Longtime Liberal Herb Gray to be eulogized today in Ottawa

No state funeral for MP who served four decades in the House of Commons

The Canadian Press Posted: Apr 25, 2014 6:51 AM ET Last Updated: Apr 25, 2014 6:51 AM ET

Herb Gray: 1931-2014 3:28

Friends and colleagues remember the former Liberal deputy prime minister

Herb Gray: 1931-2014 3:28

Paul Martin remembers Herb Gray 7:41

Paul Martin remembers Herb Gray7:41

Former Liberal PM pays his respects to the late parliamentarian

Paul Martin remembers Herb Gray 7:41

A funeral will be held in Ottawa today for longtime Liberal MP Herb Gray, who died Monday at the age of 82.

The ceremony will be held at Congregation Machzikei Hadas at 11 a.m. ET.

There had been calls for Gray to receive a state funeral to honour his four decades in the House of Commons as an MP from Windsor, Ont.

Former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin was among those who argued that Gray deserved the best possible sendoff.

But the Prime Minister's Office said Tuesday that while Gray was a "great Canadian and a tremendous parliamentarian" there would not be a state funeral.

Such funerals are typically held for sitting and former prime ministers and governors general, as well as sitting cabinet ministers.

There have been two notable exceptions, for former finance minister Jim Flaherty last week and for NDP Leader Jack Layton in 2011.

In his 40 years as a Liberal MP, Gray held several cabinet portfolios, and was deputy prime minister from 1997 until 2002, when he left active politics.

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Ottawa suspends Temporary Foreign Worker Program in fast-food sector

Federal Employment Minister Jason Kenny has announced an immediate moratorium on the fast-food industry's access to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.

The suspension, announced late Thursday afternoon, came shortly after the CBC told Kenney the CEO of McDonald's Canada had branded recent criticism of its use of temporary foreign workers "bullshit" in a conference call to franchisees.  

A recording of that call was given to the CBC.

In a written statement announcing the suspension, Kenney says "serious concerns" remain following a government investigation of the allegations raised about the program.

The CBC's Go Public has produced a series of stories reporting how some franchisees at McDonald's were allegedly abusing the program.

Kenney says the government investigated and suspended Labour Market Opinions (LMOs) that allowed a few employers to hire temporary foreign workers. And he says the employers were also placed on a public blacklist.

"Despite these actions, there remain serious concerns regarding the use of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program in the food services sector," Kenney says.

"As a result, I am announcing an immediate moratorium on the food services sector's access to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. Accordingly, ESDC will not process any new or pending LMO applications related to the food services sector. In addition, any unfilled positions tied to a previously approved LMO will be suspended.

The employment minister is also issuing a warning that program violations could be subject to criminal sanctions.

"Abuse of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program will not be tolerated," the statement says.

"Allegations of misuse will continue to be investigated...and those employers who are found to have lied about their efforts to hire Canadians could face potential criminal prosecution with sanctions that include fines and jail time."

A study by the C.D. Howe Institute found the program has increased the unemployment rate by nearly four per cent in British Columbia and Alberta, two provinces which have employed more temporary foreign workers than the rest of the country combined, in every year since 2007.

Kenney says the moratorium will remain in effect until his department completes its review.

On mobile? Click here to hear McDonald's CEO conference call

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McDonald's Canada CEO calls foreign worker controversy 'bullshit'

The CEO of McDonald's Canada has branded recent criticism of its use of temporary foreign workers "bullshit" in a conference call to franchisees that was given to the CBC.

His remarks from earlier this week came before federal Employment Minister Jason Kenney announced an immediate moratorium on the food services sector's access to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program late on Thursday, as a result of CBC Go Public's inquiries.

Three McDonald's franchises in Victoria and a pizza restaurant in Weyburn, Sask., are at the centre of program abuse allegations involving Canadian employees alleging foreign workers were given priority work status or more hours. 

A federal investigation into McDonald's use of the temporary foreign worker program was launched recently, after a Go Public story about a Victoria McDonald's franchise.

Tuesday's conference call was scheduled to address franchisees' concerns that McDonald's Canada had decided to put its temporary foreign worker program on hold, while a third party conducts an audit on its use of the plan.

