Royal Canadian Again

After 43 years, the Air Command and Maritime Command of the Canadian Armed Forces, will once again be the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Royal Canadian Navy. The Royal designation was dropped in 1968 when the military was structured into a unified service. Coverage is here and here.

The part of me that respects the heritage, applauds having the Royal names restored. I will have a family member in the Royal Canadian Air Force. How cool is that?

The cynic in me thinks this is a Harper ploy to get votes from veterans who have petitioned for the old names to be restored for many years. The fact that I think a politician might be so calculating, makes me kind of sad.

The New Dictators

The new totalitarian regimes (or wannabes) do not use jack boots to step on their citizens. That's so last century. The modern dictators (or wannabes) pass laws which require the corporations to do the dirty work for the government. The U.S. government is definitely a wannabe (totalitarians in training, if you like). They have just passed such a law which uses the old child pornography bogey man again. The Canadian government is also a wannabe and is desperate to catch up with our neighbours. Our version of this law is expected in the fall. All hail to the new dictators!

The Importance Of A

"Today, Canada is gross."

"Today, Canada is a gross."

See how important that "a" is? Of course, a true Canadian would say, "Today, Canada is a gross, eh."

For any non-Canadians who may be wondering what I am blathering about: Canada is 144 years old. Which is a gross. Just be careful with those a's, eh.

The Fish Stinks

The Canadian Broadcast Act exists to protect the Canadian broadcast industry (Bell, Rogers, Quebecor, et al) which is why the CRTC treats non-broadcast entities, such as consumer groups, like they do not matter. Those same companies are also the largest Canadian ISPs, who appear to be perfectly OK with the government's upcoming lawful access legislation.

Now ask yourself, why would the government change the Broadcast Act (or Telecommunications Act) to improve consumer choice or to enforce net neutrality, when the companies covered by those laws are happy to do the government's dirty work by spying on Canadians? The fish stinks from the head down.

Stop Online Spying

Even though the Conservative government delayed its lawful access legislation until the Fall, it is a dangerous idea that would turn Canada into a surveillance state. Lets try to nip this in the bud before it goes too far. Please sign the petition if you are a Canadian. Unfortunately, with a majority government, it will be easy for them to ignore a petition unless it has a significant number of signatures. Get the word out to as many people as you can.

Faster Wholesale DSL

It looks like the wholesale ISPs are a little closer to getting faster DSL speeds now that the CRTC has ordered the ILECs to post interim tariffs. The tariffs will likely not be competitive but it was the only way to overcome the incumbent's stonewalling according TekSavvy's CEO, Rocky Gaudrault, who, I should add, is supposed to be on sabbatical and should not really be paying attention these matters. ^_^

Gilles Villeneuve

It was thirty years ago that Gilles Villeneuve drove his last Canadian Grand Prix. In 1982 he would be killed in a horrific qualifying accident at the Belgian Grand Prix.

Villeneuve was a gifted driver. He was renowned for his ability to carry a poorly handling car (Gilles called the 1981 Ferrari 126C a "big red Cadillac"). His car control was unparalleled, possibly because in his early career he raced snowmobiles where controlling a sideways slide was essential. He would have been world champion if his F1 career had not been cut short.

I highly recommend the biography written by Gerald Donaldson. It is not a rose coloured view of Villeneuve's life. The Villeneuve Museum in Berthierville, Quebec, looks worth a visit someday. Here are some photos taken inside the museum.

Sonne Out On Bail

Byron Sonne is finally out on bail (The Star, CBC). The conditions are very strict but some are a little strange. For example, I don't understand why there is a prohibition on contact with his ex-wife, when it has nothing to do with the charges and there's no history of domestic violence. Why prohibit contact with groups with which Sonne has never associated? We won't know why the prosecution required these strange conditions until after the publication ban is lifted, but to me it seems that the prosecution is looking very hard for things that are not there.

Political Prisoner

Read this article about Canada's G20 political prisoner, Byron Sonne. Now ask yourself if you feel safer that he has been in custody for almost a year. In fact, the whole fiasco makes me even more uneasy because it suggests the security establishment is unable to distinguish real threats from false ones. That scares me because they used Sonne as a way to justify the security theatre by catching someone whether he represented a danger or not.

