Warning Shot from Corporate Canada

Front page article in the globe. where the Canadian Council of Chief Executives is complaining that there is a lack of leadership in Ottawa. Well ya! There have been some good moments but overall, what a disapointment. Especially the crazy conservatives. If I were any of these big Canadian CEOs, I would be holding back my $$$ big time. I'm sure the leaders would change their tune pretty quickly.

"As a political entity, Canada is a nation adrift," said the business group representing 150 leading CEOs. "A minority federal government is frittering away the fruits of years of sacrifice."

The CCCE plans to unveil its own "Canada First" strategy for the country before the next election, expected by early 2006.

I really hope the report will be about Canada First and not about useless integration with the United States. I don't have a problem with a certain amount of harmonization or collaboration as long as it is on our terms and it is with the goal of improved sovereignty. Check out vivelecanada.com.

The CEOs want the national debate to switch to strategies for cutting excessive spending, taxation and regulations -- and away from endless partisan wrangling in Parliament.

Hmmm...I support looking at making things more efficient but I would like the savings put back into productive programs that spur the economy. Like increased training or money for education. Jeffrey Simpson today in the Globe was talking about training and how Canada is in the middle of the pack of OECD countries. The Scandinavian countries have the right strategy. No need to reinvent the wheel. We can and should do better! As for taxation, I really think we need to destroy the Fraser Institute and their faulty "Tax Freedom Day" gimick. The Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives recently came out with this release. That is why I love the CCPA and why we need more center and center-left think tanks, who speak the truth!

Funny Harper Pride Pic

My sister has this on her blog. Check out the picture!

Finally Same-Sex Legislation

I am very happy to see Parliament finally voting on C-38. It's about time. I have to give Martin and the liberals credit for showing some leadership to call the Conservative's bluff and extend the sitting of parliament to get this legislation passed. The Globe reports in this article.

As for those that call themselves 'Liberals' who are voting against C-38, I am dissapointed and hope that us progressive Liberals can work so that you do not get the nomination next time. Reports suggest that Joe Comuzzi has resigned from cabinet. Good riddance! Make some room for some progressive MPs.

On Tuesday, Mr. Comuzzi resigned his cabinet post, chosing instead to sit as a Liberal backbencher, according to reports.

Kudos to MP Mark Holland. From this report in The Hill Times, he has done a lot of work to ensure that this legislation would be passed speedily. Keep up the good work! This proves that you can be a good MP even though you are young. Mr. Holland is 31. Email him here.

Thoughts on Today's Question Period

It was really nice to see that Harper had some legitimate policy questions for the Prime Minister. Monte Solberg was absolutely ridiculous with his questions. Goodale handled himself well and ended up calling Monte a "juvenile delinquent". I agree! Diane Ablonczy was on top of the immigration story. I completely disagree with her accusation of political interference. She should rather question the ineptitude of some consular officials and question why Volpe isn’t doing anything about it.

The Bloc, questioning about immigration was on the ball. Where were the other parties on this issue? There was a GlobeandMail editorial on it on Saturday regarding the visitor visa given to a pregnant woman in Syria who has been connected to a hard-line general. The plan was to come to Canada and give birth so the child becomes a citizen. This is a terrible abuse of the system and needs to be addressed.

Unfortunately, the NDP was out in left field asking about Belinda’s potential conflicts. Ok, ok, I know about that. How about some substantive policy. Layton’s usually better. Alexa McDonough had a good question about the deep integration report produced by among other John Manley. Check out vivelecanada.com.

Hmmm…nothing on Bernard Shapiro’s ineffectiveness. That's a shame. Check this out.

C-60 Needs a Rethink

This bill has been bothering me since I read Michael Geist's column a little while back about the possibility of legislation coming forward from Heritage Canada and Industry Canada jointly. I think the Ottawa Citizen sums it up quite well here (PDF format). It begins,

"Proposed changes to the federal Copyright Act, if adopted as law, would punish legitimate users of copyrighted material without making much of dent on illegal file sharing."

There are a number of issues with this bill. Michael Geist does a great job of outlining them:

It also expresses concern for user interests, concluding that "lost in the middle...may be the customers themselves." The paper is troubled by the potential loss of fair dealing rights as well as the inequity of bundling copy-protection, anti-circumvention legislation, and the private copying levy.

