Prior to the election Michael Ignatieff asked us a question, "Do you want to go through the Blue Door or the Red Door." This reminds me of a scene in The Matrix when Morpheus asks Neo if he wants to swallow the blue pill, which represents blissful ignorance of illusion, or the red pill, "embracing the sometimes painful truth of reality." So here's a blog about figuring out which pill to swallow.
A Loophole in Bill C-30
I’m no legal expert, but because I work in the telecommunications industry, I am interested in Bill C-30 and was reading through it.
Something caught my attention, so I thought I would share it. Schedule 2, Partial Application of the Act, part 1, states that telecommunication providers who transmit communications on behalf of other telecommunications service providers are excluded from the act in respect to the services provided to other providers.
So here’s the situation, if you have a resold Internet connection from a reseller that is not back-hauled to their network—traffic remains exclusively on the host provider’s network—then theoretically your Internet connection is excluded from the act. This is because the host provider does not provide the service to you, but on behalf of the reseller, and also because the reseller does not control the apparatus through which traffic flows. This is not true in all cases of resold Internet traffic, in a lot of cases network traffic is back-hauled (sent) to the reseller’s network—and I’m sure in those cases the act applies—but there are cases where the traffic remains exclusively on the host provider’s network.
Now, this doesn’t mean the loophole will exist permanently. Section 5(4) of the bill gives the Govenor in Council the power to amend Schedule 2 by adding, deleting or changing what’s excluded in this schedule. What exact process must be done to change this schedule I do not know.
Finally, I suspect the host provider still has the right to voluntarily provide information to authorities should they decide to do so. But I hope this demonstrates one of the complexities in enforcing this bill.
In a speech to the media Nycole Turmel reveals how she has spent the last 20 years fighting for misguided conservative ideas.
laurathecanuck asked: You asked "what about the environment?" Well Hudak and the PC don't care about the environment. The Liberals tooks a step forward with the Green Energy and Green Economy Act, but Hudak will take us two steps back. Agree?
That seems to be the case. I may also question what the NDP’s intentions are with the environment. They want to remove the HST from the cost of gasoline, which doesn’t exactly make sense if you’re trying to promote the use and sales of hybrid and electric vehicles. Also, removing HST likely won’t lower the price of gasoline, oil companies will just jack up the price knowing the consumer has the capacity to pay more.
laurathecanuck asked: What about the orange pill? Or even the green pill?
Good question, I wonder why Morpheus did not offer Neo those pills? Perhaps he was hiding something? I wonder what the effects of those pills are… more questions!
Where is the option for the environment?
I wonder what exactly Tim Hudak means when he says he’ll remove the HST from our hydro and home heating bills. The HST includes a federal portion of the tax, so will Tim Hudak get federal approval to remove the HST from hydro and heating, or will he only remove the provincial portion of the tax? Alternatively, is he planning on removing the HST and having the province fit the bill for the federal portion of the tax?
Anyone know the answer to this?
What to do with $117 billion in 2013
Here’s a quick comparison of the Ontario Liberal and Progressive Conservative fiscal plans. I choose to look at the year 2013 because I have yet to find the Liberal’s plan and projections for 2015:
The Progressive Conservatives project that revenue will be $117.4 billion in 2013, $400 million more than what the Liberals project.
Through the Conservatives’ Tax Relief for Ontario families, revenue will be reduced by $1.6 billion, for a revenue after tax relief of $115.8 billion.
The Conservatives plan to spend $127 billion, which is $2.3 billion less than the Liberals who plan to spend $129.3 billion.
So my first project is going to be to figure out where the $2.3 billion in cuts, or rather “expense reduction in non-priority areas” as the Conservatives call it, will come from.
Also, the Conservatives claim they will increase health care spending by $6.1 billion, and education spending by $2.5 billion in 2015 (the end of the electoral term). By that time revenue is expected to increase by $12.5 billion (as projected by the Conservatives), or $10.5 billion if you factor in the tax relief plan. It would be interesting to find out where the expected increase in revenue is expected to come from, as my calculations based on inflation alone revenue would only increase to $120 billion.
Feel free to critic my calculations and offer your own opinion.
The Ontario Election
I know there’s an election coming up in Ontario, and I know I should probably bring out the jars again because the media seems to have at least one story a day about the Ontario election campaign which has unofficially started. But I’m too busy with summer, doing stuff like trying to learn to fly an airplane, which honestly is a lot more fun than an election.
Anyway, I had idea a few days ago. In addition to following the election by using the jars, I thought of another new and different approach to this election.
Put all the campaign rhetoric aside and look at the budget.
According to the 2011 Budget, Ontario has a projected $108.5 billion in revenue for 2011-12, as well as a $16.7 billion dollar deficit. Our job as voters is to determine how this revenue should be used, and what should be done with the deficit.
During this election, and on this blog, I will be focusing on the Ontario Budget, where the money is going, and what plans each of the parties have when it comes to spending our money.
Would any states consider moving to Canada?
Here’s a question for discussion. If the United States of America defaults on its debt, do you think any states would consider leaving the USA, and joining confederation to become a province of Canada?
Would this be possible? If it was possible, would they have to take any of the debt with them, or could they just leave debt free?
What do you think?
Is this the Harper Government’s idea of beefing up our military?