McDonald's initiated that independent audit in response to the government investigation.

In a recording of the call given to the CBC, McDonald's Canada CEO John Betts discusses recent CBC stories on the company's use of temporary foreign workers and his resulting meeting with federal Employment Minister Jason Kenney.​

"This has been an attack on our brand. This has been an attack on our system. This is an attack on our people. It's bullshit OK!  I used those words when I described my conversation with the minister last week. He gets it."

The CBC has been given a recording of McDonald's Canada CEO John Betts calling stories about its temporary foreign worker policy 'bullshit'. (CBC)

Betts says he was "incredibly impressed" with the minister, adding, "He really knows his stuff. And I'll say he knows his stuff from a business person's perspective."

Responding sarcastically to how his company has been portrayed in the media, Betts said, "The fact of the matter is we are a big bad company, corporate, you know, bad company and these poor maligned employees are who they are."

"Yes, they are disenfranchised. Some of them don't work for us anymore. But in the scheme of things, it doesn't matter."

"This story has been brewing for a lot of years. And you know at the end of the day we just happen to be the business that got tapped into it and we weren't the first. Obviously, RBC was," said Betts, referring to a previous CBC Go Public story.

"The reality is that we have learned internally that we haven't done a very good job in a lot more places than we thought and that's just us on the phone talking."

Franchisees fear losing staff

One franchisee in Alberta expressed concern about employees — temporary foreign workers — who won't be able to get their work permits renewed.

"When that happens, every single foreign worker in Alberta is going to leave us. They are scared. The restaurants are going to fall apart. This is how it is on the ground," said the franchisee.

'We are a big, bad company...and these poor maligned employees are who they are'- McDonald's Canada CEO John Betts, responding sarcastically to how the company has been portrayed in the media

Another franchisee was worried about money he had just paid to Actyl, one of the international recruitment agencies McDonald's pays up to $2,000 for every worker they bring in.

"I paid Actyl Group probably $14,000. So am I out the $14,000 now and the whole nine yards?" asked the franchisee.

The restaurant chain's vice-president of human resources Len Jillard, also taking part in the conference call, is heard replying, "Believe me, we are doing everything we can to get everything back on the rails."

Later on, Betts comments "This is a big one for us and it is critical because of our brand image and because of your need to make profits and our systems need to take care of our people."

'Element of truth'

Betts spends much of the conference call railing against the CBC's coverage of the controversy — but admits there is truth to the stories.

"Here's the kicker. The kicker is there's an element of truth in each of these stories," Betts said.

McDonald's Canada has agreed to a third-party investigation of all locations that use temporary foreign workers. (CBC)

"What we've got to do is fix what we have in the restaurants concerning the temporary foreign workers.

"But what we've also learned is that we have other opportunities in the people area that we also need to take care of. Violations of labour law. And those are the kind of things that suddenly become compounded because we have another issue over here, that's very emotional in Canada."

With regard to the company's decision to halt its Temporary Foreign Worker Program, Betts told concerned franchisees that, "In dealing with the government, the smartest move was to pre-empt their move in terms of suspending us."

"I think the relationship we build with the minister here is a politically astute one to be taking. Because they're feeling the heat big time before this story broke and now it's bigger and bigger," he went on.

"They need to see us as partners in this as a brand that can help them make some progress on this and at the same time give us an opportunity to clean ourselves up."

At no point during the recording does the CEO mention hiring Canadians instead of temporary foreign workers or go over the rules of the federal Temporary Foreign Worker Program.

Moratorium on food services industry

As a result of CBC Go Public's inquiries, federal Employment Minister Jason Kenney announced late Thursday an immediate moratorium on the food services sector's access to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.

Employment Minister Jason Kenney has announced a moratorium on the food service sector's access to temporary foreign workers. (CBC)

"Our Government has been clear: Canadians must have the first chance at available jobs. We have repeatedly warned employers that the Temporary Foreign Worker Program must only be used as a last and limited resort when Canadians are not available," said the minister in a statement.

The minister said that despite an ongoing investigation into serious allegations of abuse of the program, the suspension of LMOs and the blacklisting of the employers in question, there remained serious concerns relating to the use of temporary foreign workers in the food services sector.

