Bill C-51 amendments seem unconnected to committee process

Barring a last-minute scheduling change later this morning, the House public safety committee will kick off — and, most likely, wrap up — clause-by-clause review of the government's anti-terror bill.

And barring a last-minute legislative strategy change, Conservative committee members will arrive at that meeting with a handful of small, but not insignificant, proposed amendments, the details of which were helpfully provided to CBC News by a senior government official last week.

Among the changes the government is prepared to make:

• Removing the word "lawful" from the section listing exemptions to the new counterterror measures addressing protests
• Clarifying that CSIS agents, while newly empowered to "disrupt" potential threats, will not be able to make arrests.
• Establishing limits on inter-agency information sharing.
• Adjusting a provision that would have given the public safety minister the power to direct air carriers to do "anything" that, in his or her view, is "reasonably necessary" to prevent a terrorist act.

While it may be tempting for parliamentary power-boosters to pop the champagne at what could be seen as a textbook example of the committee system working as intended, such celebration might be premature.

As Green Party Leader Elizabeth May noted while presenting her proposed amendments on Monday, such changes are "encouraging," but she credits them to public pressure, not parliamentary due diligence.

"They didn't listen to witnesses," she said.

"They're watching the polls."

Tory members irrelevant?

The series of events that led to amendments for the bill would seem to back up her theory.

For one thing, the Conservatives actually on the committee — whose number includes Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney's parliamentary secretary, Roxanne James — appear to have either been playing their cards close to the chest during last week's hearings, or were all but irrelevant to the decision to amend the bill.

At no point during the 18 or so hours of testimony on the bill did even one of them publicly voice concerns over any of the provisions that they will now propose be tweaked in response to witness concerns.

In fact, in at least one case — removing the word "lawful" — multiple witnesses, including those who were largely supportive of the bill, had recommended exactly such a change, as they were worried that it could otherwise see protests involving peaceful non-violent disobedience captured under the new measures.

As First Nations lawyer, author and activist Pam Palmater explained during her appearance before the committee: "The second we do a round dance in the street without a permit, it very quickly becomes unlawful."

Several of those witnesses pointed out that, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, the Liberal government of the day had initially included a similar provision in its anti-terror package, but struck it from the text after the expert witnesses of the day expressed concerns over potential overreach.

In response, Conservative committee members did their best to get witnesses they clearly saw as sympathetic to the government position — current and former law enforcement and security experts — to try to debunk such claims with varying degrees of success.

Witnesses who raised red flags over the implications for privacy — another criticism expected to be addressed via amendment today — were greeted with similar skepticism.

Indeed, the federal privacy commissioner didn't even make the witness list.

The Tory committee members had been unwavering in their confidence that not even a comma in the bill needed changing. So it came as a shock to hear the government was prepared to rework some of the more problematic sections.

Major concerns unaddressed

Several major concerns have still not been addressed by the amendments to be put forward by the government, including a contentious provision to allow CSIS agents to seek judicial authority to breach the Charter of Rights and Freedoms while engaging in disruption activities, and a beefed-up no-fly-list policy that still leaves it to airline employees, not law enforcement, to inform passengers who have been deemed too dangerous to fly that they won't be getting on the plane as planned.

At the moment, it's not clear whether the Conservative contingent will also be advised to throw their majority support behind additional, opposition-backed amendments or vote to reject certain clauses entirely, which would also result in changes being made to the bill.

A similar parliamentary plot twist occurred last spring, when after weeks of doggedly defending every aspect of Democratic Reform Minister Pierre Poilievre's controversial bid to revamp Canada's election laws, Conservative committee members found themselves introducing amendments to address precisely the concerns they had dismissed as unfounded.

And while it is always encouraging to see a government respond to constructive criticism, it doesn't do much to bolster the belief that committees — and, by inference their members — are masters of their own destiny when you can see senior ministerial advisers pulling the strings behind the scenes.

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Aviation experts say 'hard landing' too soft a term for Air Canada crash

No matter what you call it, Air Canada Flight AC624's "hard landing" was a dramatic event, resulting in collapsed landing gear, a ripped-off engine and a severed nose cone after the jet began its skid 335 metres short of a snow-strewn Halifax runway.

Even so, hard landings are hardly extraordinary, say aviation experts. Any frequent flyer has likely felt one, or maybe even slept through the experience.

It's another matter, though, when the touchdown wrecks a plane or causes 25 passengers to be hospitalized, as it did on Sunday, says Gordon Dupont, a former accident investigator with the Transportation Safety Board.

Air Canada flight AC624 crashed early Sunday morning during a snowstorm at Halifax Stanfield International Airport. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada described the accident in a release as a 'collision with terrain,' though airline officials have been calling it a 'hard landing.' (Andrew Vaughan/Reuters)

On Monday, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada issued a release describing Sunday's Air Canada Airbus A320 crash as a "collision with terrain" rather than as a "hard landing," the term used by officials with Halifax Stanfield International Airport and Air Canada.

But, as Dupont sees it, employing hard landing in this instance is a bit soft.

"It's like a teenager comes home and says, 'Dad, I put a little dent in the car,' and the dad comes out and the whole side of the car is wiped out," he says.

"It's baloney. If the pilot didn't intend to land there, that, to me, is a crash landing."

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada lists 21 hard-landing aviation investigation reports since 1994, many involving helicopters.

The most recent occurred in May 2013 at Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., and two of the 21 involved Jazz flights, the budget service operated by Air Canada.

'Flaring' stage

Only hard landing accidents that result in aircraft damage, injuries or fatalities are recorded by the TSB.

And pilots pull off hard landings every day, often deliberately at smaller airports with shorter runways, Dupont said.

Transportation Safety Board investigators and airport firefighters work at the wreck site of Air Canada AC624 at Stanfield International Airport in Halifax. Airline and airport officials have described the accident as a hard landing, though some aviation experts beg to differ. (Andrew Vaughan/Canadian Press)

Landing gears, in fact, are designed to absorb firm touchdowns.

In an ideal landing approach, Dupont explained, the pilot pulls the nose up when the plane is a few feet above the runway, letting the main gear "kiss" the tarmac and glide to a smooth rest.

A hard landing occurs in the "flaring" stage when the nose pulls up too soon at the final approach, making the aircraft crunch down.

"If you've ever been through a landing that comes down with a thump, there's no damage or anything, but the pilots are saying, 'Damn, we just had a hard landing,'" said Dupont, who worked as an accident investigator for seven years before joining Transport Canada.

"It happens often, and it happens to good pilots."

Term wars

For its part, the Airline Transport Association of Canada dismisses the term "crash landing" as an oxymoron.

"It's either a crash or it's a landing," said president John McKenna. "We don't think there's such a thing as a 'crash landing.'"

The Airbus A320 suffered heavy damage in an accident in Halifax on Sunday. (REUTERS)

Following unusually bumpy landings, a carrier's on-board electronics will log whether the plane is in need of maintenance, but McKenna said commercial pilots also have an obligation to report abnormal landings.

Aviation lawyer Arthur Rosenberg suspects officials with Halifax Stanfield International Airport and Air Canada have been choosing their words carefully to downplay the aviation scare as something more mundane than what's shown in photos.

'I don't think anybody in the industry would describe the incident of what we've seen in the press so far as a hard landing.'- Bill Clark, Toronto aviation lawyer

Flight AC624 was carrying 133 passengers and five crew members when it smashed into an antenna array and clipped power poles before scraping along the ground on its belly.

Passengers were treated for minor cuts and bruises.

"The plane was demolished," Rosenberg said from his New York practice.

"A collapsed nose gear, collapsed main gear, bulkhead buckling, I can see the ripples from the skin on the leading edge of the airplane. Putting that all together, that was a crash landing."

'Rejected landing'

In 1997, Air Canada staff at the wreck site of Flight 646 painted over the carrier's logo the day after it lost control and slammed into a tree on arrival in Fredericton.

Of the 42 people on board that day, nine were seriously injured in the accident. TSB later classed it as a "loss of control on go-around" or "rejected landing" event.

The safety regulator describes other accidents as "crash on take-off," or "collisions" with terrain, trees and water.

The framing of Sunday's accident as something other than a crash is likely a public relations consideration for Air Canada.

There's otherwise "no legal basis" for how a crash or a hard landing would impact investigations, whether for insurance or Transportation Safety Board purposes, said Ehsan Monfared, a legal student with the Toronto aviation law firm Clark & Company.

"Those entities will come to their own conclusions as to what transpired, irrespective of how a carrier wishes to cast an event," Monfared said.

The firm's founder, aviation lawyer Bill Clark, suggested it was a botched "missed approach," which would involve a pilot electing not to land after approaching the runway, then passing around again to try again.

Whatever the cause of the accident, Clark and Monfared agree it was a far cry from a hard landing.

"I don't think anybody in the industry would describe the incident of what we've seen in the press so far as a hard landing," Clark said.

To read through the Transportation Safety Board's list of aviation investigation reports, visit the TSB website.

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Asking servers to wear revealing clothes could violate rights

When server Andrea Mottu was required to wear a bikini top for a Hawaiian-themed event at the Vancouver nightclub where she worked, her boss didn't expect her to show up in a turtleneck.

