Roundup: A flawed way to fix the CRA’s mistakes

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Remember the issue with self-employed Canadians applying for CERB, and being told they were eligible for gross income only to later be told that no, it was really net, and they may have to repay it? And then the government came to the realization that they were going to find themselves in serious trouble (such as a class action lawsuit) if they didn’t change course, and let those CERB payments go ahead? Well, for the people who made repayments, they can get that money back – but they have to apply for it. And that becomes the real trick.

With that in mind, here is Jennifer Robson raising some concerns with the whole thing, because CRA is not doing this very well. And that could be a problem for some of the people this is supposed to have been helping in the first place.

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau delivered the official apology to Italian-Canadians interred during the Second World War, but the blanket apology may absolve actual fascists.
  • Trudeau also announced a programme where people can get $5000 grants for home energy retrofits.
  • Moderna is promising two million doses by the middle of June, but the lack of predictability is impacting provincial vaccine rollouts.
  • An expert panel is recommending the government wind down its hotel quarantine programme because there are too many loopholes.
  • Dominic LeBlanc says the government is looking to name the new Governor General before June 24th (which is Saint-Jean-Baptiste, possibly signalling a Francophone).
  • The government says they are willing to accept some NDP amendments to their Net-Zero Accountability legislation in order to get their support to pass it.
  • Veterans Affairs is seeking public input over five designs for a national monument to the Afghanistan war.
  • A current legal dispute over the independence of military judges is going meta at the appeal court, where the independence of those judges is being questioned.
  • A Black federal civil servant says that she was paid thousands of dollars to withdraw a complaint of racial discrimination.
  • The CRTC handed down a decision on wholesale internet rates to favour incumbents, and nobody but the incumbents are happy (including the government).
  • In their attempt to divine the next election date, CBC calculates that 142 MPs won’t get their pensions if parliament is dissolved before October 19th.
  • Mark Carney appeared before committee yesterday and was badgered and hectored by Pierre Poilievre throughout.
  • Jagmeet Singh had to apologise for being caught breaking COVID protocols.
  • Doug Ford wrote to dozens of doctors, scientists and educators, demanding consensus on school reopening – likely a tactic to wash his hands of it.
  • Gerald Butts raises the legitimate concern that Quebec’s Bill 96 is yet another case of the province pre-emptively invoking the Notwithstanding Clause to avoid scrutiny.
  • Susan Delacourt puts together Dominic Cummings’ takedown of Boris Johnson with Erin O’Toole hiring the same election team that helped put Johnson in power.
  • Colby Cosh offers a bit more historical context to the internment of Italian fascists in Canada, which makes the prime minister’s apology all the more baffling.
  • Robert Hiltz explains how media style guides – particularly at the CBC – biases the coverage of Israeli-Palestinian conflicts and the situation in that region.

Odds and ends:

Liberal MP Will Amos says he was caught on camera a second time, this time urinating, so he plans to step back from his duties to get help.

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