"As a result, I am announcing an immediate moratorium on the Food Services Sector's access to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.

"Accordingly, ESDC [Employment and Skills Development Canada] will not process any new or pending LMO applications related to the Food Services Sector. In addition, any unfilled positions tied to a previously approved LMO will be suspended."

The moratorium will remain in effect until the completion of the on-going review of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.

On mobile? Click here to hear McDonald's CEO on conference call

Read the minister's full statement below. On mobile? Click here to read the minister's full statement

Statement by Employment Minister Jason Kenney (PDF)
Statement by Employment Minister Jason Kenney (Text)

---

Federal government tip line

The federal government says it wants to hear from any other employee or job applicant from any McDonald's or other workplace nationwide who feels they have been negatively affected by the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.

Kenney's office provided the following phone number and email address for confidential tips:

Phone: 1-800-367-5693
Email: integrity@servicecanada.gc.ca

---

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How new 'target benefit' pension plans compare to others

On Thursday, the federal government unveiled its pitch for a new type of pension plan, what officials are calling a target benefit plan, with characteristics that put it somewhere between the two predominant types of plans currently in place.

This target benefit plan will only be available for Crown corporations and federally-regulated industries, such as transportation, banking and telecommunication, as long as all parties agree.

According to the most recent statistics, of the six million Canadians who have registered pension plans, 73.2 per cent are in a defined benefit plan, 16.4 per cent are in a defined contribution plan and 10.4 per cent are in other types of plans, many of them similar to the proposed target benefit plan.

So how do the three plan types compare?

How they work:

• Defined benefit (DB) pension plans pay a set benefit to members on retirement. The Canada Pension Plan is a DB plan. The monthly benefit is usually based on an employee's earning history, length of service and age. Both the employer and the employees contribute.
• Defined contribution (DC) pension plans set a fixed contribution amount for the employer and/or the employee. Benefits are determined by how well the plan's investments perform.
• Target benefit (TB) plan "benefits and contributions would adjust over time based on the financial performance of the plan," Minister of State for Finance Kevin Sorenson said in an April 24 speech in Toronto. The department of finance adds: "The proposed TBP framework would promote plan viability through its ability to adjust benefits and contributions to help ensure that the target benefit is met, and to deal with surplus or deficit situations."

Who has which plan:

• Almost 3,000,000 DB plan members work in the public sector, and about half that number work in the private sector.
• Over 850,000 private sector workers belong to defined contribution plans, as do just 150,000 in the public sector.
• Numbers for members in the new kid on the block, TB plans, are not available from Statistics Canada, which lumps all other plan types together. New Brunswick was the first jurisdiction in North America to adopt TBs, where they're known as shared risk pension plans. They started in the Netherlands and have become popular in Northern Europe.

Membership numbers for DB plans have been falling for at least the last two years, while numbers for DC plans and other types have been on the rise.

In 2011, membership in both the DC and "other" categories increased by 3.5 per cent, according to Statistics Canada.

Who likes which plan:

• DB plans have been called the gold standard for employees, especially if the benefits are indexed to inflation.
• Private sector employers, on the other hand, increasingly prefer the relative certainty of the costs for defined contribution plans. Some employers, like Canada's Big Three automakers, have stopped adding members to their DB plan and now enrol their new hires in DC ones.
• The Harper government proposes target benefit plans as a "middle ground" between the  two.

Who runs the risks and who stands to benefit from the plans:

• In DB plans, the employer makes sure the plan is properly funded and therefore must cover any shortfalls. But employers sometimes cut their contributions when the plan is in surplus.

Management consultant company Aon Hewitt recently released the results of a survey of DB plans in Canada. Noting the "current strong financial health of DB plans," Aon estimates defined benefit plans have a median solvency ratio ("the market value to plan assets over plan liabilities") of 95.4 per cent, a 21-point increase in the past year.

About 36 per cent of the plans are fully funded, compared to just three per cent a year ago.

Strong performance by the financial markets is the key reason for these gains.

