a patronage pasture for party hacks.

Unfortunately for the government and others who support cleaning up the Red Trough, or draining it forever, the Supreme Court is unlikely to give a simple yeah or nay.

The decision will be complicated, answering 14 separate constitutional questions posed by the government.

At the risk of over-simplification, those questions deal with three basic issues: Can the federal government set term limits for senators who now get to sit until age 75; appoint only those first chosen by provincially-sponsored Senate elections; and abolish the Senate altogether.

On each issue, the court will decide whether Parliament alone has the authority to make these kinds of changes, or whether it needs agreement from some or all of the provinces.

So far, experts say the odds favour the high court coming down on the side of the feds having to get provincial agreement on most of the 14 questions before it.

If that happens, the next big question on Senate reform may be whether the prime minister and his Conservative government are prepared to call a referendum on the issue during the next federal election, barely 18 months from now.

Not another Meech Lake

A referendum may be the only option left if the government is determined to move this file forward.

Experts say federal-provincial negotiations aimed at reforming or killing the Senate are almost beyond a last resort with this prime minister — and perhaps others for years to come.

A much younger Conservative Leader Stephen Harper promising in December 2005 that his party would reform the Senate if it forms the next government. (Reuters)

University of Waterloo political scientist Emmett Macfarlane told the CBC's Alison Crawford that the government's reference to the Supreme Court is precisely "an attempt to avoid the kind of mega-constitutional politics that we saw…with things like the Meech Lake or Charlottetown Accord" in the 1980s and '90s.

"This is not a government that is particularly interested in…sitting down with the premiers and hashing out an agreement."

Conservative strategists say there are perfectly good reasons to avoid reopening the Constitution.

"Once you open that door," says one former PMO staffer, "it's inevitable there will be a stampede of special interests trying to improve their constitutional lot, and that's probably the last thing most Canadians want right now."

Macfarlane points out that one of those likely to take advantage of any federal-provincial constitutional confab would be Quebec, back for another attempt to have a distinct society enshrined in the law of the land.

After more than a century of largely failed federal-provincial attempts to overhaul the Senate, the Harper government knows its own chances of reaching a deal for negotiated changes before the next election are slim to nil.

The government's own minister for democratic reform, Pierre Poilievre, admits: "We are not interested in having a big constitutional distraction."

Most Canadians would surely agree.

A dangerous gamble

So, if the Supreme Court rules the feds don't have the authority to give the Senate a makeover without provincial agreement, would the Harper government simply call a referendum on the issue?

Conservative strategists say, on the face of it, a referendum on Senate reform in the next election could provide a useful distraction from a government suffering nine years of wear and tear, and all the voter fatigue that goes with it.

As one Conservative insider says, in theory "the prime minister could say, 'Well, we're going to go over the heads of the courts and directly to the people on this.'"

In reality, a referendum would be a dangerous political gamble.

First, Harper and his government have spent nine years building their political brand around the economy. And unless the country's finances are completely in the tank by the next election, why would the Conservatives want to distract voters to focus on Senate reform?

Second, flogging Senate reform to voters could be a tough sell for a prime minister and government that have spent nine years failing to make good on their promises to change the upper chamber.

Third, if the Supreme Court rules that the federal government can't make changes to the Senate without the provinces, even a national referendum doesn't change that fact. It could all be a wasted exercise.

One Conservative insider says that no matter what the Supreme Court ruling is on Friday, "the government will find a happy face to put on the decision.

"Maybe they will simply throw up their hands and say, 'Well, we tried our best, you've heard the court, so let's just move on to other things.'"

All things considered, the government might call that a happy ending. 

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Why didn't Revenue Canada act sooner to counter the Heartbleed bug?

Even with the arrest last week of an alleged culprit in the theft of the private data of about 900 Canadians, the Canada Revenue Agency is still unwilling or unable to say why it didn't act faster to prevent an attack on its web servers that exploited the Heartbleed software bug.

Now, a tale is emerging of ignorance and perhaps even government nonfeasance, with the CRA admitting Wednesday it found out about the Heartbleed vulnerability one full day after the rest of the global web security world was advised there was a problem.

The CRA buried that news in the middle of an awkward sentence that suggested action, but in fact revealed trouble: "After learning that the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) systems were vulnerable to the Heartbleed bug on April 8, 2014, the CRA acted quickly to protect taxpayer information by removing public access to its online services on the same day," spokesman Philippe Brideau wrote in an e-mail.

Over the course of two weeks, CBC News has been trying to identify why, when warnings about the devastating Heartbleed bug first emerged in professional IT security circles Monday, April 7, the government apparently did not shut down its vulnerable CRA systems until about 36 hours later, on the evening of April 8.

