2007-10-30

Moncton City Council is Waisting my Money!

I've been contemplating running for mayor. The current mayor (I have no idea what his name is) is not running again. No council members are running.
 
So the job is up for grabs. I'm immensely qualified. I'm bilingual and I work in Moncton's primary industry: call centres. More importantly, I've only been in town a few months so I haven't been Monctonofied.
 
Monctonofication is the process where by you start to think that Moncton is a metropolis so it needs four lane boulevards everywhere. It needs big box stores and gigantic malls. It needs it's beloved Wheeler boulevard (a four lane highway around Moncton) that enables people to go nowhere fast.
 
And last night on Rogers Cable, I watched Council approve, with only one objection, useless traffic lights at the cost of $80,000 to "calm" traffic and "slow it down" (words of one councilor). The engineer was clear: "traffic numbers don't warrant the traffic lights".
 
80 grand, of my money, to slow me down on my way to work (I walk or take the bus). The "intersection" in question is located at Betesborough and St-George. The other side of the intersection in the parking lot of a church.
 
80 grand pays for a lot of police surveillance. My other beef is the foolish belief that traffic lights are inherently "safer" than waiting for a clear spot. One of the councilors passioned arguments was that he once waited behind a lady who waited FIVE WHOLE minutes before being able to turn left onto Saint-George during rush hour! Oh the humanity!
 
An expensive four lane boulevard is built to move vehicles efficiently and quickly. Then, expensive traffic lights are installed at little used "intersections" to slow down traffic and make it purposely less efficient.
 
Blind people could successfully jay walk across Saint-George at rush hour. And yet Monctonifed Moncton City Council thinks that the boulevard needs 80 thousand dollar traffic lights at a church parking lot.

2007-10-27

Roger Duguay: Un nouveau superhero Acadien

Je suis d'origine québécoise et je suis arrivé au Nouveau-Brunswick, via l'Ontario, il y a trois ans. J'ai été frappé par certaines politiques du Nouveau-Brunswick:
 
-Salarie minimum le plus bas au pays!
-Assistance social: 270$ par mois!
-Surnuméraire (overtime) payé après 44 heure au taux de une fois et demi le salaire minimum!
-Aucunes subventions pour les services de garde d'enfant!
 
Pire, le seul parti qui réclame une correction: le NPD.
 
Alors je suis content que le NPD du Nouveau-Brunswick a choisi un chef, Roger Duguay, qui la possibilité de devenir le nouveau super héros des Acadiens.
 

Late Breaking News: Roger Duguay Elected Leader of the New Brunswick NDP

Altenative title: The New Acadieman: Acadians have a new Super Hero!
 
"Late breaking" in the sense that I'm late to break it. Two weeks late to be exact. I guess I've been too busy discovering all the features of my new ipod touch (people need it).
 
Still, this is probably news to you. Roger Duguay is the new leader of the NDP. This is good news in my opinion. Firstly, the pay is zero. So you had to lower your expectations a bit. Second, New Brunswick only has 750,000 people and the NDP is in third place. So you could forget about making money on the back end, as many politicians do, by writing successful books (Jean Chrétien) or charging a bundle for giving speeches (Bill Clinton).
 
Thirdly, New Brunwick may be officially bilingual, but there are relatively few people who are actually bilingual. The province is essentially divided by an invisible diagonal line from the North West to the South East (with a couple of anoying English-speaking enclaves like Miramichi and Bathurst). Bernard Lord, the most bilingual politician since Brian Mulroney and Pierre Trudeau, lives in the Moncton area and is from... Quebec!
 
Anyway, the bar was pretty low, and since I didn't run (too lazy), expectations were pretty low. Duguay is a former Catholic priest. He only quit two years ago. He now teaches. So as long as nobody accuses him of you know what, at least he'll have the "honest politician, doing it for the community" thing going for him. He has a masters in theology, so I'm assuming he has brains. 44 is also a good age to be leader in my humble opinion. Hopefully, he'll get a seat next election so the lack of salary issue won't be an issue (it will be until that happens, unfortunately).
 
The New Brunswick NDP essentially wants (large 2Meg file!) for New Brunswick what Quebec already has: social programs such as affordable daycare, higher minimum wage, etc... Communists and socialists would be pretty disappointed with the advocated policies of the New Brunswick NDP. The New Brunswick NDP is not that far to the left at all.
 
Still, there is the risk that by appealing to his Acadian Catholic neighbors, he'll put off the English Speaking Protestant (ESP) majority (70% of New Brunswickers are English Speaking, most of the them are Protestant). But if enough aformentioned ESPs join the NDP and actively participate, we might have a three way race next time around...
 