• With defined contribution plans, it's the employees who take on the risk, and it's usually the employees who decide on how the pension funds are invested. Their pension income will depend on the performance of the plan.
• With TB or shared risk plans, the risk is obviously shared by the employer and the employees. Because the taxpayer is ultimately responsible if a shortfall develops in a public sector DB plan, the C. D. Howe Institute and others have been advocating for TBs.

Which plans might change under the government proposal:

Both defined benefit and defined contribution plans for workers in the federally regulated private sector and Crown corporations could be changed to TB plans. But the vast majority of those are currently defined benefit plans, which are more highly valued.

According to the federal department of finance, there are 1,234 federally regulated pension plans in Canada, covering about one million workers.

To make a change in these, all parties must agree to change plan types.

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Senate reform can't be done by Ottawa alone

Breaking

Canada's top court says 7 provinces with half the population needed for any reform

By Leslie MacKinnon, CBC News Posted: Apr 25, 2014 9:54 AM ET Last Updated: Apr 25, 2014 9:59 AM ET

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• Nigel Wright won't face charges, what's next in the Senate-PMO scandal? Apr. 19, 2014 6:30 AM This week on The House, Evan Solomon looks into the ramifications of the RCMP's decision to not pursue charges against Nigel Wright. What does that mean for the Prime Minister's former chief of staff, for Mike Duffy, and for Stephen Harper? Paul Calandra, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, and Charlie Angus, the NDP's ethics critic, join us to discuss.

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Rail safety improvements announced in wake of Lac-Mégantic

Changes to improve rail safety were announced Wednesday by federal Transport Minister Lisa Raitt in response to recommendations made by the Transportation Safety Board in the aftermath of the tragedy in Lac-Mégantic, Que.

The federal government wants a three-year phase-out or retrofit of older tank cars that are used to transport crude oil or ethanol by rail, but will not implement a key TSB recommendation that rail companies conduct route planning when transporting dangerous goods.

As well, certain tankers that Raitt said are the "least crash-resistant" and have "no continuous reinforcement of their bottom shells" will be removed within 30 days, by ministerial order. There are 5,000 of these cars in North America, she said, but could not give a figure of how many are used in Canada.

Raitt was speaking at a press conference in Ottawa Wednesday to announce the changes.

Transport Minister Lisa Raitt announces new railway safety measures during a news conference on Wednesday, April 23, 2014 in Ottawa. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld (Adrian Wylde/Canadian Press)

There are 65,000 of the more robust Dot-111 cars in North America that must be phased out or retrofitted within three years if used in Canada, Raitt said, adding, "Officials have advised us three years is doable."  She said she couldn't calculate the cost of the retrofits, but told reporters, "industry will be footing the bill."

The United States will not be following the same three-year period for either the phase-out or retrofit of the tanker cars. Asked by a reporter if tanker cars would have to be switched at the border by 2017, Raitt replied that the industry "can see where this is going" and is already building safer cars.

"This has been a voluntary standard since 2011, and indeed all these cars since 2011 have been built to this standard that we're [now] entrenching in regulation," she told reporters. 

Mandatory emergency response plans

The transport minister also announced that mandatory emergency response plans will be required for all crude oil shipments in Canada. The plans will be mandatory for trains even if they are carrying only a single tank car of crude oil, gasoline, diesel, aviation fuel, or ethanol.

Raitt also said railway companies will be required to reduce the speed of trains carrying dangerous goods. The speed limit will be 80 kilometres an hour for key trains, she said. She added that risk assessments will be conducted in certain areas of the country about further speed restrictions, a request that came from the Canadian Federation of Municipalities.

In addition, she announced the creation of a task force that will be composed of representatives from municipalities, first responders, railways and shippers to work on strengthening emergency response capacity across the country.

There was no mention in Raitt's announcement of a requirement for route planning. Generally, railway companies prefer the shortest routes possible for transporting goods and may have resisted the idea of using less populated routes when carrying dangerous products.

Hoang Mai, the NDP transport critic, pointed out that the TSB asked that rail companies look at options to make sure they don't route through populated areas when carrying flammable material, but "there's no plan from the government on that front."

Mai added that neither is there a plan to ensure that municipalities be informed about trains carrying hazardous goods through their communities.

