OTTAWA – The Bloc Québécois says it will ask the Superior Court of Quebec to order a new election in the riding of Terrebonne, Que, “as soon as possible,” following the Liberals’ victory by a single vote.

Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet announced Thursday that his party would challenge the result “on the basis of a vote that was not taken into account, which constitutes an irregularity” in the electoral process. The challenge is not based on the judicial recount that took place.

“The judge said that we lost by one vote; the vote that would have created a tie appeared in the hand of a citizen. There is therefore a difficult-to-contest irregularity that, according to the law, requires that the election be rerun,” Blanchet told reporters on Parliament hill.

Liberal candidate Tatiana Auguste was declared the winner

following a judicial recount on May 10, bringing the number of seats won by the Liberal Party of Canada to 170, two shy of a majority. The incumbent, Bloc Québécois candidate Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, previously thought she had won the riding by dozens of votes.

However, a Terrebonne voter came forward a few days after the results were confirmed, claiming she had voted for the Bloc Québécois by mail, but that her ballot had never been cast.

This vote would have placed the Liberals and the Bloc in a tie, potentially leading to a byelection to determine the winner.

Emmanuelle Bossé stated in several media interviews that her special ballot was returned to her by Canada Post a few days after the April 28 election.

Elections Canada does not have the authority to order a rerun of the election, but admitted the error raised by Ms. Bossé.

According to Elections Canada, the error was in the last three characters of the postal code of the office’s address, although, it

declared the results final

.

“To date, only one case has come to our attention where an envelope containing a marked ballot was returned to a voter because of an incorrect address,” said Matthew Mckenna, a spokesperson for Elections Canada.

In an email exchange with National Post, McKenna also said the local office issued 115 special ballots for local voting by mail, and that according to their database, five ballots were received late at the local office and that the return envelope contained an error in the postal code.

“There is no information as to whether the delay was due to the incorrect postal code. We note that voters signed the declaration late in the election period,” McKenna said.

Meanwhile, 85 of these ballots were returned on time and counted, 16 ballots, including Bossé’s, were not returned to the local office and 9 other electors gave up voting by mail and voted in person in the electoral district.

Sinclair-Desgagné told reporters on Thursday that this whole experience has been a “roller coaster” emotionally but that it’s also an “issue that goes beyond the outcome of a single party.”

“I think it’s an issue of trust in our democratic institutions and that it’s important in our case to follow through with these efforts so that in the end, the residents of Terrebonne and the citizens of Terrebonne have a legitimate MP to represent them,” she said.

Sinclair-Desgagné did not say whether she still trusted Elections Canada and Canada Post, because “there is a legal recourse pending.”

Alex Marland, a political science professor at Acadia University in Wolfville, N.S, told National Post that while he’s always “very careful about expressing opinions”, in this case, he “100 per cent think that it should go to the courts.”

“That one woman who has that one ballot is an irregularity that affected the results of the election, and we can say it affected the result of the election because of the closeness of the outcome,” Dr. Marland said.

“So, to me, this is a slam dunk, and it should not be looked at by anybody as a partisan play by the Bloc,” he added.

Blanchet did not ask Prime Minister Mark Carney to keep Auguste out of the House of Commons while the case is ongoing, but said he hopes it will be resolved “as quickly as possible,” with Parliament scheduled to resume on May 26.

According to Marland, Carney and the Liberal Party should support the Bloc in this legal case to “clear the air” and emphasize that an administrative problem influenced the election outcome.

“I think this is an opportunity for him to just realize that we’ve got real issues about elections integrity… A byelection is a way to clear it, but a court case that drags on is not in anybody’s interest,” he said.

Liberal Party spokesperson Matteo Rossi did not comment on the Bloc’s legal challenge or indicate whether the Liberals would support it. Instead, he referred questions to Elections Canada.

Meanwhile, Blanchet said he had “a very high level” of confidence in the Bloc’s case and believes a judge will trigger a byelection.

Although, precedent could work against the separatists.

In a split decision,

the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in 2012

— more than a year after the 2011 federal election — that Etobicoke Centre Conservative MP Ted Opitz could keep his job, bringing to an end former MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj’s long battle to overturn the election result.