The more recent charge of "counselling to commit mischief not committed" is equally disturbing because, essentially, it turned the basic freedom of speech into a crime. When this charge was laid earlier this year, this happened in Zimbabwe. If one excludes the torture, which thankfully is not standard procedure in Canada (I'm sure some police wish it was), the rationale of the security forces is disturbingly similar. I did not refer to Sonne as a "political prisoner" for the sake of hyperbole.

And The Winner Is...

A Conservative majority. Damn, we got the worst case.

The first New Democratic Party opposition? It's a pyrrhic victory in my opinion.

The Liberal Party decimated. They are still paying for their arrogance.

The Bloc Quebecois routed. This may actually fuel separatism.

And... the Green Party wins its first seat!?

We live in interesting times, my friends. Perhaps a little too interesting. The good news is no Federal elections until 2015. The bad news is this could be a very long four years.

Wikileaks Canada

This week Wikileaks released many diplomatic cables concerning Canada. It seemed like perfect timing with only three days to the election. So what did the Canadian mainstream media have to say about the cables?

The CBC had decent coverage of the entire release. The Globe and Mail picked a cable with an unfavourable view of Ignatieff. This choice is not surprising. The Toronto Star focused on one cable about Laura Harper. Yeah, they went for the really important stuff.

Outside the mainstream, Micheal Geist examined the copyright and intellectual property comments in a few of the cables. There is little doubt that the US is influencing the IP debate in Canada. And as an indication of Geist's importance in that debate, there's even a cable about him. ^^

Promises Promises

Micheal Geist has summarized the digital policies of the three main parties. As with all campaign promises, making them is easy, keeping them is what counts. Unfortunately, since it looks like we will get at least another Conservative minority, I actually hope they don't keep their promises in this case. It looks like the first steps towards a surveillance state to me.

UBB 2.0

Bell was never going to just quietly give up on forcing usage based billing onto the wholesale ISPs. Their mistake was trying to impose the Bell retail UBB onto the wholesale ISPs, which created a public outcry and turned UBB into a political hot potato. They have learned from that mistake and have made a new proposal which moves the UBB from the wholesaler ISP's retail customers to the ISP itself. The ISP would buy blocks of usage at $200/TB/month and pay overage fees of $0.30/GB/month. Bell calls the new proposal "aggregated volume pricing" (AVP) but it is really UBB 2.0.

On the face of it, AVP looks better as the ISP can be more creative in how it passes the cost on to its customers. However, the pricing is way out of line with how much it actually costs to deliver a TeraByte per month at the wholesale level. Besides, the ISPs already pay Bell to have their data transit GAS and AHSSPI so the new proposal is still double billing for the same service. AVP is still nothing more than a cash grab by Bell.

This proposal is unlikely to get 500,000 people to sign a petition and cause another media stir, as the direct impact on the individual customer is much less obvious. The proposal ensures that the fight is now between Bell and the wholesale ISPs, who unfortunately do not have any influence at the CRTC. I expect the CRTC to rubber stamp UBB 2.0, perhaps with few token concessions to make it look like they were impartial. Bell wins again.

Random Election Again

The Liberals are adrift and rudderless. The NDP have no hope winning as usual. The best outcome that we can hope for in this election, is another minority Conservative government. The worst outcome is a Conservative majority and that is a truly scary thought. What really bothers me is how easily people have been persuaded that the Conservative agenda makes any sense, especially among my own family. Sigh.

UBB In The Spotlight

Usage based billing is still in the spotlight which indicates it is not going to be easy for the CRTC to dodge the issue, or for the government ignore the problem later. Sadly, it is very clear the CRTC just doesn't get it.

This article debunks the myths that UBB supporters typically use in their arguments. Even the comments are good... well most of them anyway.

These folks raised enough money from donations take out print media adverts and are hoping to repeat the exercise with another round of donations. Are they using old fashioned methods to make a point about a modern problem? Well, price gouging really isn't a modern problem, is it?