Andrea Mottu won a human rights complaint after the tribunal ruled the nightclub she worked at had vastly different dress standards for males and females. (Andrea Mottu)

"It wasn't that I had a problem with anyone wearing bikini tops," says Mottu, who now works in the legal field. 

"It was simply that I felt uncomfortable wearing one in a bar setting with intoxicated people where a pull of a string would be easy." 

​Mottu took her complaint to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal and was awarded $6,000 in 2004.

The tribunal found that the nightclub had vastly different dress standards for males and females; males were not asked to wear gender-specific clothing or a piece clothing that had sexual connotations.

Dress codes calling on serving staff to wear revealing attire have been a longstanding concern for some in the hospitality industry and drew more attention recently with the development of an Edmonton-based website, F.E.D.U.P. YEG (or Feminist Eatery Database — Undercover Project).

The project, created by four University of Alberta students, aims to highlight sexism and other discrimination issues in the food services industry by collecting survey responses from restaurant customers and employees.

Responses on the project's Twitter account included posts saying that some female servers were required to have their hair done a certain way, wear makeup, jewelry, short skirts, cleavage-revealing tops and heels.

Similar attire

While female servers in various restaurants across Canada can be seen in similar attire, in some cases where a server feels he or she is being discriminated against based on gender, a human rights claim could be filed, according to two employment lawyers practising with Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP.

Where an outfit sexualizes an employee, whether it be male or female, there can be successful sexual discrimination claims, lawyers say. (Associated Press)

"Where an outfit sexualizes the employee, whether it be male or female, there can be … successful claims that [are ruled]

a form of sexual discrimination," said Geoffrey Howard, a partner at the firm's Vancouver office.

Bettina Burgess, who practises in Gowlings' Waterloo Region office in southern Ontario, said males and females can have different dress codes, but they must be of similar types for a business to avoid sex discrimination complaints.

For example, if a female were required to wear a bikini top, it may not be a human rights violation if male staff were also required to wear similar "scantily clad outfits."

Burgess said the issue arises when dress codes are not comparable across sexes.

"[Dress codes] should be equal, they should be somewhat similar, but in accordance with what you would traditionally think a dress code would be for a male," she said.

Establishments that require female servers to wear short skirts and low-cut tops, for example, may also be liable for sexual discrimination if male servers are not required to wear similar revealing attire.

However, according to Howard, these cases are more on the "borderline," and may be harder to win than a situation involving a piece of clothing with sexual connotations, as in Mottu's case.

Challenge of interpretation

Donna Dooher, interim president and CEO of Restaurants Canada, said the association doesn't have any overarching policies on dress codes and that the interpretation of dress standards are challenging for both employees and employers.

'Everybody has a different approach and a different comfort level to what they would like to wear.'- Donna Dooher

She believes that servers are aware of dress codes before being hired and said they should ask during job interviews what attire will be required.

"Everybody has a different approach and a different comfort level to what they would like to wear," she said.

Mottu said that having worked in the service industry, she doesn't have a problem with dress standards if they are communicated before employment and are venue-appropriate.

"While the dress code requirements were not specific in terms of length of skirt or neckline of top, let's just say that I wasn't exactly wearing snowsuits to work," Mottu said in an email.

While servers who are required to wear revealing clothing may have a case, a complaint against an employer for having specific hair, makeup or jewelry requirements would likely be unsuccessful. According to Burgess, it would be more difficult to prove sex discrimination.

For servers complaining about the requirement of wearing heels, both Howard and Burgess said obtaining a doctor's note showing medical issues, or even showing research about the impact heels have on the body, would likely persuade an employer to allow flat shoes.

Issues of slipping and falling while in heels would be an Occupational Health and Safety concern and a server would have to prove there's a safety risk.

Heels and safety

However, Earls, one of the restaurants mentioned on F.E.D.U.P.'s Twitter account, recommends wearing heels to reduce safety hazards, says the company's communication manager Cate Simpson.

Simpson said in an email that lower shoes are accepted if they protect against stepping on glass, but a 2.5-centimetre heel or low wedge is preferred because "ballet flats don't offer enough protection or support."

Earls was the only restaurant to respond for comment out of several restaurant chains contacted by CBC.

Howard said that given the prevalence of Canadian restaurant chains that encourage revealing attire, he is "astounded" by how few formal complaints there are.

He suspected complaints aren't filed because servers may fear their hours being cut or termination. Simply complying with the dress code seems like the "path of least resistance" in some circumstances, he said.

Yet Burgess said formal complaints may not be necessary to change the dress standards in the industry.

"These things could be handled more the way they are in Edmonton — in a sort of consumer-boycott or consumer-activism kind of approach," she said.

"If society in general wants to change it, it can eventually change."

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Conservative government restarts search and rescue plane purchase

CBC News has learned the federal government is kick-starting the moribund program to purchase new search and rescue planes for the Canadian Forces.

The government Tuesday finally released a request for proposals to purchase aircraft to replace the aging fleet of Buffalo search planes.

That request today comes 10 years after the Liberal  government of Paul Martin first announced plans and funding for the program in 2005, and 13 years after the program was officially launched in 2002.

But under the Conservative government, that plan fell apart amid allegations the military had rigged the bid in favour of a specific aircraft.

Government and military officials have spent the past number of years working to develop a process to purchase new planes that both industry and contract workers inside government would certify as fair.

The government hosted a series of so-called industry days over the years to solicit the views of aircraft manufacturers and other defence industry players. That effort appears to have resulted now in an agreement over how the process should be run.

The request for proposal released Tuesday is an official request from the government to the defence industry for their best offer for aircraft, avionics and sensor systems, as well as long-term maintenance and support.

"The intent of the Department of National Defence (DND) is to procure a fleet of new sensor-equipped aircraft, including long-term In-service Support (ISS) for a period up to 20 years, in order to provide an effective response to SAR incidents anywhere in the Canadian area of responsibility," the government documents read.

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Polar bears in good shape, Inuvialuit hunters say in study

Scientists are worried about the survival of western Arctic polar bears, but estimates made according to Inuvialuit traditional knowledge tell a different story, a new study suggests.

"The new [scientific] estimates for the southern Beaufort is about 900 [bears], but we don't really believe that," said Frank Pokiak, chair of the Inuvialuit Game Council.

The Inuvialuit are the Inuit people of the western Arctic.

Traditional knowledge has always shown there are more bears out there than scientists estimate, Pokiak told CBC News: "That's part of the traditional knowledge we wanted to collect."

The study, published by the Wildlife Management Advisory Council, came from interviews with 75 hunters in all six Inuvialuit communities over a three-year period.

It found traditional knowledge holders in the region say the bears are healthy and their population is stable.

These findings don't necessarily mesh with the most recent findings by scientists.

However, the hunters and the scientists agreed about one thing, according to Lindsay Staples, chair of the North Slope arm of the advisory council in Whitehorse — the sea ice is changing.

But that doesn't necessarily mean their extinction looms, he said.

"Polar bears are very adaptable," Staples said, "and it would be very premature to suggest the fate of polar bears is a doomed one."

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Bell accused of 'ganging up' on resale buyers by blacklisting phones

A Montreal father is taking on Canada's largest telecom, after Bell blacklisted his teenager's phone — not because it was reported stolen, but because the original buyer didn't pay Bell for the device under contract.

"It infuriated me," said Jeremy Price-Williams. "It's a case of the big guys ganging up on the little guys."

"It's my phone, and they are blacklisting it for no reason," said David Price-Williams, 17.

The blacklist is part of an international phone database. Carriers flag phones its customers report lost or stolen, using an ID number unique to the hardware, so other telecoms will know not to activate them.

David Price-Williams and his father, Jeremy, are taking Bell to court after it blacklisted the teen's second-hand phone over billing issues with its previous owner. (CBC)

In an opposite case, a Vancouver customer is upset with Virgin Mobile — owned by Bell — because the carrier failed to blacklist her phone, after she emailed to report it stolen while on a trip to Nicaragua.

"It didn't get blacklisted, shut off, deactivated or anything," said Michelle Allen.

She said she had to battle with Virgin over $2,700 in roaming charges racked up by the thief. Allen said Virgin forgave the bill only after she threatened to go public with CBC.

"The blacklisting system doesn't seem to work. Or else, they are just using it when it is convenient for them," said Allen.

'Who owns the phone?'

David Price-Williams, the Montreal phone owner, suggested Bell is misusing the system by blacklisting phones it can't collect on after they are unlocked and resold to people like him.

Telecoms share information to prevent stolen phones from working on any network. (CBC)

"You should be able to buy used phones if you want. They shouldn't be controlling the market like that," he said.

His father is taking Bell to small claims court.  

"It all boils down to, who owns the phone? And everybody at Bell we spoke to said the seller … he has every right to sell that phone."

The teen bought the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 in December through an ad on Kijiji, with $700 scraped together from his minimum-wage earnings.

Price-Williams asked the seller for his ID and his receipt, which showed Bell shipped it to the same customer, at the same address as on his driver's licence. That name and address is also listed on Canada 411.

The teen also called Bell, asking if the phone was restricted by contract.

Resale OK'd by Bell

"[Bell] said it would be OK, and that the phone was totally fine for me to buy," said Price-Williams.

Weeks later, the device stopped working. Telus — his provider — told him it had been blacklisted by Bell. 