The majority of Canada’s highest court found that minor administrative errors should not be sufficient to allow an election to be overturned.

“The practical realities of election administration are such that imperfections in the conduct of elections are inevitable,” the justices wrote. “Courts cannot demand perfect certainty.”

National Post

atrepanier@postmedia.com

• Vote in Terrebonne is final despite uncounted mail-in ballot that would make it a tie: Elections Canada
• The Liberals were stunned by the gains they made in Quebec’s hostile ridings

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Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

OTTAWA – Prime Minister Mark Carney should “take a page from the Chrétien government’s 1994 program review” and cut tens of thousands of bureaucrat jobs, argued the Montreal Economic Institute (MEI) in a new paper published on Thursday.

The economic think tank found that a program review like the one from 30 years ago would result in the elimination of about 64,000 federal government jobs. This would lead to a return to the pre-Justin Trudeau government per capita size of the bureaucracy and a permanent reduction in public spending of nearly $10 billion a year by 2029, MEI experts say.

“The size of the Canadian public service once again requires attention. Despite the government belatedly acknowledging the need to restrain the growth of the federal bureaucracy, more decisive action is required,” said Conrad Eder, the associate Researcher at the MEI that produced the viewpoint.

During the federal election, Liberal Leader Mark Carney promised to cap the size of the federal workforce and to “not cut public service employment.”

“As part of our review of spending we will ensure that the size of the federal public service meets the needs of Canadians,” reads the Liberal platform.

The Liberals also promised to launch a “comprehensive review of government spending” focused on productivity. The review, it was said, would focus on “clear targets by departments and Crown Corporations with an iterative process that deploys best approaches across the public sector.”

For instance, the government wants to amalgamate service delivery, consolidate grants and contributions that serve similar purposes and reduce reliance on external consultants.

Following this review, Ottawa wants to put in place a permanent process to “link spending and outcomes across departments and continuous improvement in spending control.”

“Prime minister Carney’s promises to review federal spending give us cause for optimism, but the lack of details surrounding how it will be conducted brings us caution,” wrote Renaud Brossard, vice president of communications at the MEI, in an email exchange with National Post.

In 2023, then

prime minister Justin Trudeau gave a mandate to his then President of the Treasury Board

Anita Anand to find $15 billion in savings across the government by 2028, and then $4 billion annually after that.

Yet, from 2015 to 2025, the number of federal public servants increased by more than 110,000, a 43 per cent increase according to the MEI. There are 367,772 federal employees, or nine per 1,000 residents, compared to 7.2 when Trudeau took office.

By comparison, the United Kingdom has 7.4 federal employees per 1,000 residents and Germany 6.2 employees per 1,000 residents.

Last year, the MEI noted that federal personnel costs were on track to exceed $70 billion, compared to $40 billion in 2016-2017, the first fiscal year of Trudeau’s first mandate. According to the MEI, this represents one in seven dollars spent by the government.

The MEI maintains that a large portion of this spending is financed by large deficits. In 2024, the federal government posted a deficit of $61.9 billion, far exceeding its promise to keep it below $40.1 billion.

“Given the size of our deficit and the speed at which the bureaucracy has grown over the last decade, a federal spending review needs to be just as ambitious as the one undertaken under the Chrétien government in the 1990s,” Brossard said.

The 1994 program review has become an example of good fiscal practice in Canadian economic circles. When Jean Chrétien was elected prime minister in 1993, Canada was grappling with persistent deficits, an unsustainable national debt and a ballooning public service.

Chrétien then asked his finance minister Paul Martin to put “the house in order”.

The program review evaluated federal programs based on public need and fiscal capacity. The government then restructured programs and eliminated jobs in the public service. In fact, the size of the bureaucracy shrunk by over 42,000 employees, or 17.4 per cent, at the time they were done in 1999.

“Chrétien’s reforms worked because they were targeted and pragmatic,” explained Brossard. “His government proved that it is possible to provide essential services while tackling overspending.”