Apparently, about 1% of the Canadian population signed the openmedia.ca (above) petition. That's definitely not a small sample, statistically speaking.

UBB Cancelled

The folks at TekSavvy celebrated that the 1 March implementation of UBB is cancelled, by raising the monthly caps from 200GB to 300GB. They credit the increase to the cost savings they obtained from their non-Bell providers. I found this distinction mildly humourous. The larger cap is bound to attract subscribers away from Bell even if the speeds that TekSavvy can offer are likely to be much lower, at least for now.

Whether UBB is completely dead, remains to be seen. The Industry Minister has promised to overturn anything that resembles UBB after the CRTC completes its 60 day review. When politicians make promises, I only believe them when they actually follow through, and not a moment before. So yes, I'm skeptical.

Tracking Usage

Oh, this is rich. Right in the midst of the wholesale UBB debacle, Bell admits that it found errors tracking the usage of its retail customers. Talk about adding fuel to fire. Of course, they insist that it has only happened to a small number of their customers. I believe them. Many wouldn't. :-]

Yeah, right. More likely, these are just the people who were paying attention to their bills.

Pointless Fights

It seems that I'm not the only one who feels the CRTC's 60 day moratorium on UBB, is not going to accomplish much. Micheal Geist explains clearly why he believes this isn't going work. (The post also has an excellent rebuttal of the idea that bandwidth should billed like water and gas, and is worth reading just for that.) If Geist is correct, the CRTC will reach the same conclusion because it will start with the same faulty premise that the bandwidth hogs are a problem that must be controlled.

Fine, if that happens the Industry Minister will just overturn the decision, so it doesn't matter, right? Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Remember the Globalive business back in 2009? The CRTC ruled that Globalive did not meet the foreign ownership rules, which was legally correct, and the the Minister overruled that decision because increasing competition was more important. Well, the courts overruled the Minister today, almost two years after Globalive's Wind Mobile started operations in Canada.

As long as the CRTC simply stays within the boundaries of the current Telecommunications Act, the courts will always support their decisions, and this is no different with the UBB decision. It may be wrong but it's legal. The obvious solution is to change the law so that it aligns with the goals of Industry Canada. So why hasn't the government done that yet? Instead we get these pointless fights between the the goverment and one of its own agencies.

Welcome to Canada. Water flows uphill here you know...

CRTC Back Peddles But...

The CRTC has back paddled on the UBB decision... by merely delaying the implementation for 60 days so they can study it further. For goodness sake, they've been studying it since the autumn of 2009. If they don't understand the consequences of UBB by now what difference is another 60 days going to make? I smell a rat. My bet is, they (and Bell, who is pushing UBB) are hoping that the attention will die down in 60 days, then it will be back to business as usual.

The CRTC chairman dissembled extensively before his political masters today. For example, when asked why Bell's IPTV is exempt from their retail UBB, he replied that IPTV is not an Internet service. However, this is Bell's definition of IPTV. I'm sure Netflix would disagree. Another example, the chairman indicated that UBB is a common pricing structure. That might be true for retail customers but it definitely not the norm for wholesale customers. Do you see why I don't trust the CRTC?

On the positive side, the Industry Minister has stated that, if the CRTC comes back with the same decision in 60 days, the government will definitely over turn it. OK, but how much does the decision have to change? If the 15% discount on the 40GB usage blocks is increased, would that change be considered acceptable? It should not be, because it still treats the wholesale ISPs as if they just reselling Bell's services.

Want More Snow?

OK, so Toronto didn't get the 20-30cm of snow that was forecast but the 10cm was enough, thanks. I really hate it when someone accuses others of being wimps because it was only a little snow. "We're Canadians, this is nothing!" Every time someone says that, we should arrange to have all the snow in his neighbourhood dumped on his property. You want more snow? Here, have ours.

When I was in my 20s (perhaps even into my 30s), I didn't feel this way about snow. As I got older with many more problems to worry about, snow has become just another problem. So I guess the moral of this post is: don't get old. ^_^