Problems with the DOT-111 car

The DOT-111, known as the workhorse of the rail industry, is used to haul hazardous liquids from coast to coast. Ottawa says the cars must be phased out or retrofitted to higher safety standards within three years if they transport dangerous goods. (Nati Harnik/AP)

The Transportation Safety Board has been pointing out the vulnerabilities of the DOT-111 cars and asking for tougher standards for years, Ian Naish, a former TSB head of rail safety, told CBC News. 

"I just feel badly about the Mégantic situation. It's happened and you can't pull things back from there, but ... there's been a lot of talk over the years, for decades, about beefing up tank cars and nothing was done. But now it is. I'm glad it's being done. But I wish it had been done earlier," he said.

Brian Stevens head of UNIFOR, which represents thousands of unionized rail car inspectors at CN, CP and other Canadian rail companies, called today's announcement a disappointment.

"This announcement really falls short, and lets Canadians down," he told CBC News.

"These DOT-11 cars, they should be banned from carrying crude oil immediately. They can still be used to carry vegetable oil, or diesel fuel, but for carrying this dangerous crude there should be an immediate moratorium and that should have been easy enough for the minister to do and she failed to do that.

"There's a lot of other tank cars in the system that can carry crude," Stevens explained. "There doesn't need to be this reliance on these antiquated cars that are prone to puncture."

NDP Leader Tom Mulcair, commenting before Raitt's announcement, said the changes are not enough to protect the safety of Canadians now.

"They're going to try and tell us today that they're acting on that [the safety of rail tanker cars] but she's going to try and set a timeline for years from now. What happens in the meantime in all those communities where this very dangerous material is being transported today? That's the real question and she's not going to have an answer for that," he told reporters earlier Wednesday on Parliament Hill.

The head of the Canadian Federation of Municipalities said the government's announcement was a "major step forward in improving the safety of Canada's railways and the communities built around them." Claude Dauphin also praised the "rapid timeline" for ameliorating the safety of the DOT-111 tanker cars.

On Jan. 23, the TSB made three recommendations in response to the Lac-Mégantic explosion last July, in which 47 people were killed after a runaway train carrying oil derailed.

The TSB recommended:

• Enhanced safety standards for Class 111 tank cars used to transport flammable liquids.
• Railway companies that transport dangerous goods be required to conduct route planning and analysis.
• Emergency response assistance plans be in place when large volumes of liquid hydrocarbons are shipped by rail.

The TSB asked the government to respond to its recommendation within 90 days. Raitt's announcement Wednesday meets that deadline.

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Greg Weston: If Supreme Court nixes Senate reform, is referendum next?

Now well into its second century of political futility, Senate reform is about to reach another historic milestone Friday when the Supreme Court rules on the Harper government's power to overhaul the upper chamber.

The answer may well be that it can't.

Unless the high court is in a mood to deliver shock and awe, history and a legion of experts suggest the noble cause of Senate reform will probably continue down the same long road that so far has gone largely from here to where we are.

In a nutshell, Stephen Harper's government is hoping to fulfill its longstanding promise to either fix or abolish the Senate without having to drag the country through a protracted constitutional battle with the provinces.

Polls show that reform is a mission popular with Canadians repulsed by the recent Senate spending scandals and long angered by the image of the red chamber as a patronage pasture for party hacks.

Unfortunately for the government and others who support cleaning up the Red Trough, or draining it forever, the Supreme Court is unlikely to give a simple yeah or nay.

The decision will be complicated, answering 14 separate constitutional questions posed by the government.

At the risk of over-simplification, those questions deal with three basic issues: Can the federal government set term limits for senators who now get to sit until age 75; appoint only those first chosen by provincially-sponsored Senate elections; and abolish the Senate altogether.

On each issue, the court will decide whether Parliament alone has the authority to make these kinds of changes, or whether it needs agreement from some or all of the provinces.

So far, experts say the odds favour the high court coming down on the side of the feds having to get provincial agreement on most of the 14 questions before it.

If that happens, the next big question on Senate reform may be whether the prime minister and his Conservative government are prepared to call a referendum on the issue during the next federal election, barely 18 months from now.