National Post

atrepanier@postmedia.com

• The Liberals were stunned by the gains they made in Quebec’s hostile ridings
• Quebec’s envoy in Ottawa leaves office as province seeks larger role in Canada’s U.S. relations

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Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

OTTAWA — CBC/Radio-Canada says it will stop paying its executives and employees millions of dollars in controversial “performance pay” bonuses but will compensate by increasing their salaries instead.

The public broadcaster made the announcement

in an unattributed statement

Wednesday alongside a four-page memo summarizing a compensation review report conducted by a human resources consulting firm.

“The Board of Directors, with the advice and concurrence of the President and CEO, has decided to discontinue individual performance pay as part of the overall compensation earned by eligible employees of CBC/Radio-Canada,” read the statement.

“In order to keep overall compensation at the current median level, salaries of those affected will be adjusted to reflect the elimination of individual performance pay.”

The public broadcaster offered the bonuses as performance incentives to executives and over 1,000 non-unionized employees yearly.

CBC/Radio-Canada spokesperson Leon Mar would not say if the salaries of employees who were previously eligible for bonuses would be increased by the exact same amount as the lost performance pay.

In an email to National Post, he only stated that salaries would be “adjusted” to remain in the 50th percentile

of compensation “for employees in our peer group of media, private, and public sector organizations.”

“

CBC/Radio-Canada will continue to set individual and corporate objectives and measure performance,” Marr noted, but did not detail what measures the public broadcaster will use to incentivize employees to hit their performance targets

The public broadcaster has repeatedly come under fire from critics, opposition parties and even the Liberal government for doling out millions of dollars in bonuses to executives all the while laying off staff.

Last year, the CBC paid out $18.4 million in bonuses to 1,194 employees — including $3.3 million to 45 executives — after eliminating hundreds of positions,

The Canadian Press reported

.

At the time, Conservatives said the bonuses were “beyond insulting and frankly sickening” and that the public broadcaster was at the “height of smugness” for paying them at a time of growing affordability issues.

But a memo summarizing a compensation review by HR consulting firm Mercer and published by CBC/Radio-Canada say that the Crown corporations’ compensation structure has “faced scrutiny”. But overall, it describes “performance pay” as a “widely adopted strategy” and considered “best practice” within government and Crown corporations.

It also said that overall compensation, including bonuses, offered by the public broadcaster are at the “midpoint” of the market.

Thus, removing the performance pay incentives risked dropping overall compensation below market value and putting CBC/Radio-Canada at a hiring disadvantage against other private and public sector organizations (not just in media).

“While CBC/Radio-Canada’s incentive targets are generally conservative relative to market, removing incentives altogether would position CBC/Radio-Canada’s compensation below market,” reads the memo.

“CBC/Radio-Canada should be mindful of not falling below market if it wants to retain and recruit the expertise and talent it needs to deliver on the organization’s national mandate.”

If the Crown corporation eliminated bonuses, Mercer suggested that it find other ways to compensate the lost remuneration and implement other ways to “drive and manage performance.”

The memo also argued that the public broadcaster’s executives are underpaid, but other non-unionized employees’ salaries are aligned with the market. It also says the public broadcasters’ defined benefit pension is a “key tool” for attracting and retaining employees.

“When all elements of compensation are considered, all non-unionized employee groups at CBC/Radio-Canada are currently aligned with market,” Mercer wrote in the memo.

Last fall, incoming CBC President Marie-Philippe Bouchard listed

compensation as one of her first priorities when she assumed the five-year post on Jan. 3.

“I’m going to be working on making sure that we have a system that’s transparent and that people can trust in our administration and management of public funds, especially in the context of compensation,” she told MPs during a Commons committee meeting in November.

“I’m not tone deaf,” she later added.

National Post

cnardi@postmedia.com

• Carney proposing to boost funding for CBC while also allowing ads
• Liberals want to nearly double CBC funding, as an investment in ‘national security’

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An Indonesian computer expert who processed 222 “bogus returns” at the New Brunswick Staples where he worked to get store gift cards that he exchanged for pre-paid, untraceable credit cards has been sentenced to 15 months behind bars, despite his lawyer’s argument that more than six months in jail will get him deported.