Michelle Allen says her phone was not deactivated when she reported it stolen to Virgin Mobile. She had to fight over $2,700 in roaming charges racked up by the thief. (CBC)

"Unless the previous owner has his account up to date, the phone will continue to be on the national blacklist," Bell wrote in an email to the teen's father.

"I have contacted our fraud team to see if we are able to make an exception, because you did give us a call prior to purchasing the unit. Unfortunately the answer I got was a no, as the national blacklist is not controlled by Bell."

The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association gave Go Public the opposite information.

"Each participating carrier … is solely responsible for their own use of the database," said spokesman Marc Choma.

Any phone can be shut down

Fine print on the blacklist website suggests any phone can be made useless, as all carriers share information through the system.

"In certain circumstances, a wireless service provider may block a particular wireless device because of billing issues with the owner," it reads.

"Other Canadian wireless carriers may or may not allow such a wireless device to be used on their wireless networks."

"They should be going after the original owner of the phone," said technology industry analyst Carmi Levy.

After several weeks of using his Samsung Galaxy Note 4, David's cellphone suddenly stopped working. When he called the family's service provider, it told him the phone had been blacklisted by Bell. (CBC)

"This makes it easier for the carriers to force you to buy new, because you are afraid to buy used because there's a greater chance of it being cut off from their networks. Of course you are going to go to their store."

The industry association called that "ludicrous," but also stressed consumers shouldn't buy phones posted on Kijiji and other sites.

Avoid resale sites, telecoms say

"We strongly advise that Canadians only purchase pre-owned wireless devices from trusted sources, such as retailers, service providers, family, friends or through a referral," said Choma.

He said the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association​ asked Kijiji to post warnings on used phone ads, warning they could be blacklisted, but Kijiji didn't co-operate. Kijiji didn't respond to that accusation, but sent Go Public a list of tips.

Choma also said telecoms have every right to blacklist phones for fraud against the telecom.

"Let's say someone … signs up for service … has no intention of ever paying … turns around and sells [the] subsidized device," said Choma. "That does ultimately create a billing issue for the carrier, but it is also fraud."

Bell told Go Public it doesn't blacklist phones over simple delinquent bills. Go Public asked how many phones it has blacklisted, but received no answer.

Technology analyst Carmi Levy suggests that the blacklist is being used to discourage consumers from buying used phones and to push them into buying new. (CBC)

Bell now claims it flagged the Montreal phone after it found the original buyer used a fake identity. That means it can't go after him for non-payment.

"At that point, we assigned the phone to the … database, as we do with all phones stolen via fraud or other means." 

Rogers told Go Public it does not blacklist phones for fraud like this — only when they are reported lost or stolen. Telus said it does report phones obtained through fraud, but said it would try to do the "right thing" for the innocent buyer in a case like this.

Meanwhile, in the Vancouver case, Bell said Virgin didn't blacklist or deactivate Allen's phone right away, because she reported it stolen via an email address it uses for billing.

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Tax season 2015: The disability tax credit and the push for fee limits

Mention the term "disability tax credit" to some people, and you'll get an earful.

It's not worth enough, some say, or applying for it is too complex, or the Canada Revenue Agency has unfairly turned down their claim, or the eligibility requirements are too restrictive, or their doctor says they're not eligible at all.

And then there are the fees that dozens of third-party consultants charge to help people claim the tax credit.

The CRA's own estimates show that at least 1.1 million Canadians are eligible for the credit, half of them seniors. But only 620,000 claimed it in 2012-13, saving themselves a total of almost $1 billion in federal tax.

So, it comes as no surprise that the whole process is now facing an overhaul, complete with new regulations, all aimed at putting more money in the hands of people who can use all the help they can get — disabled Canadians.

A federal consultation late last year heard from hundreds of disabled people and other interest groups with ideas on how to improve the tax credit. Could the application process be made easier? Are the rules around who can claim it too restrictive? Should there be a cap or limit on the fees that some clients have paid to access the money they're owed?

While we won't know for months exactly what the government is proposing to change, it's safe to say the push for change is on.

The ABC's of the DTC

The basic disability tax credit is an attempt to address, through the tax system, the added costs of living with an ongoing disability. People who qualify get tax relief that amounts to as much as $1,165 a year, with a supplemental benefit for those under 18 that's worth up to $680 a year. Provincial credits provide even more tax savings.

The requirements to be eligible for the disabled tax credit are laid out in the T-2201 DTC certificate application form. Among other things, there must be a prolonged impairment in physical or mental functions that must have lasted, or be expected to last, for a continuous period of at least 12 months.  

But the DTC is unlike other tax credits in that it must be applied for before the tax return is filed. It can't be claimed until the application has been approved. Claimants must fill out Part A of Form T2201 and then ask their medical practitioner to fill out and certify Part B, which spells out the specific medical impairment. It is the eight pages in Part B that can pose problems (more about that later).

The completed form (Parts A and B) is then sent off to the CRA. The ruling comes back usually within eight weeks. CRA figures show that, in recent years, about 90 per cent of the claims have been approved.      

Once approved, claimants can ask for a reassessment to claim disability tax credits going back up to 10 calendar years, depending on when they would have become eligible for the credit. Add up the federal and provincial credits, multiply by 10, and you quickly realize that there's a potential for a tax refund in the tens of thousands of dollars.

'Predatory practices'

A number of private-sector consultants have cropped up who will handle all the work for fees that the CRA says can take as much as 40 per cent of the refund.

Visually impaired Canadians are among those who qualify for the disability tax credit. (Bill Siel/Kenosha News/Canadian Press)

​Enter "disability tax credit consultants" into a search engine, and you'll be presented with a long list of firms that trumpet their success in getting refunds of $20,000, $30,000, even $40,000 for clients — for a fee.  While the consultants insist they provide a much-needed service, a few of them have been accused of being too aggressive. The whole idea of disabled people — many of whom live below the poverty line — giving up a third or more of their tax refund does rankle.

So, it is these tax credit consultants — the government calls them promoters — who are are the focus of 2014's bluntly named Disability Tax Credit Promoters Restrictions Act. 

Cheryl Gallant, the Conservative MP who introduced the legislation, told the House of Commons that it was designed to "better protect disabled Canadians from the predatory practices of some disability tax credit promoters."  

The act, which sets up a regulatory framework in what has been an unregulated industry, has now been passed. All that remains is for Ottawa to determine what limits should be placed on those fees.

The CRA says it doesn't track how many DTC applications are filed by third-party consultants because there is no requirement on the form to indicate whether a third party was involved or what fee they charged. But one firm advertises that it has helped more than 115,000 clients.

The consultants

The Association of Canadian Disability Benefit Professionals, which represents 12 firms that perform these types of services, says its members play by the rules and all cap their contingency fees at 30 per cent. If they don't win a refund claim, the client pays nothing other than a nominal application fee.

Conservative MP Cheryl Gallant introduced legislation to regulate the industry that charges contingency fees to help people apply for the disability tax credit. (Jonathan Hayward/Canadian Press)

​The CEO of one of those companies, Victoria-based Enabled Financial Solutions, insists she isn't getting rich off her 30 per cent fee.

Linda Chornobay says after factoring in the costs of marketing, office expenses, administrative staff, independent contractors and their own accountant, the fee is justified.

"We're not making a heck of a lot of money at the end of it," Chornobay said.

She also disputes arguments that charities or non-profits can offer the same level of service for free.

"They do not work with doctors. We do," Chornobay told CBC News, saying her staff sometimes have to go back and forth with doctors and the CRA for months on complex claims. 

"We are advocates," she says. "We often deal with people who get denied, and we get them approved." 

Chornobay acknowledges that people don't need to hire her firm for straightforward claims. "We only do the complicated ones," she said.

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Fee options the government is considering:

• Fixed maximum dollar amount. 
• Base dollar amount, plus an extra amount for each tax year amended. The extra amount could be a set dollar amount or a percentage of the refund.
• A graduated amount based on the size of the refund — a fixed percentage for the first part of the refund and a reduced fixed percentage for any amount over that first part. 

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A Winnipeg-based tax credit consultant says it isn't just potential claimants, but also their doctors, who frequently don't understand that severe disabilities are not the only ones that qualify for the DTC. The result, according to Barry Ho of BMD Services, is that doctors will often tell patients they don't qualify when, in fact, they do. Ho says he knows of doctors who have told patients they couldn't qualify for the DTC simply because they walked into the examining room and thus were assumed to be too mobile to qualify.

'Doctors, for the most part, do not understand how to complete the DTC certificate for the moderate and less-than-moderate groups.'- Barry Ho, BMD Services

"The key aspect of the DTC is for anyone involved to understand that the DTC qualifying rules include the severe, moderate and less-than-moderate restriction levels," Ho said. "Doctors, for the most part, do not understand how to complete the DTC certificate for the moderate and less-than-moderate groups."   

Ho, who is a former CRA auditor, says it would be more accurate to rename the disabled tax credit as "the health restriction tax credit." 

He defends his fee — 22 per cent — as appropriate for the level of work involved and says tax credit consultants provide "a key and needed service."  

'Last resort'

But charities and many other support groups counter that no one should be paying thousands of dollars to access their DTC refunds, no matter how complicated their cases.