Cheat Sheet for Non-New Brunswickers:
-Fredericton is the capital of New Brunswick
-The border between French-speaking and English-speaking New Brunswick starts at the non-navigable part of the Saint-John River (Grand Falls, aka Grand-Sault) and goes, roughly, in a diagonal line to the intersection of the Nova Scotia border and the Atlantic Ocean. North of that line, the vast majority speak French, south, English. (By the way, you could extend that linguistic border into Maine along the same axis, but don't tell cheap labour seeking call centres, OK!).
-Shawn Graham is the premier of New Brunswick (although his French isn't that great, he represents the mostly French speaking riding of Kent.)
-Former Premier Bernard Lord was born in Roberval, Quebec, and therefor was the only Moncton politician to be understandable in French outside the  Chiac speaking city (sarcasm).

2007-10-23

World Of Warcraft Gold Diggers in China!

Listen starting at 13:00 minute mark of the October 18 edition of "Search Engine", a CBC radio program.
 
There are people working in China, playing video games, earning virtual gold, then selling it for real money to people too busy to be bothered in North America and Europe. A "billion dollar industry"!
 
Totally weird, totally real. Listen...

2007-10-20

Internet Rage

This person calls me three times a day. And they come in all genders and nationalities.
 
What makes this video so funny is how articulate he is. Catch the last line: "Am I being arrested, because I have a presentation in 10 minutes?"
 
What kills me is nobody offers any help or empathy whatsoever. They literally just run away. Wimps.
 
In tech support, what amazes me is how people trust technology. People who work from home, for example, who have ONE computer, no backup system, and this is the kicker, only one Internet account. If your entire working day is dependent on your Internet account,  you might want to bild some redundency and get an account with the other provider eh? For less than 50$ a month, I'd say it was worth it.

2007-10-19

Canada Needs More Jews and Muslims (My Al Goresque contribution to peace)

While I was wasting my life working in a call centre, Al Gore wins the Nobel peace prize for a slide show presentation. So here is my contribution to peace. Please forward a link to the Nobel committee.
 
The September issues of "This Magazine" and "Adbusters" both basically advocate an end of Israel.
 
The United Church et. al. advocate an embargo of Israel. I find that rather troubling, considering an effective embargo of Israel would lead to starving children.  But who am I to judge the wisdom to Canada's largest Church (in defence of the United Church of Canada, I believe it was only the Ontario branch that advocated the embargo)?
 
In the Canadian context, Israel makes no sense. In Canada, we are all, without exception, religious minorities. However, there are plenty of countries with "official" religions. Many are Muslim nations. One is Jewish. The United Church has none, so you could certainly forgive its members from being a tad jealous.
 
You could argue that Canada is a mostly Christian nation, and you would be right. But as any Canadian knows, and to paraphrase Bart Simpson, we tend to focus on the stupid differences rather than the stupid similarities.
 
In fact, you could argue that Aboriginal and immigrant religions have saved Canada from going Spanish Inquisition Northern Irish crazy and start murdering people on the wrong side of the Christian faith.
 
So I say Canada needs more non-Christians. More importantly, it would be a positive contribution to solving the middle east issues surrounding Jewish immigration to Palestine. Instead of advocating an end of Israel, or other religious nations, why not advocate Canada as an alternative. Full page ads in the Jerusalim Post saying "Be Jewish, be Canadian". Or, on AlJazera, "Closed captioning brought to you by Canada: Canada, be Muslim, be Canadian".
 
I would strongly recommend, however, making mastering English and/or French a prerequisite to admission to Canada before accepting thousands of Middle Easterners. Lets be practical, tolerance has its limits (I was asked today by a customer if anybody in my call centre spoke Russian, -Niet!).

2007-10-18

Afghan Immigration to Canada

I'm not saying Afghans immigrating to Canada would be a bad thing. Just something to think about.

From Travel Handbook Eastern Canada:


Dutch emigration to Canada peaked between 1951 and 1953, when an average of
20,000 people per year made the crossing. This exodus followed the harsh
years
in Europe as a result of the Second World War. One of the reasons many
Dutch
chose Canada as their new home was because of the excellent relations
between
the two nations, which specially blossomed because it were mainly
Canadian
troops who liberated The Netherlands in 1944-1945.

On the plus side, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia:
"The 2001 Statistics Canada census recorded 923 310 (single and
multiple response) people of Dutch origin in Canada. The Dutch quickly adopted
Canadian culture and traditions, and they have been integrated almost to the
point of invisibility
."

2007-10-17

Why You Like to Write Blog?

 
From wangjianshuo's Blog:
 
Why You Like to Write Blog?
 
Frequently asked enought, right? My simple answer
Writing daily forced me to think daily
Indeed. And to articulate your opinions. And to inspire others. And to be inspired (content doesn't always come easy).
 