Soegiono Liem Swie, who has permanent resident status in Canada, raked in between $89,732 and $93,338 as a result of his “repeated acts of dishonesty,” according to a Fredericton provincial court judge.

“Mr. Swie’s large scale employee fraud took on considerable proportions,” Judge Scott Brittain wrote in a recent decision.

“The aggravating factors are many and significant while the mitigating factors are, at best, muted.”

Swie’s lawyer, Sabrina Winters, argued her client should get a conditional sentence of 18 months of house arrest and a year of probation. She also recommended her client be ordered to pay Staples back.

“Laid bare, the thrust of Ms. Winters’ sentencing submission is that this otherwise weak case for exceptionality becomes a strong one due to the spectre of ‘collateral immigration consequences’ that looms for her client,” the judge said in his decision dated May 8.

“I respectfully disagree and reject this suggestion in view of the circumstances of this offence and offender. While the period of incarceration I shall impose on Mr. Swie resides within the temporal range available for a conditional sentence, proportionality, parity, denunciation and deterrence each require that Mr. Swie serve a significant jail term for this offence.”

Winters argued that if the judge sentenced Swie to more than six months in jail for the fraud over $5,000, “his right to appeal a removal order made under the (Immigration and Refugee Protection Act) will be lost and the certain outcome will be deportation.”

Brittain “was unable to find any decisions of the Court of Appeal of New Brunswick where ‘collateral immigration consequences’ have been considered in the sentencing (or any other) context.”

The judge acknowledged “that the prospect of deportation invites potentially grave consequences for Mr. Swie and his family given that Mr. Swie’s wife and two sons are Canadian citizens. In effect, it could ultimately lead to a separation or divide not unlike what they experienced as a family between 2016 and 2018 when Mr. Swie resided in Indonesia while his wife and two sons lived in Toronto.”

Crown attorney Darlene Blunston recommended that Swie get a jail term of 12 to 18 months and a year of probation, and be ordered to pay Staples back.

“I substantially agree with the sentencing submissions of the Crown and quite strenuously part company with those put forward on Mr. Swie’s behalf,” said the judge.

“In my view, a sentence in the community … even of the longest possible duration with the strictest of conditions, would constitute an unfit sentence because it would be disproportionate to the gravity of the offence and the degree of responsibility of the offender. This is consistently borne out by the sentencing authority from this province for employer theft and fraud.”

Brittain pointed out that his “survey of the broader Canadian sentencing landscape reveals very few decisions where an offender facing ‘collateral immigration consequences’ has received a conditional sentence for large scale employee fraud.”

Court heard Swie, 51, “has an extensive background in computers. After studying computer engineering at the university level in his native Indonesia for three years, Mr. Swie spent the next 21 years working in the computer sales and service field. Of those 21 years, 16 were spent founding, running and growing his own business. At its height, Mr. Swie’s enterprise employed 25 people.”

Swie wound up his business in 2017 and joined his family in Canada the following year.

He was a sales support supervisor at the Fredericton Staples

—

one of four management positions at the store

—

until he resigned Nov. 27, 2022.

“Mr. Swie leveraged the enhanced level of access, responsibility and trust which accompanied his management position to process dozens of fraudulent return and refund transactions,” said the judge.

“His serial misappropriations went undetected for some time and only became known when a customer attempted to return a gaming chair purchased from Fredericton Staples only to have that transaction declined because records reflected her item had been returned and refunded several months before. The customer pressed the issue further because the gaming chair remained in her possession and no refund had ever been made to her. The matter escalated beyond Fredericton Staples to Staples Canada and ultimately triggered an internal investigation which took on increasingly extensive proportions as the layers of dishonesty and deceit associated with Mr. Swie’s carefully planned, deliberate and calculated scheme were uncovered.”

Authorities were able to recover $25,000 once Swie’s fraud was discovered. “It should be noted the recovery of the aforementioned sum was achieved by having the third-party company which manages the pre-paid gift cards place a stop payment on any unused balances,” Brittain said.

Swie “identified and took advantage of gaps in Fredericton Staples (surveillance) camera coverage of the store to travel undetected between the cash register area at the front of the store and the locked electrical room at the rear of the store” where he turned the cameras off “for periods ranging from a few minutes to several hours.”

