PCO, Treasury Board won’t say if they advised departments not to cooperate with PBO

The Privy Council Office and the Treasury Board Secretariat won’t say if they advised deputy ministers not to cooperate with Canada’s Parliamentary budget officer who is in a high-profile fight to get information for Parliament on the departments’ plans to achieve $5.2-billion in spending cuts.

“What we can say is that the Treasury Board Secretariat provides ongoing guidance to departments and agencies to assist them in fulfilling their reporting obligations to Parliament and Canadians in a comprehensive, consistent, and coordinated manner,” said Treasury Board Secretariat spokesperson Theresa Knowles.

Opposition MPs call for audit on XL Foods Inc.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has restored XL Foods Inc.’s licence to resume operations after an E. coli breakout at the slaughterhouse resulted in Canada’s largest beef recall in history, but opposition MPs continue to call for an audit at the plant, and say there is still no real oversight on food safety procedures.

“We were always hopeful that plant would open again and those workers could go back to work, cattle ranchers across this country could start to see their product moving again. Clearly what needs to happen to reassure Canadians is indeed that CFIA has done everything in its power to ensure that all of the things that are requested are indeed carried through on, and they bulk up their inspection forces,” said NDP MP Malcolm Allen (Welland, Ont.), his party’s agriculture critic, in an interview with The Hill Times.

Bill McKibben on Hurricane Sandy and Climate Change: "If There Was Ever a Wake-up Call, This Is It"

Much of the East Coast is shut down today as residents prepare for Hurricane Sandy, a massive storm that could impact up to 50 million people from the Carolinas to Boston. The storm has already killed 66 people in the Caribbean, where it battered Haiti and Cuba. "This thing is stitched together from elements natural and unnatural, and it seems poised to cause real havoc," says Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org. New York and other cities have shut down schools and transit systems. Hundreds of thousands of people have already been evacuated. Millions could lose power over the next day. Meteorologists say Sandy could be the largest storm ever to hit the U.S. mainland. The megastorm comes at a time when President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney have refused to make climate change an issue on the campaign trail. For the first time since 1984, climate change was never addressed during a presidential debate. "It’s really important that everybody, even those who aren’t in the kind of path of this storm, reflect about what it means that in the warmest year in U.S. history, ... in a year when we saw, essentially, summer sea ice in the Arctic just vanish before our eyes, what it means that we’re now seeing storms of this unprecedented magnitude," McKibben says. "If there was ever a wake-up call, this is it." We’re also joined by climate scientist Greg Jones from Southern Oregon University.

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Senators concerned posting assets, corporate ties online will lead to flurry of accusations of conflict of interest

Liberal and Conservative Senators say they are worried there will be an increase in accusations of conflict of interest against them now that their annual asset and income statements will be online for all of Canada to see.

“What comes to mind here is that it will clearly be much easier for a person to make an allegation against a Senator when the information is completely accessible,” said Liberal Quebec Senator Serge Joyal in the Senate Oct. 4.

Hill reporters complain about PM’s lack of access on trips

Hill reporters say one of the only chances they have to pose questions to Prime Minister Stephen Harper are on foreign trips that they must pay for and see this new normal as “problematic,” especially since these access opportunities don’t balance out with limited availabilities in Ottawa.

“In effect, you are paying for access to the Prime Minister,” said Canadian Press reporter Stephanie Levitz, who has been on the Hill since June 2010. “When media outlets—I think often in the narrative of limited resources—are having to balance, ‘Okay, do we have to go on this trip, what’s the news value of this trip?’ and the news value of this trip becomes, as many of these trips have, ‘Well, we’ll get to ask the Prime Minister [a question],’ I think it raises a lot of questions about the implications of that decision. Are we paying for access to the prime minister? Now, the money doesn’t go into his pockets, but that makes me uncomfortable.”

Feds need to ‘show their work’ on net benefit test, say experts

The federal government is expected to announce new standards for foreign investment by state-owned enterprises, but it’s unlikely that the secrecy around foreign takeover reviews will be lifted, say sources familiar with trade and foreign investment negotiations.

Glen Hodgson, the Conference Board of Canada’s chief economist, said it’s time for the federal government to clarify the standards for foreign takeovers of Canadian companies by state-owned enterprises (SOEs) like Petronas and the Chinese state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC).

A divided U.S. Congress risks driving North American economies off ‘fiscal cliff,’ say experts

No matter who wins the U.S. presidential election next week, Canadians should be concerned about whether the U.S. government can get its fiscal house in order or risk going over “the fiscal cliff” and bringing Canada with it.

“That, to us, is probably the most important issue, because a poor American economy impacts Canada immediately, given that more than 70 per cent of our trade is with them,” said Michael Kergin, Canada’s ambassador to the U.S. from 2000 until 2005.

Palestinians vow to press forward with UN recognition despite Israeli and US objections

The Palestinian president is moving forward with his plan to seek upgraded observer status at the United Nations next month, despite American and Israeli threats of financial or diplomatic retaliation, officials said Sunday.

The decision sets the stage for a new showdown between Israel and the Palestinians at the world body, following last year’s attempt by the Palestinians to seek status as a full member state. Although that initiative failed to pass the U.N. Security Council, it caused months of diplomatic tensions with Israel.

“We will go to the U.N. regardless of any threats,” said Tawfik Tirawi, a senior member of President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement. “I expect the Israelis to take punitive measures against us, if we win this status, but this is our choice and we will not retract it.”

Toronto Deputy Mayor Doug Holiday seeks review of watchdog jobs

Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday will officially ask if it’s possible to combine the jobs of Toronto’s civic watchdogs, but says he is trying to save taxpayers’ money, not dump ombudsman Fiona Crean.

Holyday said he will ask city staff at this week’s council meeting for a review of legislative requirements for the ombudsman, integrity commissioner and lobbyist registrar positions, and what other cities do.

His request is triggered by a city manager item on the agenda noting that Crean’s term expires in Nov. 2013 and the city needs to signal its intentions to her — not by the Fords’ fight with Crean, Holyday said.

‘Playing hooky from City Hall?’ Ford says he was just kidding

Mayor Rob Ford said he would be “playing hooky from City Hall” to watch high school football games on the day of a city council meeting, then said he was joking.

Ford’s comments came about a month after a private September meeting at his mother’s house at which council allies “raised concerns” about his “unforced errors,” including those related to football, according to Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong. Ford was criticized widely in September for missing most of an executive committee meeting to coach his Etobicoke high school team, the Don Bosco Eagles, in a pre-season scrimmage event.