It turns out those hours were critical.

The RCMP allegations and CRA comments suggest it was during that 36-hour gap a 19-year old London, Ont. university student allegedly exploited the Heartbleed web weakness to access the Social Insurance Numbers of 900 Canadians.

The CRA has acknowledged fragments of other data pertaining to business accounts were accessed too, but it has not clarified whether that loss was comprehensive enough to constitute a breach of privacy.

The entire web world was taken aback by news of the Heartbleed bug, which was termed "devastating" and recognized as one of the most significant global threats to online security.

The CRA is certainly not the only organization to have been exposed by the vulnerability.

But, in retrospect, the issue that emerges is whether CRA — and indeed the government in general — did enough to protect the private tax information of Canadians once word of the Heartbleed bug started to circulate in security circles.

Several departments involved in security

Was the inability to heed the global warning a problem at CRA, or was it the fault of others in the government's IT security apparatus?

That's a lengthy and twisting chain of accountability that weaves from secret security teams at Communications Security Establishment Canada, through the Treasury Board's Chief Information Officer branch, Public Safety's Canadian Cyber Incident Response Centre, Shared Services IT teams and finally to the CRA.

"Shared Services Canada has played a major role, along with the Treasury Board Secretariat, and other government departments and agencies, in resolving the problem and administering the patch to all vulnerable software," the CRA said in an e-mailed response to CBC News this week.

The Communications Security Establishment Canada told CBC News last week it learned of the bug "at the same time as the global IT security community." That presumably means Monday, April 7, when a global security alert went out.

A look back at what Revenue Minister Kerry-Lynne Findlay told reporters on Wednesday of that week reveals the CRA only learned on the Tuesday night it was running the vulnerable software.

"We know there is a systems vulnerability," Findlay told reporters. "We have identified that so we shut down those systems right away as a precautionary measure only."

That assessment, in retrospect, belies the reality that the private data of Canadians was stolen before that "precautionary measure" was taken. CRA maintains that, at the time of the shutdown, it had not yet learned of the alleged theft.

"Regrettably, the CRA was notified by Government of Canada security agencies of the criminal breach after online systems were shut down," Brideau said in an email Wednesday, emphasizing the word "criminal" in all capital letters.

"CRA worked diligently to apply the patch and test all systems to ensure they were safe and secure prior to restoring online access."

Who didn't tell CRA?

The timeline that has now been revealed suggests key government online security actors did know about the vulnerability in time to prevent an attack, but the CRA did not. 

Almost any way that's evaluated it presents the probability of failure: Either CRA should have known about Heartbleed the day the world was told and did not, or someone else who did know that same day didn't warn the CRA to shut the proverbial barn door until after the horses were loose.

What is known is that up until noon the day CRA was told of its vulnerability, the tax agency's top bureaucrats apparently thought the system was too robust to break.

That very day, the department's assistant commissioner and chief privacy officer told Parliament the CRA had "one of the — if not the — strongest security regimes around our technological systems of any government department."

Susan Gardner-Barclay bragged about CRA's cyber-security to MPs at a Commons committee meeting on identity theft.

"We are obviously very cognizant of the fact that security and the security of those portals is instrumental to Canadians having confidence in sharing their information with us, so we have a very rigorous security system around the CRA system," she said.

According to CRA staff, as Gardner-Barclay spoke, "she was unequivocally unaware of the Heartbleed bug vulnerability."

But that might not even matter. As we now know, much of what she said about CRA's security was, according to the RCMP, being proved wrong.

The Heartbleed bug is a "zero-day" vulnerability problem — that's to say, it existed from the very day the software was released about two years ago. That means the CRA was in fact at risk of anonymous and nearly untraceable theft of data for as long as it had been using the affected software.

It just never knew it.

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How medical marijuana growers make sure they're selling quality pot

Under the Marijuana for Medical Purposes Regulations, producers are subject to compliance and enforcement measures similar to those that regulate producers of other controlled substances. Licensed medical marijuana growers must meet strict security, control and reporting requirements, and are regularly inspected. (Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press)

The recent voluntary recall of medical marijuana from a B.C. producer highlights the growing pains of a burgeoning industry coming to grips with a whole new regulatory process.  

"Commercializing that has been the hurdle," says Mark Gobuty, CEO of The Peace Naturals Project, one of the dozen producers licensed to sell medical marijuana in Canada. "Having an industry that wasn't regulated, where you didn't have the 8-5 shift and seven days a week operation, absolute reporting, cameras everywhere — it's counterculture to cannabis."

