editor, Author at Monitor Telegram

Investigators devised sting operation to arrest Quebec MNA, Radio-Canada says

October 26, 2017

Quebec’s anti-corruption unit (UPAC) used a text message to trick a sitting MNA into a situation that led to his arrest, according to Radio-Canada sources.

Guy Ouellette was arrested Wednesday in connection with UPAC raids but has not been charged. He has since temporarily resigned from the Liberal Party caucus.

The Sûreté du Québec officer-turned-politician is considered to be a suspect in an investigation into information leaks, Radio-Canada says.

It’s believed someone disclosed information to the media about a confidential UPAC investigation into Liberal Party financing, an investigation that involved former premier Jean Charest and former party fundraiser Marc Bibeau.

Canada fiscal update: Morneau eager to shift focus away from small business tax fracas, personal finances

October 24, 2017

The Canadian government will unveil a budget update widely expected to show shrinking short-term deficits, as Finance Minister Bill Morneau looks to turn the page on questions about his own finances.

Morneau will deliver his Fall Economic Statement at about 4 p.m. Tuesday in Ottawa. The midyear update to the March budget will reflect the improving picture for government finances, driven by surprisingly strong growth. Over the past four quarters, the economy expanded by an average 3.7 percent, the best performance in a decade.

That will have an impact on the government’s bottom line. The budget forecast a shortfall of $28.5 billion for 2017-18. CIBC World Markets Deputy Chief Economist Benjamin Tal expects it instead to come in between $15 billion and $16 billion, including the so-called budgeted risk adjustment.

Our view: Erie County right to sue Big Pharma

October 23, 2017

At the recent Erie Times-News/GoErie.com opioid forum at Mercyhurst University, a grieving mother waited long with her hand raised, before finally standing to have her question heard.

When, she wanted to know, would drug dealers be brought to justice?

This has been a difficult piece of Erie County’s response to the opioid addiction and overdose crisis that in 2017 alone has taken more than 100 lives.

Liberals accused of diabetes tax grab with apparent benefit clawback

October 23, 2017

The accusation opened a new front in the ongoing opposition waged war on government taxation policy, amid the backdrop of the conflict-of-interest controversy dogging Finance Minister Bill Morneau over whether he’s properly distanced himself from millions of dollars of private sector assets.

Diabetes Canada was among the groups that joined Conservative politicians to publicly denounce what they say is a clawback of a long-standing disability tax credit to help them manage a disease that can cost the average sufferer $15,000 annually.

Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre branded it as one more example of an out-of-touch Liberal government that he characterized as unfairly targeting the hardworking middle class people it claims to support.

Lawyers spar over whether class-action into Motherisk drug-testing scandal should go ahead

October 20, 2017

Motherisk’s flawed hair-strand tests tainted thousands of child protection cases across Canada, but was every parent who tested positive for drugs or alcohol potentially harmed in some way? How much is that harm is worth? And what’s the best way to determine who should pay?

These are among the complex questions that were debated in a Toronto courtroom this week in the high-stakes battle over the fate of a proposed national class-action seeking millions in damages for families affected by the litany of failings uncovered at the Hospital for Sick Children’s Motherisk Drug Testing Laboratory.

Whether the class-action will proceed is now in the hands of Superior Court Justice Paul Perell, who reserved his ruling on Thursday. His decision will play a key role in shaping what promises to be years of legal wrangling in the fallout from the problems at Motherisk. Already, some 275 plaintiffs are named in a series of individual lawsuits against Sick Kids and the major players at the lab, the court heard.

As Opioids Cross the Border, Several Senators Consider Importing Drugs from Canada

October 19, 2017

Multiple bills circulating through Congress indicate lawmakers are interested in allowing Americans to import prescription drugs from Canada and other nations, even though that proposal has been strongly criticized by leading members of the law enforcement community.

Sens. John McCain (R., Ariz.) and Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) floated an amendment to the Senate budget bill Wednesday that would allow bills “relating to lowering the cost of prescription drugs in the United States by importing drugs from Canada.” McCain and Klobuchar are coauthors of the “Safe and Affordable Drugs from Canada Act,” which would allow Americans to buy prescription drugs from Canadian pharmacies, with some restrictions.

Lawsuit: Big Pharma funded terrorism in Iraq with payments to corrupt health ministry

October 19, 2017

In the first years following the defeat of Saddam Hussein, there were few dark corners of battle-scarred Iraq less hospitable to Americans than the country’s ministry of health.

The walls of the ministry, headquartered in a dilapidated high-rise in eastern Baghdad, were covered with hundreds of photos of scowling Shiite clerics. Banners proclaimed “Death to America and Israel” and “we must destroy the occupiers.” Death squads commandeered the ministry’s ambulances for missions to hunt Sunnis. Assault rifles were stacked in offices. The morgues were used for torture. Everywhere flapped the flag of the Jaysh al-Mahdim, also known as the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia controlled by the radical anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

‘Drug Dealers in Lab Coats’

October 18, 2017

For decades, America has waged an ineffective war on drug pushers and drug lords, from Bronx street corners to Medellin, Colombia, regarding them as among the most contemptible specimens of humanity.

One reason our efforts have failed is we ignored the biggest drug pushers of all: American pharmaceutical companies.

Reevely: Hiding billions in hydro debt ‘unacceptable,’ Ontario’s auditor general says

October 17, 2017

Hiding billions of dollars the Ontario government is borrowing to lower electricity bills for a few years will cost hydro users an extra $4 billion, the province’s auditor general reported Tuesday morning.

Maybe worse, Bonnie Lysyk said in a special report on the Liberals’ “Fair Hydro Plan,” the tricks the government is using throw doubt on all the province’s books. The government, citizens, auditors and giant institutions that lend the province money are pretty much operating in a post-truth universe, where what the Liberals say is going on with Ontario’s finances has begun to drift from any previously understood shared reality.

Health Canada gives ‘kiss of death’ to planned policy for rare-disease drugs

October 17, 2017

OTTAWA — Health Canada has quietly deleted from its website all references to a planned framework for rare-disease drugs that dates back to 2012 and was intended to improve the availability of such drugs in Canada.

Canada is one of the only developed countries without a regulatory framework for rare-disease drugs, also known as orphan drugs.

Durhane Wong-Rieger, president and CEO of the Canadian Organization for Rare Disorders, said the decision “certainly seems to be the kiss of death” for the orphan drug framework.