Legal

Findings

Defects in the law itself.

• 4 October 2026 · Pakistan · World Bank A firm debarred by the World Bank holds a World Bank contract.

  Pir Azmat Shah & Sons stands on the World Bank list of debarred firms until 13 July 2028. On 31 October 2025 the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Human Capital Investment Project awarded it a contract of PKR 979.9 million, after rejecting two other bidders as ineligible.

• 25 September 2026 · Canada Canada's environmental law certifies a check on gene-edited seed that its own guidance switched off.

  Schedule 4 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 makes the listing of the Seeds Regulations conclusive proof that they provide notice and a toxicity assessment. Since 3 May 2023 a gene-edited plant found non-novel is released with neither, and Canada keeps no count of what was released. Petition 0550 puts 18 questions to 4 ministers, with answers due 22 January 2027.

• 24 September 2026 · Ontario Ontario paid $194,700 to make a refugee programme accessible. Its own agency says accessibility is outside its role.

  The Ontario Trillium Foundation funded a refugee employment charity to hire a Client Relations Lead and adapt its services. The charity told the public the grant let it increase its accessibility. In August 2026 it refused a refugee claimant for having no telephone, and said no written policy stood behind that. On 24 September 2026 the Foundation answered that the matter falls outside its grant oversight role, and linked the page that contradicts the answer. On 25 September it answered in 18 hours that it has no additional information to provide, while publishing that it is required to abide by FIPPA and that it takes the $5 application fee only by cheque or money order.

• 24 September 2026 · Canada Fourteen questions on what defends Canada against nuclear attack. The Government will not say whether one record exists.

  Three access requests asked National Defence for any assessment of the allied assurances Canada relies on, the instrument that records any obligation to defend it, the plan a statute requires and the nuclear certification of the aircraft it is buying. On 17 September 2026 all three were answered with the same forty-six words: the Department neither confirms nor denies that records exist.

• 24 September 2026 · Canada One federal pension rule punishes misconduct. It reaches constables, and nobody else.

  The RCMP statute lets a board chaired by the President of the Treasury Board withhold the employer's share of a constable's pension for misconduct. The public service statute lost its rule in 1999 under a bill sponsored by the President; the Forces statute never had one. On 23 September 2026 the Secretariat confirmed the gap in writing and named another minister.

• 2 September 2026 · Ontario The enforcement asymmetry in the Ontario Works Act, 1997

  A debt owed by a person becomes a Superior Court order by operation of the statute. An order owed to the person is carved out of the only route that would enforce it.

• 3 September 2026 · Canada The federal contract register counts every amendment as a contract

  Every amendment is published as a separate row carrying the whole value of the contract after amendment. Anyone who sums the published rows arrives at a market almost twice its real size.

The registry of documented defects — where a body departs from an obligation it published itself →