"Like anything else there's an evolution because you're working with a regulator who truly isn't intimate with cannabis and they've been ordered to provide safe access."

Under the Marijuana for Medical Purposes Regulations, producers are subject to compliance and enforcement measures similar to those that regulate producers of other controlled substances. Licensed medical marijuana growers must meet strict security, control and reporting requirements, and are regularly inspected.

"You have to safely produce cannabis within a safe working environment within a repeatable procedure and be able to have the wherewithal and credentials and polices and protocols to have everything tested validated and safe," Gobuty said.

In the case of Greenleaf Medicinals, which has since voluntarily stopped selling its product, Health Canada inspectors said they identified issues with processes that affected quality control, which included potential residues from the use of unregistered pesticides, unsanitary production conditions and concerns with testing standards.

Gobuty said all producers are required to have on site a quality assurance manager, who has passed security clearance.  But growers also obligated to do third-party testing, meaning their cannabis is sent to a lab to be tested for any bacteria, fungus, mould, chemical residue or pesticides.

"We have our own testing equipment, we have calibration equipment to confirm our testing equipment is in order and we still send everything to the third-party lab for validation," he said.

Dr. Mehrdad Barghian, CEO of Quality Compliance Laboratories, one of the labs accredited to do quality assurance testing on medical marijuana, said the main focus of their testing is for the amount of cannabidiol (CBD) and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in a plant.

The amount of the THC determines the medical purpose of it. A higher THC percentage is better for certain therapeutics, while a lower THC percentage is better for others, Barghian said.

Microbiological testing is conducted to make sure no fungi, salmonella and E. coli have formed, and an analysis is performed to ensure the absence of lead, arsenic, cadmium and mercury, he said.

Buds are also examined to see if any insects or anything unusual is inside the bud.

"The three things that are important are purity, safety and efficacy. They are the three important things to determine quality of any product," Barghian said.

If the cannabis falls short, producers have their remediation techniques. Some will use gamma radiation for get rid of fungus or bacteria. The marijuana will be submitted again for testing, where a producer will receive a pass or fail. If a fail, a producer may try to remediate again, or destroy the plant.

"The guidelines say you can have zero detection of mould, bacteria or fungus," Gobuty said.

But the process is a continual learning curve. When Gobuty first began, it took them four days just to fill out all the reports required, he said.

And then there's the constant discovery of better practices. For example, Gobuty says his staff used to wear lab coats, shoe covering, hair nets and gloves for indoors and outdoors. Now they wear jumpsuits, which they take off and dispose of, just when moving from room to room.

"We are the carriers of the bugs. One little one jumps on your leg in one room and jumps off in the other and suddenly you have a problem in that room."

Gobuty said while Health Canada sets regulations, it doesn't tell producers how to run their operations.

"They don't tell you how to run your drying room. There's procedures. So when you have good manufacturing processes and you have protocols in place, and you follow those protocols, you will know how to successfully dry and dehumidify and cure cannabis.

"Health Canada is not an expert in any of that. What they are an expert in is confirming what you say you're going to do  and then validating your test results."

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No charges over misleading cross-country robocalls in 2011

An investigation into misleading and nuisance robocalls made to voters across Canada didn't find an intention to prevent them from casting ballots, so no one will be charged, Elections Canada said today.

A 2012 media report about the investigation into robocalls in Guelph, Ont., led to hundreds of complaints about live and automated calls directing voters in other ridings across Canada to the wrong polling stations. There were also complaints about annoying and harassing calls that frustrated people and may have been meant to annoy them enough not to vote.

Yves Côté, commissioner of Canada Elections, said in a news release Thursday that the investigation into those calls didn't find an intent to prevent or dissuade Canadians from voting.

"Ultimately, investigators have been able to determine that incorrect poll locations were provided to some electors, and that some nuisance calls occurred," the report into the calls said.

"However, the evidence does not establish that calls were made a) with the intention of preventing or attempting to prevent an elector from voting, or b) for the purpose of inducing an elector by some pretence or contrivance to vote or not vote, or to vote or not vote for a particular candidate."

"This proof of intent is necessary for the commissioner to consider recommending to the Director of Public 
Prosecutions that a prosecution under the Act be initiated," the report said.

One person has been charged with the misleading robocalls made in Guelph. Michael Sona's trial starts June 2 in Guelph.

Elections Canada was flooded with complaints from 260 of the country's 308 ridings.

But while the agency got more than 40,000 messages about the misleading and nuisance calls, the investigation found 96 per cent of them came through Lead Now, an organization that asked concerned voters to sign a petition.

In all, 39,350 of the more than 40,000 "communications" with Elections Canada were from people expressing "their profound dissatisfaction with inappropriate calls​," the report said, and not from people who received the calls.