"We're totally against these companies that are charging on a commission basis of 30 per cent or 40 per cent," said Neil Pierce, national vice-president of government relations for the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada.  

"We help people with appeals if they get an adverse decision [from the CRA]," Pierce told CBC News. "I don't see why, even supporting an appeal, you would pay such high commissions."

Where else can you go if you don't want to do the paperwork yourself?

'We don't think the private sector should be benefiting from long-term, restorative payments around the DTC. But we do acknowledge that some people need help.'- Laurie Beachell, Council of Canadians with Disabilities

"If people are uncomfortable with completing the process [of filing for the DTC] themselves, they could utilize the services of a qualified accountant and pay a few hundred dollars in fees," says Graeme Treeby, the founder of the Stouffville, Ont.-based Special Needs Planning Group, an organization of parents of individuals with disabilities.

Treeby, a former accountant who has written a step-by-step guide on how to claim the DTC, calls contingency fee consultants an "absolute last resort."  

The CRA has simplified the DTC claim form over the years. But disability advocates say the claims process can still pose some hurdles.

"It becomes more challenging for people with disabilities to do appeals of denials," says Laurie Beachell, national co-ordinator of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities. "We don't think the private sector should be benefiting from long-term, restorative payments around the DTC. But we do acknowledge that some people need help."

Beachell points out that some charities, community living groups and non-profit organizations will help claimants navigate the claims process for no charge.

The push for reform

How else could the DTC claims process be improved?

Some advocates suggest a harmonization of eligibility criteria between income support programs, pointing out that qualifying for a Canada Pension Plan disability payment does not automatically make someone eligible for the DTC.

Others would like to see a broadening of the definition of what qualifies to reflect the episodic nature of some disabilities.

Many also suggest the disability tax credit be made refundable. Currently, the disability tax credit is non-refundable, meaning that it's worth nothing to you if you don't earn enough to owe tax. And while it may be possible to transfer all or part of the tax credit that can't be used to one's spouse, common-law partner or other supporting person, some people have no one to transfer it to. Refundable tax credits, on the other hand, are paid out regardless of whether or not the person owes tax.

The non-refundable nature of the DTC has created a situation where some low-income disabled people don't even bother to apply for the DTC, thinking it won't benefit them. That can often be a mistake, as DTC certification has become a necessary requirement for a number of other government programs, such as RDSPs (registered disability savings plans) and the child disability credit.    

Everyone seems to agree that the DTC claims process could use at least some tweaking. But how much tweaking?Many don't agree that the whole process is so complex that people are forced to hire experts to navigate it. But consultants say that's often what their clients tell them.    

We'll find out later what the government has in mind when its proposed regulations are announced. A large community of disabled Canadians will be watching closely.

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Air Canada flight AC624: Hard landing or crash landing?

People who thought they might die as Air Canada flight AC624 slid along a Halifax runway Sunday might be forgiven for objecting when they hear the incident described as a "hard landing," but a retired military pilot says that's the correct term.

At least 25 passengers were taken to hospital after the Airbus 320 slid off the runway during snowy weather at Halifax Stanfield International Airport shortly after midnight on Sunday. Images from the scene show the plane on its belly with a heavily damaged nose and right wing.

Peter Spurway, an airport spokesman, said that the plane "took a hard landing," and Air Canada executive vice-president Klaus Goersch called it a hard landing during an afternoon news conference.

Passengers and people online have insisted it was a crash landing. "Stop with the Air Canada doublespeak," one person tweeted at CBC News.

However, retired military pilot Jock Williams told CBC News Network that a hard landing is a more accurate description.

The Air Canada jet slid off the runway during snowy weather at Halifax Stanfield International Airport on Sunday, sending at least 25 passengers to hospital. (Transportation Safety Board Canada/Canadian Press)

"The fact is Air Canada is not obfuscating," said Williams, who is also a former flight safety officer with Transport Canada. "They're using the technical terminology."

Williams said nobody is denying the incident was a crash. Goersch himself said "a crash is when an airplane doesn't make it to the gate, like in this incidence."

But Williams said there's a key difference between a hard landing and a crash landing: You can see a crash landing coming.

"A crash landing is something that you can set up for a long way back," Williams told CBC's Andrew Nichols. For instance, if a pilot knows his or her landing gear won't drop.

"You declare an emergency, you say we're going to be doing a gear-up landing on the runway at 15 minutes from now," Williams said.

Air Canada flight AC624 was a hard landing that became a crash, he said. 

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Future Shop stores lost out to fulfilled online shoppers

Electronics stores are suffering from the rise of the pampered, fulfilled cybershopper who can now get everything online, even advice.

Experts say it's no surprise that Future Shop shut down on Saturday, closing 66 of its stores and converting the other 65 to Best Buy outlets. It's just the latest in a string of electronic store closures including most recently, all 14 Canadian Sony stores.

While online shopping is growing in popularity, bricks and mortar electronics stores always had something extra to offer — the opportunity for consumers to experience the product plus expert advice from staff who could decode those complicated gadgets.

But industry critics claim that incentive is waning thanks to a growing plethora of online written reviews, videos, and forums. Now, shoppers can learn everything on the internet and then buy their electronics anywhere — from Amazon to Walmart.

Showrooming is so yesterday

'What information could that sales clerk give me that I couldn't get online?'- Ken Wong, marketing expert

Marketing expert Ken Wong says electronics shoppers have fewer reasons these days to step foot in a store because of what they can do online.

"They can access product reviews and comparisons, run price checks and even poll their network of 'friends' for their insights," says the Queen's University professor.

Both Future Shop and its parent company, Best Buy Canada, have been suffering for years from what's called 'showrooming' — customers check out the goods in their stores, get expert advice from staff and then buy the products for cheaper from online–only outlets with lower overhead costs.

But now, says Wong, the problem has worsened as customers don't even bother entering the store for advice where they might be roped into an impulse purchase.

"What information could that sales clerk give me that I couldn't get online?" he asks.

Free advice

Retail expert, Mandeep Malik points to online expert opinion websites such as CNET and PCWorld where electronics shoppers can read up on any hot electronics product — for free.

The McMaster University professor says consumers are more apt to trust free online reviews than those doled out by a salesperson paid to push product.

"People leverage those [online reviews] much more because they see them as [unbiased] views," he says.

Malik does note that many people are still shopping in stores as opposed to online. But, he says, because numerous consumers are finding advice on the internet, there's no reason to seek out an electronics specialty store.

"You can go pick up the same thing from Walmart and Costco," he says.

Couch surfers

Elias Peixoto, 21, doesn't even make it to Walmart or Costco. He says he buys most of his electronics online now and he always begins with a Google search to find advice.

He especially enjoys the "unboxing" videos on YouTube from the comfort of his couch. This is how he decided to buy the new iPhone 6.

"The reviewer will just tell you, here's what I like, here's what I don't like. And he'll show you the phone really up close within two to three inches of the camera so you can see everything about it," he says.

"I don't really have to go in to the store," he adds.

Marketing expert, Ken Wong, says Best Buy needs to fight back by offering in-store incentives such as unique items and opportunities to play with products — not just powered up TVs on the wall or stereo systems on display that can't be plugged in.

Best Buy turns to appliances

And it looks like Best Buy is on it. On the same day it announced the death of Future Shop, the company also stated that it is investing $200 million in both its stores and online shopping site to offer a "multi-channel customer experience."

The plan includes selling major home appliances in stores, a product many still prefer to buy in person. Best Buy is also promising to showcase better its in-store products and hire more staff to serve customers.

The company also plans to expand its program where online shoppers can reserve and then pick in-store items.

But, even with incentives, it may be a struggle to get contented shoppers off the couch and back into the electronics store when they are now served so well in cyberspace.

"It's a time-saver and so convenient because I can be sitting in my living room doing nothing and I can be shopping," says Peixoto.

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Is Canada's ISIS mission ready for Syria's moral maze?

In all of Canada's long military history, we've likely never known less about a territory we are about to attack than the Syria we're going bomb from on high.  

We're not alone in that ignorance as virtually no one today can figure out the full scale of the explosive, antagonist-rich tinderbox and moral disaster zone that is present day Syria.

Certainly not the U.S., nor the few Arab countries that will be our sole allies in bombing the ISIS operations there.

Our normal Western allies in these kinds of operations, including the British, French, Dutch, Danes and Australians, fear Syria is an impenetrable maze of horrors and want nothing to do with such attacks.

When British Prime Minister David Cameron tried to lead his country into bombing Syria in 2013, the U.K. Parliament acted as if he'd lost his marbles. A free vote of MPs roared a resounding "no way."

To put it squarely, there is a democratic and Western world consensus — minus only the U.S. and Canada — that feels military attacks on Syria are far too risky for military, political, legal and, yes, even moral reasons.

The moral objections may seem surprising at first, for surely there is "moral clarity," as Foreign Affairs Minister Rob Nicholson puts it, in attacking the murderous ISIS regime almost anywhere you find them.

The problem, however, is that it is not at all clear that Canadian attacks inside Syria won't make a chaotic situation even more deadly for innocent civilians.

For example, many argue that Western airstrikes would only help and embolden the Assad dictatorship, whose crimes against humanity probably surpass even ISIS itself.