Once the cameras were off, Swie returned to the cash register area “where he processed the fraudulent return and refund transactions,” said the judge.

“To close the loop of deception, Mr. Swie routinely manipulated the inventory data he was chiefly responsible for managing and overseeing as the sales support supervisor to further hide his fraud.”

Swie’s fraud took place between Dec. 8, 2021, and Nov. 27, 2022.

Brittain noted that “the frequency and magnitude of these bogus transactions increased over the event date range and sharply intensified in the final few months” Swie worked at the store.

His “fraud was prolific, far-reaching, long-lasting and meticulously planned and executed with the benefit of the elevated authority and access that accompanied his management position,” said the judge.

On top of the jail sentence, Brittain handed Swie a year of probation and ordered him to repay Staples $64,732.

• Jamie Sarkonak: Canada’s criminal sentencing discounts for non-citizens are unfair
• VIA Rail terrorist convinces judge to delay deportation decision due to mental health concerns

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OTTAWA — Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne signalled Wednesday there will be no spring budget and only a fall economic statement, despite his predecessor announcing pre-budget consultations earlier this year.

Asked by reporters about the date of the next budget, Champagne said his first three orders of business are tabling a motion to cut the bottom income tax bracket by one per cent, presenting a speech to the throne on May 27 and then publishing an economic update in the fall.

He made no mention of a budget, nor did he respond to repeated questions as to why the government would not be tabling a spring budget.

“The middle-class tax cut, that’s step one. Step two, you’re going to have a throne speech which will outline the Canadian government’s priorities, and there will be a fall economic statement to follow,” Champagne said after the first cabinet meeting since the shuffle Tuesday.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said the decision not to table a budget is a sign that Carney is failing to deliver on his election campaign promises to Canadians.

“Parliament has already been shut down for nearly half a year. Now, in the face of serious economic threats, the Liberals don’t intend to present a budget this year. There is no roadmap forward, no economic vision, and no willingness to lead,” said Poilievre, in a written statement. “This is not the leadership Mark Carney promised—it’s abandonment.”

Champagne’s signalling that there will be no spring budget is notable because his predecessor, Dominic LeBlanc,

announced pre-budget consultations in February

. At the time, Justin Trudeau was still prime minister while the Liberal party was in the midst of a leadership race that ultimately crowned Mark Carney.

“Through Budget 2025, the government will remain focused on responding to the current Canada-U.S. context, making life more affordable for all Canadians, continuing to strengthen economic security, and unlocking growth by boosting our competitiveness and productivity,” read the release by Finance Canada announcing the consultation.

In December, the Commons Finance committee also tabled a

330-page report on the fruit

s of its 2025 budget consultations.

Champagne also clarified that Prime Minister Mark Carney’s election promise to cut the lowest income tax bracket rate by one per cent will be introduced through a ways and means motion within the first sitting days of the House of Commons, which reopens on May 26.

In a ceremony reminiscent of an U.S. presidential signing of an executive order, the

prime minister opened the cabinet room to TV cameras and photographers on Wednesday to film him publicly signing an order

directing his government to prepare a motion to deliver the promised tax cut.

“Canadians sent a clear message: they need to see improvements in their affordability,” Carney said. “We’re acting today on that so that on July 1, as promised, that middle class tax cut… will take into effect.”

Champagne said he expects opposition MPs to “obviously” support the government’s motion.

“This is about Canadians. You know, we are in a situation, it’s a dire situation,” Champagne said. “This is a way for all parliamentarian to show up and say, ‘Yes, we support Canadians at the time when they need a break’.”

The last time the government did not table a spring budget was 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March. At the time, the sudden shutdown of the Canadian economy laid waste to the Liberal government’s original spending plans.

Instead, the Trudeau-led Liberals tabled a “mini-budget” fall economic statement.

National Post

cnardi@postmedia.com

• Guilbeault throws cold water on new pipeline, says we have enough already
• Conservative MP says Carney should appoint a labour minister and pay more than ‘lip service’ to workers

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