Health/Sick Care
ollapse of the legal pot trade has seen two thirds of marijuana dealers fall behind in tax payments, says a federal report. Dealers owe the Canada Revenue Agency millions.
“The total amount of unpaid cannabis excise duties has continuously been rising since legalization,” said a report by the Competition Bureau. “Sixty-six percent of licensees required to remit excise duties had an outstanding debt with the Canada Revenue Agency.”
Unpaid taxes last year totaled $52.4 million. The value of delinquent payments was projected to nearly double to $97.5 million this year, said the report Planting The Seeds For Competition.
Parliament on legalizing marijuana in 2018 taxed it at $1 per gram plus GST. “With the average price per gram for dried cannabis falling since legalization, excise duties now take up a more significant portion of cannabis producers’ revenues,” up to 30 percent or more, wrote the Competition Bureau
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Read MoreA federal labour board will hear the case of a government employee denied a religious exemption from the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
Most requests for religious exemptions were denied without explanation, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.
“The grievance is neither trivial nor vexatious,” wrote Marie-Claude Perrault, an adjudicator with the Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board. No date for the hearing was set.
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Read MoreThe Department of Finance has asked the Parliamentary Budget Office to withhold public release of in-house data on a federal dentacare program. The Budget Office sought figures on the cost and scope of the plan promised by 2025.
“We respectfully request that you do not disclose the data publicly or share it outside of your organization,” the department wrote in a May 19 letter to the Budget Office. No reason was given.
Budget Officer Yves Giroux sought complete details of the dentacare plan. “I am requesting the eligibility criteria, details on the types of procedures covered and co-payment rates that were used to cost the new Canadian dental care plan measure in Budget 2023 and a description of any relevant assumptions such as inflation indexation of income levels, plan administration costs, etcetera,” wrote Giroux.
The Budget Office in a March 22, 2022 report put costs of the program at $4.6 billion annually by 2025. “We estimate that close to 6.5 million Canadians will benefit from the proposed program during the first year,” wrote analysts.
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Read MoreCanadian singer Celine Dion’s Courage World Tour announced the popular singer would be cancelling all remaining dates on sale for 2023 and 2024.
“I’m so sorry to disappoint all of you once again,” said Dion in a Friday press release.
“I’m working really hard to build back my strength, but touring can be very difficult even when you’re 100%.”
Dion said in December she was cancelling eight shows in 2023 and moving some to 2024 because she learned she has a rare neurological disorder.
READ MORE: Celine Dion cancels shows, suffering from stiff person disorder
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Read MorePeruvian police recently intercepted an odd narcotics shipment in the northern part of the country: “Nazi” cocaine. I’m not kidding. Fifty-eight kilos of cocaine packaged with swastikas was seized in the port city of Paita. According to the Associated Press, the drugs were found on a ship bearing the Liberian flag. The transport was reportedly shipping containers of asparagus. Upon searching the vessel, police found the cocaine in the ship’s ventilation system. The final destination for the Nazi cocaine was Belgium (via Associated Press):
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Read MoreRetirees are typically better off today than they were 40 years ago, Statistics Canada figures showed yesterday. The latest data follow research suggesting the current generation of retirees is the wealthiest in history.
“After-tax family incomes of retirees have generally increased,” said a StatsCan report A Cross-Cohort Comparison Of Economic Well-Being During Retirement Years. “Someone 60 years of age in 2008 would have had a different experience than someone 60 years of age in 1990,” it added.
Findings were based on tracking of incomes for retirement-age Canadians at intervals in the period from 1984 to 2008. “For example, women aged 65 to 67 in 1995 had a median income of $38,200,” wrote researchers. “By 2019 women 65 to 67 had a median income of $48,900. A similar pattern holds for men with the only difference being higher income levels.”
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Read MoreA new plan to force hospitals to report adverse effects of “natural health products” such as herbal remedies and supplements has come as a surprise to manufacturers, who say they were blindsided by the proposed change. The federal government included the plan in the 2023 budget bill, which is still making its way through the House of Commons.
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Read MoreA Quebec funeral home is renting out a private room for people to partake in doctor-assisted suicide – at a minimum cost of $700.
The cost is not for the euthanasia procedure, which is covered by Quebec’s medical insurance, but for the dedicated space featuring couches, candles, plants and artworks. Patients come to the home with their physician.
The funeral home’s new offering comes amid euthanasia deaths exploding in the province, going from 63 in 2015-2016 to 3663 in 2021-2022. Quebec is now the jurisdiction with the highest proportion of assisted suicides in Canada. Last year, Quebec spent almost $6 million on assisted suicide.
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Read MoreHigh school students in Cowichan Valley, B.C., were recently given tools to use hard drugs, such as cocaine, following a presentation on drugs. Students received kits containing information about “safer snorting” including a picture of a straw hovering above a line of white powder. Included in the kit were tubes for snorting and cards for making lines to snort. B.C.-based documentary filmmaker Aaron Gunn brought attention to the issue in a tweet on May 20, and Cowichan Valley School District issued an apology on May 21, saying a third-party presenter had left the kits at the school and the district does not consider them “school or age appropriate.”
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