Some may quibble with its characterization of anti-circumvention provisions and some fair dealing rights given the bill's link between circumvention and copyright infringement. However, I think the concern that locked down content, when combined with uncertainty over whether fair dealing covers a certain use, could indeed lead to a chill in uses of materials that are currently permitted under Canadian Copyright law. More generally, the editorial's focus hits the right issue as the paper obviously wants to ensure that user interests are fairly and fully addressed by the new bill.

As I see it, there is still ample opportunity to get changes to this bill. As Liberals, especially my fellow bloggers, we need to make sure that Liza Frulla and David Emerson as well as our MPs know that we have reservations about this bill.

Now, don't get me wrong, this law is better than the crap in the United States but we in Canada can do better. Our government should not be propping up the Canadian Recording Industry's failing business models. Lower your prices, offer better services and people won't need to download illegally. It's that simple. And, that doesn't even get into the argument about downloads themselves.

A Wharton professor, Peter Fader has done extensive research on this. He notes that downloading actually increases CD sales. I attended a lecture of his where he had download stats for 50 cent and aligned them with first week sales of CDs. Downloading can and should be used by labels to seed the market. Check out his article. The sad truth is that the Recording industry just can't get their shit together to come up with a succesful business model that appeals to consumers. In the US, the proliferation of legal high quality streaming services have demonstrated some success. That is proof in my view.

Another bone I have to pick, is the levy on blank CDs that consumers have to pay. If they are now changing the law then I think that the levy should be reavaluated. I hope the money goes to Canadian Artists and not the Recording Industry.

Drop them an email, and let them know what you think. Check out Michael Geist's website for more detailed analysis. Also, he has some great columns in the Toronto Star about this.

Let me hear your thoughts!

How I love the CBC

I just finished watching CBC News: Sunday and have just been reminded why I love the CBC. It really has improved a lot over the years and is producing some great programs especially on CBC Newsworld. Notwithstanding the cancellation of "Counter Spin", I have been quite pleased. I got a glimpse of this show Times Seven hosted my Ian. Hanomansing. It is a collaboration between the NY Times, the Discovery Times and the CBC. I was thoroughly impressed.

Just another reminder that we need to support Canadian Content and the CBC. I have a feeling that CBC funding has increased a bit over the last few years but I really need to look into it. So look forward to a much more in-depth post in the near future. While we're talking about it though, why not increase their public funding regardless, they deserve it. No, actually they don't just deserve it, Canadians deserve it!
I will contacting my MP about it. I suggest you do the same.

Oh, on that subject, for some reason lately I have been in a mood of emailing my comments to everyone and anyone. I emailed the Premier the other day with a comment and have emailed my MP a couple times. I guess having worked in a political office that cares about what constituents think has had that effect on me. And yes, it is a tad naive and idealistic to think that most other politicians care what I think. But then again, if they don't, I'll make sure that it won't be easy for them.

Ok, back to my GlobeandMail from yesterday. I still haven't finished reading it and on a side not the Globe Style Section was hilarious: Naked Sushi, Guerrilla Gardeners in Toronto and a story on the backlash to the "Metro" craze. As in MetroSexual. Look forward to a post on the "Metro" stuff soon :)

Rumsfeld Parody

I haven't been following the Donald Rumsfeld saga as closely as I would have liked. Watching his testimony before congress, I was blown away by some of the hard hitting questions he was getting from the democrats especially Sen. Kennedy. Pretty much, point blank demanding his resignation, to which Rumsfeld responded that he had tendered his resignation twice but good old Bush didn't accept. Hmmm...I wonder why.

I found this at the Daily Kos: State of the Nation. I found it hilarious. Let me know what you think.

Rogers Help was Actually Decent

So after going to write a post this evening (and by evening I mean 1:30am), my computer was unable to connect to the internet. I checked my network, router, tried every trick I knew. Well, I had no other choice but to call Rogers Help. My first comment is about the new automated voice recognition system. It is pretty cool, although i prefer to press in the numbers since I find it easier when inputing phone numbers and information. But it was great - all I needed to say was "Tech Support" and that was it. Technology ceases to amaze me :)

So I finally get to the help guy and the wait was about 1min. Not bad, but I c'mon it's 2am so not a true test of Rogers' resolve to deliver quality and timely customer service. My plan was to be very upfront with the guy. I told him my problem, what I thought it was, outined all the steps I had already taken and told him we wouldn't need to do those. It probably saved a lot of time. Like reseting this, turn off that. Please...I know how to do that. I've called in one too many times to call for crap like that. So he really tries everything. Reset my network adapter, uninstalled stuff, even tried to connect to my cable modem through USB. Nothing worked. Then he suggested the simple thing of doing a system restore. Presto...It worked!