Exacerbate local wars

The other, less acknowledged risk of Western intervention is that bombing ISIS targets in eastern Syria might encourage the spread of other groups involved in the fighting, in the process igniting more regional blood-feuds.

Given we know so little about what we are getting into, we might see both results — a strengthened Assad plus more local wars — without guaranteeing the eradication of ISIS.

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad is shown here during the filming of a BBC interview in February in which he said third parties were keeping him informed about the U.S. air strikes in Syria. (REUTERS)

As Sir Peter Wall, the former head of the British Army, warned Western nations recently, outside intervention might well only exacerbate local wars while making the interveners (in this case us) even more the focus of Islamic jihadists.

What's more, it is dodging the issue to think that Canada's contribution will be small, and relatively inconsequential.

Canada's airstrikes will have an impact. A half dozen CF-18 aircraft dropping packs of 500-pound bombs in successive waves will not be mere pin-pricks.

The U.S. values Canadian expertise in modern bombing, and looks to us to step up the pace of the offensive, as we did over Kosovo and, more recently, Libya.

But the moral dilemma is that while we will use the latest precision bombs we cannot be precise about the aftermath on the ground.

We will kill ISIS members, yes. But which militia groups will move in? Will civilians be saved, or just threatened, abused, even massacred again?

Rebel madness

What we do know about the Syrian civil war is that some of the groups fighting Assad and/or ISIS are almost as bad when it comes to atrocities.

Rights organizations have been warning for years of growing crimes against humanity by certain opposition militia, crimes that include torture, use of child soldiers and mass killings.

"We've seen a race to the bottom in Syria with rebel groups mimicking the ruthlessness of government forces with devastating consequences for civilians," says Nadim Houry, a deputy director of Human Rights Watch in the Middle East.

Yes, many opposition groups are worthy of support.

But it's important to remember that the so-called "National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces" is united in name only.

On the ground, there's an anarchy of hundreds of competing militias — the BBC has estimated there are up to 1,000 of them — who have failed to coalesce under one command because of bitter rivalries.

One of the most experienced observers of this catastrophic war, Stephen Starr, author of Revolt in Syria: Eyewitness to the Uprising, doubts unity will come anytime soon, as these fragmented rebel formations are ruled by narrow ambitions.

"Each local commander wanted to be boss, to take on and defeat Assad by himself," Starr wrote recently. "Instead the rebels have been torn apart by jihadist groups."

Dodgy detente

Civil wars are notoriously conducive to war crimes, as we saw during the 15-year Lebanese civil war (1975-90) next door where all factions, including Muslims and Christians, were guilty of extreme horrors.

Let's remember, too, that when the U.S. Marines tried to intervene in Lebanon that ignited whole new rounds of unpredictable fighting, even a Syrian invasion.

In this case, Canada's planned extension of the ISIS campaign into Syria is almost certainly only taking place under some sort of unspoken deal between the U.S.-led coalition and the profoundly offensive Assad regime — an understanding that is likely endorsed by the regime's key war-backers, Russia and Iran, as useful to Assad's survival.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says the air strikes in Syria are legal as they are in defence of Iraq and that anyway ISIS is unlikely to sue. (Reuters)

Prime Minister Stephen Harper insists there is no "explicit" agreement with Assad in place, but that is a meaningless argument in this context.

Syria's Russian-supplied air defences are much degraded but still potentially dangerous.

As neither the U.S. nor Canada wants to have to attack these air and missile defences, it's quite clear that some go-ahead to bomb has been obtained, even if it is just to avoid needless incidents.

What we are talking about is really a kind of dodgy detente that will permit Canada to bomb Syrian territory, and this is just one part of the moral maze we are now about to enter. We may be lost inside for quite some time. 

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Air Canada 624 crash landing: How events are playing out on social media

Yet another winter storm system was the least of the worries for travellers headed to Nova Scotia late Saturday night.

Travellers waiting for flights at Halifax Stanfield International Airport first reported power outages between 12:30 and 1 a.m. AT.

Not long after that, CBC reporter Chris Ensing received word that a plane had crash landed on the runway during landing.

Greg Wright was at the airport to pick up his 13-year-old son.

When Wright's son called him and said the plane had crashed on the runway, he first thought it was a joke.

One passenger reported seeing a flash of light and other passengers noticed power cut out at the airport below. That's when the plane hit the ground, bounced, struck the ground again and crash landed.

While most people referred to the event as a crash landing, Air Canada called it an "incident," with airport officials saying it was an "abrupt" or "hard" landing.

Some people on Twitter took issue with the terms being used in statements from the airport and Air Canada.

Meanwhile, it was reported that 23 of the 132 passengers on the flight were sent to hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries sustained in the crash.

Around 8 a.m. AT Sunday, Air Canada tweeted that 18 of those 23 passengers were released from hospital. No word on the extent of injuries.

The landing is under investigation by federal authorities and the exact cause is unknown, but some people on social media expressed concerns over air travel safety.

But as operations resumed and flights started moving again at the Halifax airport, some passengers expressed confidence in their safety flying out of the airport the same day.

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Medical pot users could help researchers dispel haze around risks, benefits

The number of Canadians authorized to use medical marijuana has skyrocketed, even as medical experts warn that not enough is known about its risks and benefits. Now some are calling for researchers to tap into that growing pool of users to help answer some of those questions.

In 2002, a year after the government first permitted access to therapeutic cannabis through Health Canada regulations, 500 patients had registered. Today, there are more than 50,000.

This has happened despite the official position of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) which says that, "there is insufficient scientific evidence available to support the use of marijuana for clinical purposes."

In 2002, a year after the government first permitted access to therapeutic cannabis through Health Canada regulations, 500 patients had registered. Today, there are more than 50,000. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press)

​The CMA says not enough is known about the effects of medical marijuana, the interactions between pot and other medications, or how to prescribe an appropriate dosage. It advises doctors they are not obligated to write cannabis prescriptions for patients.

That is causing frustration for some people with medical conditions who want the option of using medical marijuana rather than other types of prescription drugs.

"It was very difficult to get my prescription," said Jennawae McLean, who uses medical marijuana for chronic pain due to arthritis. "A doctor was willing to prescribe me Percocets and Humira and Lyrica and different pills like this, but they weren't willing to prescribe cannabis … which has no recorded deaths, no overdoses, no negative long-term side effects. It just doesn't make sense."

Medical marijuana is sometimes sold in the form of skin creams, edibles, oils, tinctures or topical medicines, even though this contravenes Canadian law. (The Canadian Press/Jonathan Hayward)

​A 2014 poll conducted by Angus Reid Global showed that 59 per cent of Canadians support the legalization of marijuana. However, the Conservative government is opposed to legalization beyond medicinal uses.

Government guidelines for the medicinal use of pot are outlined in Health Canada's Marihuana Medical Access Regulations (MMAR) and state clearly that prescriptions may be written only by a physician or nurse-practitioner; that medical marijuana must be purchased through a licensed producer, and only as dried plant material; and that it cannot be sold through a storefronts or retail outlets.

Thousands of Canadians are flouting those regulations, and nowhere more than in British Columbia. There are now more medical marijuana shops in Vancouver than there are Tim Hortons - and more shops than in the rest of Canada combined. These stores are selling cannabis and hashish with names like Purple Kush, West Coast Rockstar, Polar Hash and even Barbara Bud, in addition to a variety of edible marijuana products. On-site naturopaths provide medical marijuana access cards, in some cases to those who simply say they are feeling stressed.

Vancouver police are enforcing a prohibition on selling marijuana to minors, however they focus their criminal enforcement efforts on the trafficking of more serious street drugs, such as cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines.

Most of the research into the effectiveness of medical marijuana so far has focused on pain management. However, patients are using it for a variety of conditions ranging from Crohn's disease to chronic seizures. (CBC)

​Vancouver city councillor Kerry Jang said that, based on what has happened in Vancouver, he believes Canada already has de facto legalization of marijuana. "And quite frankly, I'm glad it's above ground in a dispensary where we can regulate and see what's going on, rather than underground."  

Now some are saying that studying this growing base of medical marijuana users could be the way for the medical community to fill gaps in our understanding of its risks and benefits.

Researchers have published thousands of peer-reviewed articles about medical marijuana, mainly on the therapeutic properties of the various cannabinoids found in cannabis plants. But "when you narrow the search down to clinical trials, the number drops dramatically," said Dr. Mark Ware, executive director of the Canadian Consortium for the Investigation of Cannabinoids.

​"If you think about conventional pharmaceutical drug development, there is usually a company behind a new drug that's investing hundreds of millions of dollars in doing those clinical trials in order to make a claim that this drug, at this dose, is effective in the treatment of this symptom, in this disorder," said Dr. Ware, who is also the director of clinical research at the Alan Edwards Pain Management Unit at the McGill University Health Centre.

Dr. Mark Ware says the medical community would benefit from "real world evidence," which could be gathered by monitoring the progress of the thousands of patients who are using therapeutic marijuana. (Tori Weldon/CBC)

​After government approvals, a conventional pharmaceutical drug is launched on the market and the company recuperates its investment. The problem, Dr. Ware says, is that, "there isn't such an interest in investing in that work for herbal cannabis, which is something you can grow in your backyard."