Investigators found that people were annoyed with the calls in part because both national and local political campaigns were providing specific poll locations during legitimate get-out-the-vote calls. In some cases, reports suggest the campaigns were getting the locations wrong.

"Elections Canada is the only authoritative source of information on poll locations," the report said.

The election agency doesn't normally report on cases that don't lead to charges, but published the 2011 election calls report because of the enormous public interest.

The agency also had former Supreme Court justice Louise Charron review the investigation. Charron said there were a number of roadblocks, including limits to what political parties have to report to Elections Canada.

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NHL star Jordin Tootoo stick giveaway video goes viral

A video that shows Jordin Tootoo making a kid's day at a hockey game has gone viral. 

Tootoo, originally from Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, was the first Inuk hockey player to join the NHL. 

He plays for the Detroit Red Wings. 

The video has hit nearly 150,000 views on YouTube and was among the top posts on Reddit this morning. 

​​

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Maritime flooding fears grow as rainfall warnings issued

Rainfall warnings are blanketing the Maritimes today as a low-pressure system moves northward, prompting fears that flooding could worsen.

Prince County P.E.I., most of New Brunswick, as well Digby and Yarmouth counties in Nova Scotia could receive up to 50 millimetres of rain after midnight and into Thursday afternoon.

The covered bridge in Cherryvale was swept down the Canaan River in floodwaters caught underneath the Trans-Canada Highway in New Brunswick. (Catherine Harrop/CBC)

​

The low-pressure system moving north from Maine is expected to stall over the Maritimes, bringing between 30 and 50 millimetres of rain.

Flooding is of particular concern, especially for parts of New Brunswick where ice jams threaten to block river systems throughout the province.

Ground still frozen after this year's long winter reduces the soil's ability to absorb water, further increasing the risk of flooding.

Environment Canada warns the heavy downpours can cause flash floods and water to pool on roads.

Road conditions could deteriorate on Thursday if the rain changes to periods of snow and ice pellets on P.E.I. and in parts of New Brunswick.

Southwestern Nova Scotia is expected to receive the heaviest rainfall. There's also a Les Suêtes wind warning in effect for Inverness County with gusts of up to 110 kilometres an hour.

Northeastern New Brunswick, including the Acadian Penninsula, is also under a freezing rain warning.

• Clear all culverts, catch basins and watercourses to ensure water can flow freely. Ensure there's no snow, trees, garbage or other debris blocking them.
• Clear fire hydrants around your house.
• If your home has a backwater valve installed on the sewer, follow the manufacturer's instructions for cleaning to ensure it's functioning properly. Check that your sump pump is working as well.
• If your home is prone to flooding, get valuable items off the basement floor.
• Clean your eavestroughs. When they're blocked, rain will pour over the edges and could spill into your basement.
• Stay away from fast-flowing streams and ponds, and stay off the ice.
• If you see a flooded area, don't go near it. Don't try to drive your car or walk through it.
• Stay away from areas known to flood.

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Massive Alberta bighorn might be biggest ever

An Alberta bighorn sheep that lived near Hinton has lived up to its name: it might turn out to be biggest bighorn ever. 

A wildlife officer found the horns of the 10-year-old ram two weeks ago while on a routine check in the area of a reclaimed coal mine.

"It's unique to find one this big for sure," said Alberta Fish and Wildlife officer Neil Brad. "We've had some very large rams found in that location. It shows that the big horn sheep genetics in this area are very good."

The ram likely died from this year's severe winter as sheep normally live around 14 years, he said.

The horns, weighing about 18 kilograms, must be left to dry for a couple of months before they can be officially measured, he said. 

A preliminary measurement puts the horns almost two centimetres over the score of the current world-record holder — a set belonging to a bighorn shot by a hunter in Alberta in 2000.

The horns, now provincial property, will eventually be on display in a museum or the lobby of a government building.

Bighorn sheep, Alberta's official animal, are plentiful near the Rocky Mountains and frequently can be found feeding near Highway 16 heading into Jasper National Park.

During mating season, the male rams rear up on their hind legs and charge at each other, smashing their horns together in a competition over breeding rights.

Hinton is about 300 kilometres west of Edmonton.

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May 9 Afghan tribute cloaked in secrecy with two weeks left to go

A Royal Proclamation, a moment of silence in schools, and the heavy beating of helicopter rotors over Parliament Hill are slated for May 9, but the Harper's government attempt to turn commemoration of the Afghan mission into a national event is facing delays, confusion and the sting of politics.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently designated May 9 as the day to honour the sacrifices in the 12-year war against the Taliban.

