Monitor Telegram

Bringing about a higher level of transparency and accountability in provincial and federal governments to help protect taxpayers from abuse

Bringing about a higher level of transparency and accountability in provincial and federal governments to help protect taxpayers from abuse.

Canada’s mayors want $12.6 billion for supportive and social housing

Canada’s mayors, at a housing conference in Toronto have put the challenge to the Trudeau government to invest $12.6 billion, of an available $20 billion towards affordable housing. Mayor Don Iveson told the audience the same message he’s given in Edmonton annually when city council sets the budget. That money spent on supportive housing will save even more money for the province in other services.

He gave as an example, the story of a residential school survivor, who has mental health and addictions problems, who spent more than 400 days in an acute care bed at the Royal Alex Hospital.

“One of the nurses who runs that ward said ‘we could have put this gentleman up at the Fairmont for less money with 24 hour supervision than it costs to keep him at the hospital for 400 days.’ Now that’s an extreme case but there are hundreds of people in our city in that hospital who spend weeks or months and occasionally years for permanent supportive housing.”

Source: Canada’s mayors want $12.6 billion for supportive and social housing 630 CHED

Psychiatrist: Hospital Provokes Patients to Enrich Itself 

A doctor who trained for two years at the psychiatric unit of a New York hospital said in a lawsuit Monday that poor adolescent patients were routinely provoked into acting out, then restrained and drugged, extending their hospitalization and Medicaid payments.Dr. Alfred Robenzadeh said that supervisors at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla retaliated against him when he tried to address what he says was chronic patient abuse that increased the severity of diagnoses, with usual two-week inpatient stays often extended days or weeks. He alleges the practice defrauded Medicaid.

Source: Psychiatrist: Hospital Provokes Patients to Enrich Itself – ABC News

Millions of Canadians don’t have to be told if health information breached

The personal health information of hundreds of patients is breached every year, but most Canadians live in provinces where health-care providers don’t have to tell victims.A CBC News investigation found six provinces, which have a combined population of about 20 million, have no legislation in place requiring hospitals, doctors and other health-care providers notify patients of a breach of their medical files.

Source: Millions of Canadians don’t have to be told if health information breached – Health – CBC News

Premier Notley says min-wage hike, carbon tax won’t hurt economy 

CALGARY—Alberta Premier Rachel Notley says she rejects the notion that a minimum-wage hike and carbon tax will hurt the provincial economy.Opposition parties have lambasted the NDP government for charging ahead with those two policies at a time when the province’s economy is ailing.

Source: Premier Notley says min-wage hike, carbon tax won’t hurt economy – Canadian Manufacturing

Cattle feeders at heart of Canada’s industry say cow head tax threatens survival

CALGARY — Feedlot operators in the heart of Canada’s largest cattle-producing region are warning that a municipal tax introduced this past spring will result in more cattle feeders going out of business, days after one of them announced it would close.

Rick Paskal, president of Van Raay Paskal Farms in Picture Butte, Alta., and seven other operators with capacity to fatten about 250,000 cattle for slaughter have also launched a lawsuit against Lethbridge County demanding the reversal of a $3-per-head tax charged to operations of at least 150 beef cattle.

They say the tax, when added to other increasing costs and falling beef prices, will result in more feedlots shutting down over the coming months.

Source: Cattle feeders at heart of Canada’s industry say cow head tax threatens survival CTV NEWS

Corporate Canada’s dealing with a notorious tax haven

Canadians for Tax Fairness says it is estimated that Canada loses at least $7.8 billion in revenues every year because of tax dodging facilitated by tax havens.

Ottawa (23 September 2016) — There is a powerful Bahamian connection in the mess that is Canada’s offshore tax haven epidemic, says Canadians for Tax Fairness (CTF). Now, a new leak(link is external) to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and media reports are blowing its cover.

Leak shows Canadian banks helped set up offshore companies 

The Toronto Star(link is external) and the CBC report(link is external) that 3 of Canada’s top banks have enabled the formation of nearly 2,000 offshore companies and private foundations in the Bahamas. Analysts are quick to point out that not every transaction with a tax haven breaks the law. But tax fairness watchdogs have long warned that Canada has a series of tax treaties with some of the most secretive jurisdictions in the world.

“It just doesn’t make sense,” Richard Leblanc, a leading corporate governance expert and professor at Harvard and York universities told the Toronto Star(link is external). “Why are there so many companies registered and such a high volume in a jurisdiction that doesn’t have the population base or the economy to support it? That’s a legitimate question.”

Source: Corporate Canada’s dealing with a notorious tax haven | National Union of Public and General Employees

Crackdown on extra-billing is long overdue

Federal Health Minister Jane Philpott has served notice that she will enforce the Canada Health Act in Quebec. Good for her. It’s about time. The Canada Health Act is the federal statute governing medicare. It lists the standards provinces must meet if they are to receive money from Ottawa for health care. And it gives the federal government the right to cut transfers to any province that doesn’t meet these standards.

Source: Crackdown on extra-billing is long overdue: Walkom | Toronto Star

Senator reports herself to ethics czar over tax-haven revelations 

A Conservative senator is taking the unusual step of reporting herself to a parliamentary ethics czar after a joint CBC/Radio-Canada/Toronto Star investigation into leaked tax-haven records found she was a director of an offshore corporation for 12 years — without, she says, ever knowing about it.As a result, Senator Nicole Eaton failed to disclose the position, as required, to the Senate’s ethics officer, which would normally be a violation of the upper chamber’s conflict-of-interest rules.

Source: Senator reports herself to ethics czar over tax-haven revelations – Politics – CBC News

‘Shady, secretive system’: Public Safety green-lit RCMP, CSIS spying devices, documents reveal

Public Safety Canada has repeatedly approved CSIS and the RCMP’s use of devices to spy on Canadians’ communications, documents obtained by CBC News reveal.

Canadians have been kept largely in the dark about police and intelligence agencies’ surveillance capabilities. But recent revelations in a Montreal court case that police are using electronic tools to scoop up mobile phone signals have prompted some experts to call for greater transparency in the approval and use of technologies that potentially violate privacy.

Source: ‘Shady, secretive system’: Public Safety green-lit RCMP, CSIS spying devices, documents reveal CBC