Not another Meech Lake

A referendum may be the only option left if the government is determined to move this file forward.

Experts say federal-provincial negotiations aimed at reforming or killing the Senate are almost beyond a last resort with this prime minister — and perhaps others for years to come.

A much younger Conservative Leader Stephen Harper promising in December 2005 that his party would reform the Senate if it forms the next government. (Reuters)

University of Waterloo political scientist Emmett Macfarlane told the CBC's Alison Crawford that the government's reference to the Supreme Court is precisely "an attempt to avoid the kind of mega-constitutional politics that we saw…with things like the Meech Lake or Charlottetown Accord" in the 1980s and '90s.

"This is not a government that is particularly interested in…sitting down with the premiers and hashing out an agreement."

Conservative strategists say there are perfectly good reasons to avoid reopening the Constitution.

"Once you open that door," says one former PMO staffer, "it's inevitable there will be a stampede of special interests trying to improve their constitutional lot, and that's probably the last thing most Canadians want right now."

Macfarlane points out that one of those likely to take advantage of any federal-provincial constitutional confab would be Quebec, back for another attempt to have a distinct society enshrined in the law of the land.

After more than a century of largely failed federal-provincial attempts to overhaul the Senate, the Harper government knows its own chances of reaching a deal for negotiated changes before the next election are slim to nil.

The government's own minister for democratic reform, Pierre Poilievre, admits: "We are not interested in having a big constitutional distraction."

Most Canadians would surely agree.

A dangerous gamble

So, if the Supreme Court rules the feds don't have the authority to give the Senate a makeover without provincial agreement, would the Harper government simply call a referendum on the issue?

Conservative strategists say, on the face of it, a referendum on Senate reform in the next election could provide a useful distraction from a government suffering nine years of wear and tear, and all the voter fatigue that goes with it.

As one Conservative insider says, in theory "the prime minister could say, 'Well, we're going to go over the heads of the courts and directly to the people on this.'"

In reality, a referendum would be a dangerous political gamble.

First, Harper and his government have spent nine years building their political brand around the economy. And unless the country's finances are completely in the tank by the next election, why would the Conservatives want to distract voters to focus on Senate reform?

Second, flogging Senate reform to voters could be a tough sell for a prime minister and government that have spent nine years failing to make good on their promises to change the upper chamber.

Third, if the Supreme Court rules that the federal government can't make changes to the Senate without the provinces, even a national referendum doesn't change that fact. It could all be a wasted exercise.

One Conservative insider says that no matter what the Supreme Court ruling is on Friday, "the government will find a happy face to put on the decision.

"Maybe they will simply throw up their hands and say, 'Well, we tried our best, you've heard the court, so let's just move on to other things.'"

All things considered, the government might call that a happy ending. 

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Ottawa to propose new pension scheme, but not budging on CPP

Ottawa is preparing to announce a proposal to create yet another new pension scheme designed to occupy a middle ground between defined-benefit plans, generally favoured by workers, and defined-contribution plans favoured by employers.

The announcement for a so-called target benefit plan, or shared-risk plan, would apply to Crown corporations and federally regulated workers is being sold as a proposal for "affordable and sustainable" lifetime pensions.

Government sources say Kevin Sorenson, minister of state for finance, will call for public consultations on the scheme in a speech at the Economic Club of Canada in Toronto on Thursday.

Details are scarce, but target-benefit plans are generally advertised as capable of adjusting the funding-benefits formula to account for bad times, such as the recent economic crisis that put many defined-benefit plans in jeopardy.

Classic plans 'a little brittle'

C.D. Howe Institute president Bill Robson says there are a wide number of permutations that can be written into the plans, including limiting indexing as has occurred under the Ontario teacher's plan, all the way to lowering actual benefits once a plan's funding level falls below a pre-proscribed threshold.

As well, the plans could allow for a portion of benefits to be guaranteed and a portion based on investment returns.

"I think the problem with classic defined benefit plans is that they are a little brittle and can't adjust for changing circumstances," he said.

Ottawa has announced several recent reforms to its public-service pension plan, including hiking contributions, but has kept benefits, which are fully indexed for inflation, largely untouched.