It was an interesting hour on the phone with him. I was in a fun mood and struck up a conversation with him. I asked about the downloading policy - rogers caps bandwitdh at 61gigs a month, I found out that my traffic so far this month has been 9gigs, and I asked about my wireless problems. I have to say he was nice and very helpful. The telling thing for me was when I told him my problem, he said "Sorry to hear that, I can help you with that" - yes a rehearsed line but at least Rogers has given them that line to say.

So to make a long story short, I was impressed! For those that are wondering how to view your internet usage, check out the Customer Service website. It is great. You'll need to register and make sure you have your account number and postal code handy. You can view your usage in a pretty easy display along with view your bills etc...

Let me announce a challenge: I would like to see if anyone has used more bandwitdh than I have. Go check and see how you stack up. Try to beat 9gigs! Consider yourself challenged.

Kudos to Ken Dryden

Ken Dryden suprised me today with an incredibly articulate piece in Friday's Toronto Star. I was thoroughly impressed with it and I hope it goes a long way to convince the many moderates out there who aren't yet convinved of the logical/moral/ethical reasons behind legalizing same-sex marriage.

I, of course, am in full support of the same-sex legislation. I don't mind the latest amendments to C-38 if it means it will now pass, but would have liked for churchs to start to worry about losing their non-profit status, which works out to be indirect funding. They would lose such status, as I understand it, if they advocate against the law or act illegally regarding the issue. (I hope I got that right, please correct me otherwise).

The Federal Conservatives are totally out in right field on this one. They obviously fail to understand that a) negative doesn't sell b) the majority of canadians are socially progressive. The sad part is that because of Harper and his staff's ineptitudes the canadian people no longer have an alternative to the Liberals. Don't get me wrong, I am as Liberal as one gets, but I also love Canada and think it benefits from a vibrant democracy, which would require decent alternatives.

Edit after posting: Cherniak beat me to it. Check out his blog, I read it regularly.

Hmmm..Slight setback

So, I was just read the riot act. Well not quite, but some friends alerted me to the conflict which is created by me writing about the ontario government or education since I work for the government. I totally understand, which is why I took off the posts. You can email me if you want to read them. I will consider sending them your way :)

As for this blog, I guess the Ont. gov't part of things will be on hold till I get back to school, which is a big shame because I was going to be a big cheerleader (well, unless they do stuff I don't like which isn't likely).

Ok, so back to my saturday routine of reading the Star and Globe front to back.

p.s. 34 unique visitors with a few return visits. Wow...

The hits keep coming...

16 unique hits today from the US and Canada. Hey, that's not bad considering, I'm just a 20 yr old opinionated kid.

I also usually won't be blogging this often but as I find things that bother me, I now have an outlet to express it. I am really getting excited about this blog :)

Comments are welcome! You don't have to be a member of blogger.com to write comments so please write!

Make Poverty History!

So, I have been at home for the past 9 days recovering from tonsillectomy and have been watching a ton of news and reading a lot on the internet. I have been taken aback by the worldwide campaign known as "Make Poverty History" (Cdn Edition). It is really amazing. I completely agree with the goals and think it is an incredible cause.

Here's what the Cdn campaign wants in 14 words:

• More and Better Aid.
  
• Trade Justice.
• Cancel the Debt.
  
• End Child Poverty in Canada.

How can you not agree with that? I guess it must be hard since even the Harper Conservatives are pressuring the government to adopt the 0.7 of GDP pledge. Um...weren't they supposed to be the ones who were fiscally responsible? Now we have Martin and Goodale who don't stop talking about how they want to make the promise but they don't want to make it unless they know for sure that the money is there.

Well, I say that if there is a will there is a way. If it is important to the leaders of our government, and it should!, then they will find the money. Truthfully, the 0.7 pledge isn't the most important thing, rather fairer trade would do the most to alleviate poverty. However, Canada doesn't have as much influence as I would like on the other G-8 to make them drop their market-distorting subsidies. So, I will settle for the 0.7 pledge as a start. It is easily marketable to Canadians and people understand aid. The general public doesn't understand WTO negotiations.

On the worldwide effort, the US site One.org is pretty good. Also there are some AMAZING commercials worth viewing at Making Poverty History.org. Honestly they are amazing! They blew me away. Especially the Bono one.

Till next time,