Most of the research into the effectiveness of medical marijuana so far has focused on pain management. However, patients are using it for a variety of conditions ranging from Crohn's disease to chronic seizures.

Dr. Ware says the medical community would benefit from "real world evidence," which could be gathered by monitoring the progress of the thousands of patients who are using therapeutic marijuana.

Meanwhile, patients who want legitimate access to medical marijuana are caught between the government regulations and doctors who don't feel they have enough information about it to provide a prescription. And most doctors who are willing to write marijuana prescriptions do not endorse smoking the drug, recommending instead that patients use it in a way that will not be potentially harmful to their lungs. This may include edibles, oils, tinctures or topical medicines, none of which may be sold legally under current federal rules - although it is legal to buy dried weed with a prescription and make your own.

Vancouver resident Owen Smith has challenged that law all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. It heard arguments on March 20 and has reserved judgment in the case. It can take at least six or seven months for the Court to publish its decision, which will be near the date of the next federal election, Oct. 19.

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On CBC Radio's The Sunday Edition, starting at 9 a.m. ET March 29:

Our Passwords, Ourselves: These days we are ruled by passwords. They give us access to the world through our phones, laptops, bank machines and credit cards. And that may not be such a good thing, writes Michael Enright.

How much medical is in medical marijuana?: An hour-long special report on cannabis for therapeutic use.

A life on hold - a Kate Wiley documentary: Shelly and Fred Muntau of Vancouver adopted an orphaned child from the Democratic Republic of Congo. But a bureaucratic catch-22 is preventing little Pedro from coming to Canada to join his adoptive parents. They can't get a Canadian visa for him without an exit letter from the Congo, and they can't get an exit letter without a visa.

Gideon Levy - the most hated man in Israel: Gideon Levy is a highly controversial columnist with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, who has made life in the Occupied Territories his beat. He is a fierce critic of what he describes as the routine brutality experienced by the Palestinians, and of the settler movement. He has received death threats, and has been labelled a propagandist for Hamas. Levy, who calls himself an Israeli patriot, advocates an international boycott against his own country.

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MPs set for tighter squeeze into Canada's next Parliament

In politics, voters often want nothing more than to throw the bums out. But in Ottawa these days, the question being asked is how to squeeze even more bums into the seats in the House of Commons.

The number of ridings represented on Parliament Hill will grow in the next election. Under the government's Fair Representation Act, introduced in 2011, the House will expand by 30 seats.

Federal bureaucrats have been scratching their heads since the legislation passed, trying to draw up plans to fit 338 MPs into a chamber that now fits just 308. When Parliament is dissolved in the coming election, those plans will finally be put into action.

Nancy Chahwan, assistant deputy minister at the Department of Public Works, dropped some hints this week.

"We will be ready," Chahwan said during an appearance before a Commons Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.  

"We have been working for a good period of time with the House of Commons to design additional seats."

House of Commons to install theater seating for new MPs1:52

Chahwan revealed that the two back rows of seats on both sides of the Commons will be replaced with what she calls "theatre seating." 

As the name suggests, these seats will fold up to save space. There will also be more of them to cram in 30 more MPs.

Newly released photos from Public Works Canada show the new seats will be designed to blend in with the older ones. The department expects the new seats to be installed by the fall of 2015, in time for the next Parliament.

The project is expected to cost $2.75 million. Public Works says that includes the design, manufacture and installation of the new seats as well as the cost of wiring up the microphones and earpieces at MPs' desks for translation and communications.

'Can't stack us up like cordwood'

New Democrat MP Pat Martin, who is a trained carpenter, said he likes the design of the new seats. Martin is chair of the government operations and estimates committee. This week was the first time he had heard any details about the plan to rip out the back two rows of the Commons, he said.

"They can't stack us up like cordwood," he said after looking at photos of the new seats.

"Thirty more MPs are going to arrive.… come hell or high water. So, I have to admit they've come up with a pretty creative solution."

In the fall of 2015, 30 new MPs will enter the House of Commons forcing a new, tighter seating arrangement. (Public Works Canada)

Martin questions the cost of the project, however. 

"It does seem a staggering amount of money to buy a bit of office furniture," he said.

Martin also sees some potential drawbacks. In the current setup, most MPs sit two-by-two. With the new design, some members in the back rows of the Commons will be relegated to that place every air traveller tries to avoid — the middle seat.

Plus-size MPs test new seats

The new folding chairs are designed to at least be comfortable, even if a MP has to shimmy past colleagues to take a phone call or answer the call of nature. To that end, when the seats were first unveiled, five MPs who are of larger stature were invited to try them out. 

"We called ourselves the Big Five," said Conservative MP Joe Preston, who was part of that trial run.

These are prototypes of new seating that will be featured in the House of Commons after the 2015 elections brings 30 new MPs. (Public Works)

Preston declined to identify his four plus-sized seatmates, but said they could all sit together in a single row of the new seats.  

"These seats were incredibly good," he said.

No matter how comfortable, MPs won't be sitting in the new chairs very long. Centre Block on Parliament Hill, which is home to both the House of Commons and the Senate, is set for a major multiyear renovation that's scheduled to begin in 2018.

The plan is for the Commons to move to a temporary home in West Block while the work is being done. Public Works says it has not been determined yet whether the new theatre-style seats will be a permanent fixture in the Commons or if they'll be torn out and replaced with something else.  

The overall cost of refurbishing Parliament now stands at roughly $3 billion.

In their appearance before the Commons committee this week, Public Works officials assured the panel of sometimes skeptical MPs that the project is running on time and on budget.

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Why it took an hour to get passengers off Halifax runway

It took almost an hour to get everyone off the runway and into shelter after the crash landing of Air Canada Flight 624, according to Peter Spurway, spokesman for the Halifax International Airport Authority. 

​​A fire truck arrived at the scene within 90 seconds of the very rough landing of the plane from Toronto. The crew first assessed the aircraft for flames, smoke or fuel leaks. 

When they'd established it was safe, they began to triage the "most vulnerable" passengers and brought them into the truck to keep warm. 

'There was quite an impact. It came down pretty hard and skidded before coming to a halt.'- Peter Spurway

The firefighters set up tarps as a makeshift shelter for everyone else. It took 50 minutes to get everyone inside the airport. 

Spurway said it took that long as it's dangerous to let passengers walk on the "active" runway and that at 12:50 a.m. on a Sunday, there were no shuttle buses available. Some passengers wore only shorts, T-shirts and sandals. 

"The emergency response team was there immediately. Their primary purpose is to ensure that there is no fire or explosion danger in the immediate area," he said. "Then they turned their attention to the passengers who were at that point, of course, out of the aircraft and adjacent to it.​"

He said airport staff scrambled to find safe ways to get everyone inside. "The simple matter is that it's not as if we have buses sitting and running and waiting to go. I do apologize to the passengers," Spurway said. 

Spurway said the plane hit the ground "thousands of metres" away from the terminal and far enough away from the other runway that they believe it is safe to use that other runway. 

He said the power was on, and went out at the time of the incident, or shortly after the incident. 

Asked about the difference between a crash landing and a hard landing, he said, "If you're a passenger, probably [there] isn't a whole lot of difference."

Spurway spoke to a flight attendant friend who was on the plane. ​"There was quite an impact. It came down pretty hard and skidded before coming to a halt. So it was definitely a hard landing for sure," he said. 

It was snowing at the time, conditions the tower would have passed onto the aircraft, he said. 

Spurway said the airport will look at their response in this incident to see how they can improve in the future. 

Emergency responders guide shocked passengers away from the plane. Many left everything behind and had just the clothes on their backs. (Denis Lavoie)

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Alberta's new Wildrose leader 'doesn't believe in crossing floors'

It is the first day in power for the new leader of Alberta's Official Opposition party and Brian Jean is primed for a fight, taking a hard jab at former leader Danielle Smith.

Jean, a former member of Stephen Harper's Conservative caucus defeated two challengers to become the leader of the Wildrose Party last night in Calgary.

The party has been without a permanent leader since Danielle Smith led eight other party member across the flood to join Jim Prentice's Progressive Conservatives. The move decimated Alberta's Official Opposition.

Jean, a 52-year-old lawyer from Fort McMurray, Alta. is ready to push the party out of the shadow Smith left behind, he says Smith made a decision he would never make.

"I don't believe in crossing floors, I don't believe in stabbing your family in the back," Jean said after Saturday night's victory. "This is a family, this is my family and I'm not going to betray my family."

During his campaign for leadership, Jean said if elected, he would immediately enter into a contract between himself and the party for $100,000 in liquidated damages if he crossed the floor.

The people in Smith's riding showed last night they were unwilling to forgive Smith for what she did to the party. Last night, Smith lost the PC nomination race in the Highwood riding to Carrie Fischer, a councillor from Okotoks.

"I'm a big believer in democracy and the rule of law, and we have in Alberta a situation where we had the governing body, the governing party, try to destroy democracy, tried to destroy the parliamentary democracy that makes Canada great," Jean said.

"We have to have a government but we also have to have a strong opposition and that's what Jim Prentice tried to destroy,"

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Canada's Nguyen 5th in men's free at figure skating worlds

New

Toronto native soars from 9th spot; Fernandez claims gold

By Doug Harrison, CBC Sports Posted: Mar 28, 2015 10:51 AM ET Last Updated: Mar 28, 2015 11:18 AM ET

An aggressive approach by Nam Nguyen paid off Saturday, but didn't result in a podium finish for the Toronto figure skater.