Dan Kelly of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, which has been influential on Ottawa's thinking on the pension issue, said New Brunswick is leading the way in the area and has put legislation in place to negotiate with their public service unions.

CFIB 'very supportive'

"We're very supportive of this because the target benefit might be a nice compromise between a defined-contribution and a defined-benefit plan," he said.

"That model may be a way out of jail for many government entities that are trapped under the weight of an expensive and largely unfunded public-sector defined-benefit pension plan."

The announcement Thursday likely won't set out details, and won't affect the core public service.

At present, it is intended to be introduced at Crown corporations and on a voluntary basis in federally regulated transportation, banking and telecommunications sectors.

Sorenson is also unlikely to relax his opposition to expanding the Canada Pension Plan, an initiative favoured by Ontario and Prince Edward Island but one that Ottawa believes will cost jobs because it would entail raising premiums on workers and firms.

Ontario to go it alone on CPP expansion

Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa said in a speech Wednesday that his province is still planning to go it alone with a CPP top-off if necessary, accusing Sorenson of misrepresenting the issue with statements that it could cost up to 70,000 jobs.

He notes that a federal report, obtained by The Canadian Press, calculated the job losses on premium increases being introduced all at once, while all provincial proposals call for long phase-in periods.

The province also released a research paper co-authored by former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge that backed its call for enhancing CPP.

Dodge, who co-wrote the report with Richard Dion, a senior business adviser with Bennett Jones, concluded the damage to the economy from higher premiums would be minimal and more than made up for in future benefits.

"An increase in household saving would exert a relatively small and short-lived drag on the economy while its positive structural impact on growth would be long-lived and could be relatively quite significant, but only manifest after a period of time," the report concludes.

CFIB would vehemently oppose premium hike

In December, then finance minister Jim Flaherty and Sorenson rejected a joint Ontario-Prince Edward Island proposal for CPP expansion, maintaining that the economy was too fragile.

Ironically, Dodge and Dion calculate that recent government cost-cutting has done exactly what Flaherty and Sorensen claim to have feared from CPP expansion.

"Efforts by the federal government in recent years to eliminate its budget deficit have reduced aggregate demand at a time when the economy has been operating below potential," they note.

"This reduction was likely greater than the modest negative impact than an increase in household saving due to CPP enhancement, if implemented, would have."

Kelly said his organization would vehemently oppose any measure to increase premiums on firms.

He said there is no study that shows there would be no effect on the economy.

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Heartbleed bug delay begs explanation from Revenue Canada

Even with the arrest last week of an alleged culprit in the theft of the private data of about 900 Canadians, the Canada Revenue Agency is still unwilling or unable to say why it didn't act faster to prevent an attack on its web servers that exploited the Heartbleed software bug.

Now, a tale is emerging of ignorance and perhaps even government nonfeasance, with the CRA admitting Wednesday it found out about the Heartbleed vulnerability one full day after the rest of the global web security world was advised there was a problem.

The CRA buried that news in the middle of an awkward sentence that suggested action, but in fact revealed trouble: "After learning that the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) systems were vulnerable to the Heartbleed bug on April 8, 2014, the CRA acted quickly to protect taxpayer information by removing public access to its online services on the same day," spokesman Philippe Brideau wrote in an e-mail.

Over the course of two weeks, CBC News has been trying to identify why, when warnings about the devastating Heartbleed bug first emerged in professional IT security circles Monday, April 7, the government apparently did not shut down its vulnerable CRA systems until about 36 hours later, on the evening of April 8.

It turns out those hours were critical.

The RCMP allegations and CRA comments suggest it was during that 36-hour gap a 19-year old London, Ont. university student allegedly exploited the Heartbleed web weakness to access the Social Insurance Numbers of 900 Canadians.

The CRA has acknowledged fragments of other data pertaining to business accounts were accessed too, but it has not clarified whether that loss was comprehensive enough to constitute a breach of privacy.

The entire web world was taken aback by news of the Heartbleed bug, which was termed "devastating" and recognized as one of the most significant global threats to online security.

The CRA is certainly not the only organization to have been exposed by the vulnerability.