Aside from cursory references on two government websites, there's little information about the event.

The silence has left some wondering how the public is expected to participate and whether the day will be an Ottawa-focused political spectacle rather than a grassroots outpouring of appreciation for the approximately 40,000 troops who rotated through the war-ravaged nation.

The Royal Canadian Legion's national office only last week received a letter from Veterans Affairs asking the group to raise awareness and host events at its 1,450 branches across the country.

"Our goal is to honour the end of a generational mission that affected almost every community in Canada," said the April 16 letter from Veterans Affairs Minister Julian Fantino.

Event looking 'very politically motivated'

The notice has yet to be distributed across the country because the veterans department initially tried to bypass the group's national headquarters, which has been sharply critical of a number of aspects of government's policies toward ex-soldiers.

With just over two weeks to go, the Legion and other community groups have been given little time to organize or promote events, said group's market director, Scott Ferris.

The questions being posed by the Legion include: What is this day supposed to be? What are we supposed to do on this day? And how are we supposed to support? How are we supposed to recognize these sacrifices?

"On Remembrance Day we honour by going to our cenotaphs, and the National War Memorial here in Ottawa," said Ferris.

"We recognize (the day) by celebrating at a Legion branch after the fact. There are concrete actions involved."

The May 9 event is looking "very politically motivated and lacking in any description as to what Canadians are expected to do," Ferris added.

Neither opposition party has been formally consulted about the event, although all MPs received a letter from the prime minister asking them to promote the date.

No info on government websites

Yet, websites at National Defence and Veterans Affairs cryptically ask the public to stay tuned for more "detailed information" in the coming days.

It's unclear whether the Conservatives, known for bombarding the airwaves with tens of millions of dollars of Economic Action Plan commercials, will put any advertising heft behind the Afghan commemoration.

It is has also been looking ways to off-load the cost of the event.

An outside fundraising organization, the True Patriot Love Foundation, was asked to cover the expense of bringing the families of Canada's Afghan war dead to Ottawa the ceremony.

The group acknowledged Tuesday it has agreed to put together a tribute breakfast for the families at the Ottawa convention centre on the day of the event, but it is looking for sponsors to help.

The idea of honouring those who fought the brutal guerrilla war and helped train Afghan forces was highlighted in the Conservative throne speech last fall and there has been at least three years of planning at National Defence for the event.

'Half-hearted and quite frankly disrespectful'

Despite that, Nicholson told a House of Commons committee two weeks ago that details for the overall tribute were still being worked out.

New Democrat veterans critic Peter Stoffer said it looks like the government is trying to pass the hat for its own celebration.

"It looks half-hearted and quite frankly disrespectful," Stoffer said.

"This is supposed to be a day of significance, especially for the families of those sacrificed when a grateful nation gets to show its appreciation. All I can say is, this better not be about money and keeping the balanced budget."

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Lisa Raitt to enhance rail safety measures in wake of Lac-Mégantic

Transport minister will require rapid phase-out of old tanker cars, emergency response plans

CBC News Posted: Apr 23, 2014 8:35 AM ET Last Updated: Apr 23, 2014 10:37 AM ET

The federal government will require a three-year phase-out or retrofit of older tank cars that are used to transport crude oil by rail.

That's one of the changes that will be announced Wednesday by Transport Minister Lisa Raitt in response to recommendations by the Transportation Safety Board in the aftermath of the tragedy in Lac-Mégantic, Que. 

The TSB has called for the phasing out of the older-model DOT-111 tank cars that are widely used in the oil-by-rail industry because they were prone to punctures and gas buildup. 

The transport minister will also announce that mandatory emergency response plans will be required for all crude-oil shipments in Canada.

In January, the Transportation Safety Board made three recommendations in response to the Lac-Mégantic explosion last July, in which 47 people were killed.

The TSB recommended:

• Enhanced safety standards for Class 111 tank cars used to transport flammable liquids.
• Railway companies that transport dangerous goods be required to conduct route planning and analysis.
• Emergency response assistance plans be in place when large volumes of liquid hydrocarbons are shipped by rail.

Raitt will make the announcement at 12:45 ET Wednesday. CBCNews.ca will carrying the press conference LIVE.

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The House

• Nigel Wright won't face charges, what's next in the Senate-PMO scandal? Apr. 19, 2014 6:30 AM This week on The House, Evan Solomon looks into the ramifications of the RCMP's decision to not pursue charges against Nigel Wright. What does that mean for the Prime Minister's former chief of staff, for Mike Duffy, and for Stephen Harper? Paul Calandra, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, and Charlie Angus, the NDP's ethics critic, join us to discuss.

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