The 16-year-old climbed from ninth place to finish fifth in the men's free skate at the world championships in Shanghai, China.

"In the long program I needed to be more aggressive," Nguyen told reporters. "I achieved that today and I'm really happy with myself."

Fellow Canadian Jeremy Ten of Vancouver placed 22nd.

Spain's Javier Fernandez cleanly landed two quad jumps to earn the gold medal, while Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan and Denis Ten of Kazakhstand finished second and third, respectively.

Comments on this story are moderated according to our Submission Guidelines. Comments are welcome while open. We reserve the right to close comments at any time.

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Child dies in Toronto townhouse fire, mother and 3 other children hospitalized

A child is dead after an early morning fire at a townhouse in Scarborough, Ont., that also left the boy's mother and three other children injured.

Firefighters were called to a three-storey townhouse on Kingston Road, between Galloway Road and Lawrence Avenue East, shortly before 6 a.m. ET.

Two children were initially found without vital signs but were later revived by crews and taken to hospital, according to paramedics.

One of the four children later died, police said.

The three other children and their mother are listed to be in critical to life-threatening condition, according to officials.

The fire was knocked down quickly and no other townhouses were affected, according to fire commander Danny MacIsaac.

The fire appeared to have started in the kitchen but the investigation is still ongoing, MacIsaac said, and the fire marshal has been called in. 

Peter Rotolo, operations commander with Toronto Parademics Services, said first responders quickly arrived at the scene.

"When you hear something like this, everyone responds appropriately and quickly," Rotolo said.

The incident has also been difficult on first responders because of the involvement of children, both MacIsaac and Rotolo said.

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Pregnant in limbo: How vulnerable women pay for Canada's universal health care

Friday March 27, 2015

The numbers in Canada are hard to nail down, but advocates say there are at least 500,000 people living in Canada who don't have provincial health insurance. And tens of thousands of them are pregnant women.

For many of them, the excitement of bringing a new life into the world comes along with a lot stress and anxiety. They worry that they won't be able to afford the care they and their babies need to be healthy.

But does Canada have a duty to care for these women and their unborn children? Healthcare workers who work with uninsured pregnant women say there's no question Canada does.

Manavi Handa, a Toronto-based midwife, says prenatal care is one of the most cost-effective interventions in all of medicine. She says free healthcare for all pregnant women is not only the right thing to do ethically, but it makes a lot of financial sense too.

"Some studies have shown that every dollar spent on prenatal care saves four dollars to the healthcare system," says Handa.

These are the three stories of women featured in this week's Day 6 documentary, Pregnant in Limbo. The piece was produced by Day 6's Beza Seife.

Yaimy 

When Yaimy found out she found out she was pregnant, she says she had just arrived from Mexico to join her Canadian husband and that the pregnancy wasn't planned. She's waiting for her permanent residency application to be accepted under her husband's sponsorship.

Because of her previous pregnancy, she had to have a medically-necessary caesarean section. 

"Everyone says health care in Canada is free. When I arrived, they told me at the border that I would be able to get health care but nobody told me about this three month wait," she says. In Ontario new-comers need to wait the months before having access to free health care.

Her husband Joel says he made payment arrangements with the hospital ahead of time, when he learned Yaimy wasn't covered for her c-section.

So on the day of Yaimy's scheduled c-section, he says he was shocked when the anesthetist asked him to hand over $800 in cash as his wife was lying in the hospital bed with an IV in her arm. He says the doctor told him she wouldn't administer his wife any medication without the cash.

"Honestly, it's crazy. I go to the bank, I bring the money because I need it for her [Yaimy]," he says.

The anesthetist in this case denied Day 6's interview request.

Saira 

Saira Waheed arrived in Canada from Qatar earlier this year with her husband and two children. Canada approved them as permanent residents before they landed in Toronto.

Because of her previous pregnancies, Saira has to undergo a medically-necessary caesarean section, which she was told could cost $10,000 to $15,000.

"I went to a lot of places for help when I first found this out, and I was basically told the same thing: that there's nothing you can do to avoid the wait, and that this is a government process," she says.

Saira says she and her family have spent the little savings they brought with them to get settled, and that they have no fund or plan to cover the cost of her c-section.

Pamela

Pamela is a 25-year-old woman living in Vancouver, with her common-law Canadian partner and her two year old son. After arriving from Mexico on a tourist visa, her partner has now sponsored her to become a permanent resident.

Day 6 agreed to use a pseudonym because she fears going public with her story could negatively affect her permanent residency application.

"I had no idea what to expect with health care. We just thought we go to the hospital and pay, and done. But we didn't think it was going to be that much," says Pamela, about the $10,000 she says the hospital quoted her to deliver her baby there.

So Pamela ended up having her baby at home with a midwife. She says she would have much preferred to have delivered in the hospital, just steps away from her apartment, but without health coverage she says just couldn't afford it.

 "It was so hard, with no painkillers or drugs.  I was so scared. And I just kept thinking should I have gone to the hospital in the first place? I was in the middle of having a baby and they're [the midwife and doula] telling you that you might end up at the hospital. That's very scary," she says.

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Future Shop stores closed across Canada, some to become Best Buy

Dozens of Future Shop stores have been closed across Canada, its parent company Best Buy Canada Ltd. announced Saturday.

The company said it was shutting down 66 Future Shop stores effective immediately. Meanwhile, another 65 stores will be closed for a week while they are converted to Best Buy stores.

"Currently, 80 per cent of our customers are within a 15-minute drive to a store and this won't change," Best Buy president and CEO Ron Wilson said in a written release.

The company said approximately 500 full-time and 1,000 part-time positions will be eliminated as a result of the consolidation.

"Any decisions that impact our people are never taken lightly; our first priority is to support them through this change. I want to express my appreciation to the employees who are leaving, for their contributions to Best Buy Canada."

News of the consolidation came as a shock to employees across the country on Saturday morning.

"We were called into a meeting [at 7 a.m.]," said one man employed as a computer sales representative at a Future Shop in Quebec City. "They did offer you choices ... but it was the package deal I took, so that's it."

A woman at the store said, "I'm keeping my job. I'm a customer service rep."

"This store is permanently closed," read signs posted for customers at affected stores. "We thank you for your support and look forward to serving you at your nearby Best buy store."

A group of Future Shop employees hug each other outside their Quebec City store after the receiving the news. (CBC)

The notice awaited Janet Boudreau as she arrived at a Future Shop in Dartmouth on Saturday to shop for something she couldn't find at Best Buy.

"They didn't have what I wanted so I came to Future Shop, and I guess I'm not getting it here either," she told CBC News.

"It's sad. I liked Future Shop better. The people were very accommodating and I always found what I wanted. I'm disappointed."

Best Buy will honour Future Shop gift cards at any location across the country. Existing product orders, service appointments and warranties will continue to be honoured, and Future Shop purchases can be returned or exchanged at any Best Buy location.

Future Shop was purchased by Best Buy in 2001 for $580 million.

In a statement announcing the latest move, the Burnaby, B.C.-based retailer said it reviewed all locations for both retailers and found some were so close, they shared the same parking lot.

Two years ago, Best Buy spoke of how it had to adapt to a "changing retail landscape" where online stores were winning a greater share of the electronics market as it closed eight Future Shop and seven Best Buy big box stores across the country.

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Are selfies a boon or blight to museums?

Visitors to the Royal Ontario Museum during the first Museum Week organized by Twitter are there not just to see, but to be seen – in the selfie photos they snap in front of their favourite pieces of art or archeological artifacts. 

Pop stars Beyoncé and Jay Z pose in front of the Mona Lisa in a selfie-style photo taken by an assistant at the Louvre Museum in Paris.

​The Greek and Roman busts seem particularly popular – unwitting props of the social media generation that seems to believe "if you didn't photograph and tweet it, it didn't happen." The staff at the ROM now not only condone, but encourage it.

"It's been huge for us," said Ryan Dodge, the ROM's social media co-ordinator, in an interview with CBC News, adding that the museum started permitting photography six years ago. 

Dodge and his colleagues personally take visitors to the best spots to snap photos of themselves.

"For us, it shows that you can have fun in the museum, that the museum is fun," he said.

The ROM is in good company as many other major arts institutions have accepted, even celebrated, the "selfie" as a way to maintain their relevance, especially with those elusive younger visitors.

Selfie sticks

What few museums share is the ROM's permissive attitude towards selfie sticks. The levers that allow your smartphone to take a better photo without awkwardly extending your arm are seen as a danger to artifacts, causing museums like The Smithsonian in Washington to ban them.

Some critics believe the real problem lies not with the selfie sticks, but with selfies themselves.

British arts blogger Michael Savage has been a vocal opponent of the selfie in museums.

"It distracts from an engagement with art," said Savage in an interview with CBC News in London. "Instead of being about works of art, the greatest achievements of human civilization, it becomes about the individual, it becomes about putting yourself into the picture."

Complaints from visitors

Savage's feelings are echoed by officials at Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum, which reinstituted its ban on selfies and other photography a year ago.