But, in retrospect, the issue that emerges is whether CRA — and indeed the government in general — did enough to protect the private tax information of Canadians once word of the Heartbleed bug started to circulate in security circles.

Several departments involved in security

Was the inability to heed the global warning a problem at CRA, or was it the fault of others in the government's IT security apparatus?

That's a lengthy and twisting chain of accountability that weaves from secret security teams at Communications Security Establishment Canada, through the Treasury Board's Chief Information Officer branch, Public Safety's Canadian Cyber Incident Response Centre, Shared Services IT teams and finally to the CRA.

"Shared Services Canada has played a major role, along with the Treasury Board Secretariat, and other government departments and agencies, in resolving the problem and administering the patch to all vulnerable software," the CRA said in an e-mailed response to CBC News this week.

The Communications Security Establishment Canada told CBC News last week it learned of the bug "at the same time as the global IT security community." That presumably means Monday, April 7, when a global security alert went out.

A look back at what Revenue Minister Kerry-Lynne Findlay told reporters on Wednesday of that week reveals the CRA only learned on the Tuesday night it was running the vulnerable software.

"We know there is a systems vulnerability," Findlay told reporters. "We have identified that so we shut down those systems right away as a precautionary measure only."

That assessment, in retrospect, belies the reality that the private data of Canadians was stolen before that "precautionary measure" was taken. CRA maintains that, at the time of the shutdown, it had not yet learned of the alleged theft.

"Regrettably, the CRA was notified by Government of Canada security agencies of the criminal breach after online systems were shut down," Brideau said in an email Wednesday, emphasizing the word "criminal" in all capital letters.

"CRA worked diligently to apply the patch and test all systems to ensure they were safe and secure prior to restoring online access."

Who didn't tell CRA?

The timeline that has now been revealed suggests key government online security actors did know about the vulnerability in time to prevent an attack, but the CRA did not. 

Almost any way that's evaluated it presents the probability of failure: Either CRA should have known about Heartbleed the day the world was told and did not, or someone else who did know that same day didn't warn the CRA to shut the proverbial barn door until after the horses were loose.

What is known is that up until noon the day CRA was told of its vulnerability, the tax agency's top bureaucrats apparently thought the system was too robust to break.

That very day, the department's assistant commissioner and chief privacy officer told Parliament the CRA had "one of the — if not the — strongest security regimes around our technological systems of any government department."

Susan Gardner-Barclay bragged about CRA's cyber-security to MPs at a Commons committee meeting on identity theft.

"We are obviously very cognizant of the fact that security and the security of those portals is instrumental to Canadians having confidence in sharing their information with us, so we have a very rigorous security system around the CRA system," she said.

According to CRA staff, as Gardner-Barclay spoke, "she was unequivocally unaware of the Heartbleed bug vulnerability."

But that might not even matter. As we now know, much of what she said about CRA's security was, according to the RCMP, being proved wrong.

The Heartbleed bug is a "zero-day" vulnerability problem — that's to say, it existed from the very day the software was released about two years ago. That means the CRA was in fact at risk of anonymous and nearly untraceable theft of data for as long as it had been using the affected software.

It just never knew it.

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Fair Elections Act: Online petition gets almost 50K signatures in 24 hours

Controversial bill set to go to the Senate next week

The Canadian Press Posted: Apr 24, 2014 7:48 AM ET Last Updated: Apr 24, 2014 7:48 AM ET

Thousands of Canadians have signed an online petition urging Conservative senators to put the boots to the government's Fair Elections Act.

More than 46,000 people have signed the petition on Avaaz, a global online activist network, calling on Conservative senators to amend the act.

Signing the petition, which needed just 24 hours to near its goal of 50,000 signatures, provides links to email addresses and phone numbers so participants can express themselves to senators directly.

The petition calls the Fair Elections Act an outrageous effort by the Harper government to fix the next election by disenfranchising Canadians.

The bill arrives in the Senate next week.

A handful of Conservative senators have spoken out against it, and a Senate committee made up primarily of Conservatives recently recommended nine changes to the act.

More than 450 academics have also taken aim at the legislation.

In an open letter Wednesday to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, they accused the Senate committee of failing to adequately address concerns about the bill and urged the government to withdraw it.

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