Latest news with #DemocracyWatch
Global News
24-07-2025
- Business
- Global News
‘There should be a paper trail': Little oversight on Richmond gift card buys, FOI reveals
New revelations about City of Richmond's rampant spending on gift cards are prompting more concerns and questions. Freedom of information (FOI) request results for 2019 through 2021 obtained by Global News show that while some cards were bought for long-service employees, others indicate otherwise. Receipts contained in the more than one thousand pages have markings on them saying they're for 'prizes,' 'goals and accomplishments,' 'team building,' 'no sick time taken,' 'prizes for Halloween,' and 'take our kids to work day volunteer appreciation.' 2:00 Documents reveal more gift card spending at Richmond City Hall Many indicated they were for 'employee appreciation' and 'staff recognition.' One receipt reads, 'Gift cards for future staff appreciation.' Story continues below advertisement 'It doesn't seem any of these expenses are normal for municipal councils or staff, and it seems the financial controls were totally out of control, that someone was able to get away with it for so long, and it also seems like more than one person would have to be involved,' said Duff Conacher with Democracy Watch. Get breaking National news For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen. Sign up for breaking National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy Taxpayers bought cards for Lululemon, Cineplex, Netflix, Fairmont Hotels, Petro Canada, Indigo, restaurants, Visa, and Mastercard. In an email, the city said some cards were for a United Way fundraising campaign. The documents follow Global's reporting on earlier FOI results for 2022 through 2024. The City of Richmond initially denied there was a problem. In one email, it said there was no gift card budget in the City of Richmond. 22:10 Global News one-on-one with Richmond mayor after camera grabbing incident Later, the city admitted $295,000 worth of gift cards are unaccounted for. Story continues below advertisement So far, one person has been fired, while a forensic audit is going back 10 years and a criminal investigation is underway. Not once over six years' worth of documents does there appear to be a single email questioning the purchases. 'There should be a paper trail if these things were being bought for rewards or bonuses for employees, and if there isn't that paper trail showing that, then it looks pretty much like people were using gift cards as a way of trying to cover up the fact they were really just taxpayer money to spend for themselves,' Conacher said. The City of Richmond told Global News that an initial review of records for 2019-2021 suggests they followed procedures in place at that time.
National Post
16-07-2025
- Business
- National Post
John Robson: Mark Carney's long track record of mistruth
He lied. Right in our faces. A brazen, self-serving, manipulative, obvious lie that was bound to get found out. Have we lost the capacity to care? Article content No, I'm not talking about U.S. President Donald Trump. I'm speaking of Prime Minister Mark Carney. When accused during the election campaign of a conflict of interest over his extensive holdings, he declared indignantly: 'I own nothing but cash and personal real estate.' But he lied. Article content Article content As he did about his 'blind trust' being blind. As Democracy Watch notes, 'he knows what he put in the trust, chose his own trustee, was allowed to give the trustee instructions such as 'don't sell anything' and the trustee is also allowed to give him regular updates.' As Norman Spector wisecracked, it's a 'venetian blind trust.' Article content Article content Incredibly, it gets worse. Carney actually holds shares in over 100 firms, from Amazon to Uber. When former finance minister Bill Morneau forgot he owned a French villa, per Jeff Foxworthy's 'If you've ever mowed your lawn and found a car, you might be a redneck,' if you ever cleaned up your desk and found a villa, you might be an aristocrat. But Carney's a liar. Article content He owns extensive investments, mostly American, on which the potential conflicts of interest across the board, from net zero to tariffs, is glaringly obvious. Including on the digital services tax. It's to prevent exactly this kind of thing that we have conflict-of-interest rules, however feeble. (Remember when Paul Martin gave his shipping company to his sons to sidestep them?) But Carney doesn't care. Do we? Article content Article content Watching the prime minister, who's notoriously irritated at being questioned in any way, tell a lie to brush off a challenge gives the impression that he's one of those people whose internal syllogism runs: 'I am great; that claim makes me look bad; therefore it is untrue.' And bam! Out it comes without any pause to ponder whether factually speaking it might be true, let alone whether someone is bound to notice. Like Bill Clinton and, yes, Trump. Which surely also raises concerns about his management style. Article content Article content We saw it during the campaign, repeatedly. He said Canada avoided a recession in 2008 thanks to his brilliant leadership at the Bank of Canada, which … um … declared a recession in 2008. He 'suspended' his campaign to deal with big grownup issues then went on 'Tout le monde en parle.' Article content He blustered about sweeping measures to implement internal free trade, then blustered about preserving supply management. And when asked why the Communist Chinese Politburo wanted him to win he babbled, 'I have absolutely no idea, and yeah, I have absolutely no idea, and, well, I'll leave it at that.' Hardly a trifle, that last one. Like saying 'I know' when a protester accused Israel of genocide and then claiming he'd misheard. Article content I'm under no illusion that in my youth, or before I was born, politicians spoke truth without fear or favour. They did not call Richard Nixon 'Tricky Dick' because he was good at bridge. So perhaps taking credit for lowering the price of gas by removing a tax your party imposed with your vehement support might be blamed on Carney the politician not Carney the man. Or going all 'elbows up' followed by cowering feebly before Trump. At least if he didn't have a huge personal stake in the U.S. economy. Article content Oh, and remember how he claimed the formal decision to move Brookfield's headquarters to New York from Toronto was made after he left the company, even though he'd written a letter as board chair encouraging shareholders to support it? And how he'd 'resigned all my roles, cut all my ties' to run for Liberal leader while still among other things chairing the Group of Thirty? He lies chronically, casually and recklessly on everything from personal gain to big political issues and now, we learn, their problematic connections. Article content Article content How can we trust him on anything, from balancing the budget while running deficits to ethics or even climate? Of course, given Carney's record as a 'chancer,' including leaving the Bank of Canada to collect a record salary from the Bank of England for muffing inflation, then failing upward to multimillionaire 'International Man of Green' not 'International Man of Unemployment,' you could suppose his vociferous lucrative net zero advocacy was more about elevating Mark Carney than saving the planet. Article content Especially given his oil company holdings. But if it was all fakery, we are entitled to disregard anything he says about anything. And if not, his current economic plans are fakery, so again we're entitled to disregard anything he says about anything. He lied. He lies all the time, about big things and small, without shame or hesitation. And we know it. The question is whether we care. Article content Article content Article content
Winnipeg Free Press
01-05-2025
- Politics
- Winnipeg Free Press
Top court to look at whether challenge of ethics ruling in Trudeau case can proceed
OTTAWA – The Supreme Court of Canada will look at whether a group's challenge of a federal ethics report on Justin Trudeau's involvement in a decision about WE Charity can proceed. In May 2021, then-federal ethics commissioner Mario Dion concluded that Trudeau, prime minister at the time, did not breach the Conflict of Interest Act when he participated in a decision about WE Charity, which operated in Canada and abroad. The group Democracy Watch applied soon after for judicial review of Dion's ruling in the Federal Court of Appeal. Federal lawyers argued the application should be tossed out — in part because the Conflict of Interest Act bars judicial review concerning questions of fact and law. The Federal Court of Appeal granted the government's motion to strike the application for judicial review, prompting Democracy Watch to take its case to the Supreme Court. During Elections Get campaign news, insight, analysis and commentary delivered to your inbox during Canada's 2025 election. The top court, following its usual practice, gave no reasons for agreeing to hear the case. This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 1, 2025.