Tourists use a selfie stick outside the Louvre. The device is popular among museumgoers, but many institutions have banned it, saying it could damage art works. (Remy de la Mauviniere/AP)

​In an email to CBC News, museum press officer Maartje Kevenaar said it was out of respect for the wishes of visitors who wanted to view the art in peace.

"During research we did about visitors' feelings about taking pictures in the museum in 2013, we received a lot of complaints about taking pictures by visitors."

But even the Van Gogh Museum had to make a move to accommodate those who want to take selfies.

Its staff has put up enlarged replicas of the most popular paintings in a special room in the gallery where the selfie-takers can snap away to their heart's content.

That kind of compromise may well be the future for arts institutions torn between the desire to preserve the traditionally reverential attitude towards art while still offering younger visitors the engaging environment they want.

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Ontario Sunshine list adds 13,600 workers who earn $100K or more

​A total of 111,438 public sector workers in Ontario were paid more than $100,000 in 2014, according to details included in the so-called Sunshine List released this morning.  

 The annual sunshine list, which includes nurses, teachers, police and firefighters, in addition to provincial civil servants, grew by more than 13,600 workers over 2013. 

 Reporters are still poring through the six-volume report of big earners, but it appears Ontario Power Generation CEO Tom Mitchell topped the list again with $1.55 million in salary and benefits.

There are about 12,500 employees from OPG, Hydro One and their subsidiaries on the 2014 list, up by nearly 1,000 over 2013, when the auditor general warned those salaries were driving up electricity rates.

Premier Kathleen Wynne was paid just over $209,00 last year, up about $10,000 from 2013.

 Last year's list filled five binders, leading some to argue the $100,000 threshold is too low. Others, however, insist that $100,000 remains a lot of money to most Ontarians and that disclosing the list goes a long way toward government accountability.

The Public Salary Disclosure Act requires organizations that receive public funding from the Province of Ontario to disclose annually the names, positions, salaries and total taxable benefits of employees paid $100,000 or more in a calendar year.

The act was brought in under the Mike Harris-led Progressive Conservative government in 1996. At the time, Harris said it served as an important check on the public payroll. If the list was adjusted for inflation since 1996, the real benchmark salary would now be around $145,000.

The act applies to organizations such as the Government of Ontario, Crown agencies, municipalities, hospitals, public health boards, school boards, universities, colleges, Hydro One, Ontario Power Generation, and other public sector employers who receive a significant level of funding from the provincial government.

Tom Mitchell, chief executive of Ontario Power Generation, topped last year's list with earnings of $1.71 million. Carmine Marcello, chief executive of Hydro One, brought in $728,570.

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Good Samaritan intervenes to stop brutal sex assault in Vancouver

A woman was brutally sexually assaulted in Vancouver's Strathcona neighbourhood​ on Thursday afternoon, and police now have a 25-year-old man in custody. 

According to Vancouver police, the man barged into the woman's house in the 800 block of Union Street just after noon, tied her up and sexually assaulted her. They allege he was armed with a weapon.

Another man heard the woman's screams and intervened, getting into a fight with the alleged assailant. Several other people rushed to the aid of the woman, the struggle spilled out onto the street, and they held the assailant until police arrived.

Dog walker Amber Ritchie witnessed the assault.

"It looked like something out of a horror movie," she said.

"She [the victim] was covered in blood. I'm pretty traumatized. I'm sure it will haunt me for a while. It was a real, brutal, nasty, rape scene."

Police say the woman was rushed to hospital and suffered "significant" but not life-threatening injuries. 

While police discourage witnesses from intervening, they described the man who rushed to the woman's aid as a "hero" and a Good Samaritan.

Plans are now in the works for a prayer walk for the woman as well as recognition for those who helped her. 

"I'm really proud of them for doing that," said Pete Fry, who lives in the neighbourhood.

"As a small token we just started a little coffee fund because we're all Union Market locals and thought at least we can honour them in some way but I think ultimately we're all pushing towards doing something more meaningful for the victim." 

According to Cost. Brian Montague, the alleged attacker did not know the woman. 

"It appears random," he said. "It is a stranger attack, and there's nothing to suggest this is targeted at all." 

Montague said the assailant was armed with a weapon when he entered the woman's house. 

"Minding your own business, not doing anything wrong, and a stranger enters your home, you can't do anything as a victim to prevent that," he said.

"Thankfully, there were people nearby. She did the right thing, she fought and screamed, drew the attention of somebody else."

Police are recommending several charges against the man in custody, who they say has a criminal record outside of B.C. There is a warrant out for his arrest from London, Ont,. for failing to comply with a probation order.

Police said he recently moved to Vancouver and that they have had previous contact with him.

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Buckingham Palace comes calling for origins of Canada's Windsors

Officials from Buckingham Palace could soon be calling Canadian cities and towns named Windsor.

England's Royal Collection Trust, which is responsible for the care of the Royal Collection and manages the public opening of the official residences of the Queen, will publish a book on the history of Windsor Castle in 2016.

Windsor Castle is the Queen's summer and weekend retreat. It is the largest and oldest continually inhabited castle in the world. It began as a Saxon village more than 1,000 years ago, and has been home to British monarchs since William the Conqueror in 1086.

"As part of research for the book, we have been looking into the history of other places across the world which share the Windsor name," Royal Collection Trust senior press officer Hannah Dolby wrote in an email to CBC.

Windsor Castle, Queen Elizabeth's summer and weekend retreat, is said to be the largest and oldest continually inhabited castle in the world. (Lefteris Pitarakis/Associated Press)

Windsors from around the world will be featured in an introductory chapter on "the fame of Windsor," Royal Collection Trust director Jonathan Marsden wrote in a letter to the Windsor Public Library.

In Canada, there are at least four municipalities — three towns and a city — and a mountain that share the name. There is a Windsor in Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia. There is also Grand Falls-Windsor in Newfoundland and a Mt. Windsor in British Columbia.

Officials have already contacted several Windsor communities in North America, including Windsor, Ont.

"I understand that in 1892 there was a debate on the most appropriate name, and it would be very interesting to have firsthand evidence from that time for the choice of Windsor," Marsden wrote to the Windsor Public Library.

What's In a Name?

Tom Vajdik, a librarian at the Windsor Public Library, said he received a letter from Buckingham Palace in February asking him about how his city got its name.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, the area now known as Windsor did not have an actual name. It was generally called The Ferry, Detroit Ferry, Sandwich Ferry from Detroit or L'Assomption, Vajdik said.

Only about an 800-metre span of the Detroit River separates Windsor from Detroit, Mich.

"One of the settlers was going to subdivide his lots so he could build houses," Vajdik said. "He was going to call his subdivision South Detroit. A lot of people didn't like this name, so they got together at a tavern to pick a name. The two options were Richmond and South Detroit."

There was a tie between those options and James Dougall, the namesake of one of the city's main north-south thoroughfares, suggested Windsor as a compromise.

It was different enough from either proposal to keep supporters of both ideas happy and carried a bit of a regal dignity, Vajdik said.

It remained part of the Border Cities, a group of several communities stretching along the Detroit River, until those smaller communities were amalgamated into the City of Windsor in 1935.

Take a tour of Windsor Castle in the video below:

CBC News contacted some of the other Canadian communities that share the regal name to find out where their names came from.

Paul Beazley, the mayor of Windsor, N.S., said his community has a similar story — and claims to be the birthplace of hockey — but the community has not been contacted by Buckingham Palace.

'You're publicly identifying … where your traditions are.'- Adam Pole, history lecturer, University of Windsor

The Nova Scotia Windsor is located in the heart of the Annapolis Valley, which was an important strategic point for both the French and British during their wars for control of North America in the 1700s.

"There's no specific pinpoint of why the town is named Windsor," he said. "We think it relates to the British fort, Fort Edward, that was established here in the early 1700s."

Communities sprung up around the safety of the fort and Beazley said the decision to call itself Windsor was directly related to historic places in Britain.

But Windsor, N.S., might be most famous for its claim as the birthplace of ice hockey, Beazley said. According to local legend, students at King's College went out to play "hurling on the long pond," inventing the game of hockey in the process 250 years ago.

Grand Falls-Windsor, N.L., is the result of an amalgamation of two smaller communities.

Grand Falls was established in 1905 as the newsprint supplier to the Associated Newspapers group, which published Britain's Daily Mail and Daily Mirror newspapers.

In 1902, the Anglo-Newfoundland Development Company was formed and a mill followed in 1905. With the prospects of jobs, the population grew. In 1991, the two amalgamated into Grand Falls-Windsor. 

A connection to home

That these communities would take names directly related to Britain makes sense, said Adam Pole, a lecturer in the history department at the University of Windsor. Many 19th century British immigrants to Canada came for economic reasons rather than political reasons and still kept their emotional connections to the British Empire intact, he said.

Families often immigrated a few people at a time, and settlers often left their immediate family across the ocean. Canada remained a major supporter of the British Empire right through the First World War.  

"If you think about why you would choose a particular town or city, and you're marking it out and by choosing a name that's linked with royalty and the homeland," Pole said. "You're publicly identifying your sense of place and your community with where you come from, where your traditions are."  

This is a copy of the letter Buckingham Palace sent to the Windsor Public Library.

Buckingham Palace Letter

CBC is not responsible for 3rd party content

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