Heinz shuts down Ont. plant, cuts 740 jobs

LEAMINGTON, Ont. - After more than a century operating in the heart of Ontario's tomato country, ketchup-maker Heinz Canada is closing the doors of its plant in Leamington next year.

The food manufacturer and processor said Thursday that the shutdown will be phased in over the next six to eight months and will cut 740 full-time, permanent jobs. Up to 500 seasonal workers hired each year during tomato-harvesting season will also be affected.

Heinz has been in Leamington for more than a century, after choosing the city in 1909 for its first expansion outside the United States.

Harper adviser delayed robocall witness interview for legal advice, email shows

OTTAWA – One of Prime Minister Stephen Harper‘s top advisers instructed a potential key witness in the robocalls investigation to delay an interview with an Elections Canada investigator until she could obtain legal advice.

Jenni Byrne, who was the Conservatives’ national campaign manager during the 2011 election, emailed Guelph campaign worker Andrew Prescott on Nov. 30, 2011, to ask him not to talk to an investigator looking into the “Pierre Poutine” robocall until she had a chance to talk to the party’s lawyer.

Canada's posture on global warming shows contempt for victims of Typhoon Haiyan

Prime Minister Harper and other members of his government -- and even the PM’s wife, Laureen -- are doing a fair bit of grandstanding against the backdrop of the cruel and devastating typhoon that struck the Philippines.

Almost daily, they are announcing various forms of Canadian aid: from cash to airplanes to teams of disaster relief specialists.

Anything Canada can do is desperately needed, of course. The people of the Philippines will welcome whatever assistance actually gets to those in need.

Something Fishy About BC's Proposed Water Act

If you want to know what someone really values, don't look at what they say, look at what they do. Take, for instance, how the B.C. government plans to handle the competing needs of fish and the oil and gas industry under the new Water Sustainability Act.

If you look at what the government says in its 120-page legislative proposal, you'll notice an emphasis on the need to protect fish. But when you examine how the proposed amendments mesh with the existing law, it becomes clear that fish needs will still come second to those of the oil and gas industry. While industry will likely continue to have access to pretty much all the water it wants, fish will have no real legal protection for their water needs.

Harper's Boon to the Arbitration Industry

The ICSID Convention dates to 1965. It was pushed originally by the World Bank, Western Europeans, and U.S. as a way to protect companies in newly-independent countries emerging from colonization. Now it is coming to Canada.

For decades, ICSID was a sleepy place in which occasional arbitrations were held under contracts for specific investment projects. ICSID's caseload exploded from about 2000, after countries in the 1990s increasingly allowed foreign investors as a group to sue them under treaties like NAFTA.

Even so, nearly all ICSID lawsuits by foreign investors have been against developing countries. This is because developed countries rarely agreed to investor-state arbitration in treaties amongst themselves or, for that matter, in contracts. The main exception was Canada's acceptance of investor-state arbitration at the U.S.' bidding under NAFTA. With Canada's ratification of the ICSID Convention, the NAFTA allowance for ICSID lawsuits against Canada, and by Canadian investors against the U.S., will be operational.

Canadian tourism declines despite world travel boom

Tourism is one of the world’s fastest-growing businesses, yet the number of international travellers to Canada has declined 20 per cent since 2000, according to a report from Deloitte & Touche.

Canada’s tourism industry is struggling to compete as the global travel business undergoes unprecedented change, according to the "Passport to Growth" report.

Prison beatings caught on video at Ontario and Quebec jails

Prison guards at several Ontario and Quebec jails punch, knee or slap inmates in surveillance videos exclusively obtained by CBC News and Radio-Canada, underscoring the ongoing push to blanket all correctional facilities with surveillance cameras.

The five different videos were obtained through court applications and arbitration hearings launched in Ontario and Quebec.

In one video, an inmate who tosses his shirt at a guard while he is changing is grabbed by the neck and thrown to the ground. In another, a prisoner is led down a hall and, on reaching a doorway, is struck in the head, then has his head slammed against a wall four times and is punched repeatedly and kneed. Following the beating he is seen cowering in fear.

'See You In Court': An Expensive, Time-Consuming Wrong-Headed Strategy

Last year the Conservative government spent more fighting Indigenous people in the courts than it spent going after tax frauds. The latest Public Accounts show that the $106 million that the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development spent on litigation last year was more than any other department and almost double the $66 million spent by the runner up, Canada Revenue Agency.

Unfortunately, this approach is what we have come to expect from this government. They wilfully ignore Aboriginal rights, daring Indigenous people to take them to court on a range of issues; from First Nations' child welfare to resource development, the government's response has been "see you in court."

Unfazed by gun-crime ruling, Tories look at new mandatory sentences

The Conservative government is considering new mandatory minimum sentences for some crimes even though an Ontario court has just ruled that three-year minimums for certain gun crimes are not constitutional.

Justice Minister Peter MacKay said on Wednesday that Ottawa is mulling new sentencing rules for impaired driving offences that cause death or serious bodily harm. “We’re looking at those provisions of the Criminal Code, looking to possibly include mandatory minimum sentences for those offences and others,” he said.

Ottawa sits on more than $10 billion in 2012-13, statements show

OTTAWA — The federal government held on to more than $10 billion it was expected to spend in 2012-13, with almost half coming from two departments, according to recently-published financial documents.

These were funds Parliament approved and Canadians were told they could expect through a slew of programs in dozens of departments, including the Senate Ethics Officer, disability and death compensation at Veterans Affairs, and weather and environmental services for Canadians at Environment Canada.