OTTAWA — Humanitarian and development groups say Canada’s vague terror laws have forced them to find loopholes in the Criminal Code for aid workers to operate in Taliban-held Afghanistan, as MPs consider amendments to the law. “Every organization has a different risk appetite,” World Vision Canada’s policy director Martin Fischer told the House justice committee […]

This article was originally published on The Conversation, an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts. Disclosure information is available on the original site. Author: Robert Diab, Professor, Faculty of Law, Thompson Rivers University Despite early predictions that the internet would spell the end of privacy, it continues to be […]

OTTAWA — The Ontario government is telling the country’s top court the disclosure of ministerial mandate letters would reveal the substance of deliberations of the premier and his cabinet — breaching a key tenet of Westminster-style government. In a written brief filed with the Supreme Court of Canada, the Ontario attorney general says cabinet confidentiality, […]

OTTAWA — Treasury Board President Mona Fortier says she hopes to share a plan in coming months for improving the key federal transparency law and how it is managed. Fortier told a House of Commons committee Tuesday she expects the plan for making the Access to Information Act more effective will come before the end […]

OTTAWA — The CBC’s fight to see mandate letters for Ontario cabinet ministers goes to “the very core” of what freedom-of-information regimes are designed to foster, a lawyer for the public broadcaster told the country’s top court Tuesday. These elements are an informed public, accountable government and, ultimately, the democratic process, Justin Safayeni argued in […]

OTTAWA — A judge has dismissed the federal privacy watchdog’s bid for a declaration that Facebook broke the law governing the use of personal information in a case flowing from the Cambridge Analytica affair. In his ruling, Justice Michael Manson said the privacy commissioner had not shown that the social media giant, now known as […]

OTTAWA — The union representing over 155,000 public servants says if a deal isn’t reached with the federal government by 9 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, it will launch a strike this Wednesday. The Public Service Alliance of Canada says that negotiations have not progressed enough in recent days to call off a strike and its […]

OTTAWA — Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says Pierre Poilievre’s criticisms of the CBC amount to an attack on Canadian culture by the Conservative leader — and Quebec and francophone culture, in particular. Singh addressed the issue, speaking in French, after Twitter added a label to CBC’s main account on Sunday indicating the broadcaster was […]

OTTAWA — With threats against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spiking in recent years, newly released historical records reveal the security concerns the RCMP had when his father was getting ready to leave office. Pierre Trudeau retired in 1984 after serving as prime minister for two stints adding up to 15 years. He had been first […]

There were complaints that Mounties were not doing enough at the Canada-U. S. border-crossing in Coutts, Alta., when protests erupted over COVID-19 pandemic policies. There were others saying the same police force was doing too much and betraying the country. Almost 260 pages of emails detailing complaints made to the watchdog agency that investigates Mounties […]

OTTAWA — The Trudeau government is revamping its approach to modern-day slavery, promising new legislation that caught off guard the Liberal MP who has been steering a bill on forced labour through Parliament. “There is a limited lifespan to this Parliament,” Toronto MP John McKay said in an interview. McKay has been stickhandling Bill S-211, […]

MONTREAL — A court has ordered the Quebec government to pay ex-Liberal premier Jean Charest $385,000 because information about a corruption investigation targeting his former party was leaked to journalists. Charest in 2020 filed a lawsuit against Quebec’s anti-corruption police and the province’s attorney general after details were made public in 2017 regarding an investigation […]