Wangjiansho was my inspiration for what has become my main hobby.
 
Occasionally, I lose interest. But how else would I get to inspire a student at an Ivy league university?
 
Recent visitor:
 
Domain Name   harvard.edu  ? (Educational)
IP Address   140.247.95.# (Harvard University)
ISP   Harvard University
Location  
Continent  :  North America
Country  :  United States   (Facts)
State  :  Massachusetts
City  :  Cambridge
Lat/Long  :  42.38, -71.1329 (Map)
Language   English (U.S.)
en-us
Operating System   Macintosh MacOSX
Browser   Safari 1.3
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/312.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/312.6
Javascript   version 1.5
Monitor  
Resolution  :  1680 x 1050
Color Depth  :  32 bits
Time of Visit   Oct 17 2007 6:27:47 pm
Last Page View   Oct 17 2007 6:46:08 pm
Visit Length   18 minutes 21 seconds
Page Views   10
Referring URL http://www.google.co...uebec%22&btnG=Search
Search Engine google.com
Search Words edmundston nb "like quebec"
Visit Entry Page   http://altavistagoog...and-sovereignty.html
Visit Exit Page   http://altavistagoog...and-sovereignty.html
Out Click    
Time Zone   UTC-5:00
Visitor's Time   Oct 17 2007 5:27:47 pm
Visit Number   14,248

 

Kid Nation is Entertaining: Deal With It!

Alternative Title: If you enjoy Democracy, whatch Kid Nation.
 
"If you are obsessed with improving the society in which you live, Kid Nation is an inspiring show." (Altavistagoogle).
 
When I was 10 I had a paper route. I did not enjoy it. To this day I dislike dogs. But what I disliked the most about delivering papers was all the preparation involved.
 
My younger sisters helped me discover something important. Kids will work for free. And when someone (my babysitter) introduces the idea that they should be getting financial compensation, they will literally work for pennies. No I didn't send my 7 and 8 year old sisters out into to minus 20 winter to deliver papers, but they were quite willing to help their big brother insert all those flyers into the papers. And it was good preparation as a couple of years later they shared a route together.
 
It is with this in mind that I thoroughly enjoy, almost guilt free, CBS's Kid Nation. Growing up I enjoyed "You Can't Do That On Television" (filmed in Ottawa). I don't think that show was any more exploitative than "Kid Nation". Granted, the kids on Kid Nation are apparently working for free...
 
Kid Nation is as good or better than any other reality program I've seen. You want sex and violence free TV, reality TV delivers (not to mention the merciful lack of pretend lawyers or police). I really enjoy the town council and how they "deal" with power. That 10 year old Taylor, telling 14 year olds to "deal with it", is my hero.
 
Lite entertainment, to be sure, but that is what you need TV to be sometimes. Although if you believe in democracy and are obsessed with improving the society in which you live, perhaps Kid Nation is actually quite an inspiring show.
 
 

2007-10-16

AOL Moncton Yanks Yank Jobs

(2008-01-15 UPDATE: AOL Moncton appears to be closing completely)

I was offered a job with AOL in January, but thankfully turned it down. This is not going to have a positive impact on tech support salaries in Moncton. I'm thankful I speak French and Quebec still uses the Canadian dollar... My employer already pays unilingual French speaking employees 70 cents more per hour!

The following has not been confirmed by any other source, but obviously firing 2000 AOL employees will have an impact in high dollar Canada/Moncton.

And for the love a goodness, please stop arriving at my blog with the Google search ("name of my employer" Moncton closing). I just bough an Ipod, I can't afford unemployment! (granted, I seriously consider resigning daily)

From the Silicon Alley Insider:

Moncton Hit Hard

Showed up to work at AOL in Moncton this morning, to find 25 security guards. AOL has decided to axe all positions for their US Win Tech queue. (For those of you in the US, when you were speaking to a technician if you use AOL, and they were in Canada - you were likely talking to one of us.) Effective 30 Nov 07, the Moncton center will no longer be in operation for the "US Business". In total, about 140 technicians will be cut, as well as management and support staff. Overall count for Moncton is approx 175 people as of 30 Nov 07.


Related previous post:
- ALTAVISTAGOOGLE: Moncton is the Help Desk Capital Of the World

The Ipod itouch is amazing!

I suffered from buyer's remorce when I realized it didn't have a
camera. I was miffed that I could't use it downtown Moncton (the free
wifi was down).
Yes, the picture quality of the ipoded youtube puts the rest of the
Internet to shame.

I spend my entire day starring at a computer screen. Yet, when i get
home, i can surf on my itouch for hours!

If the itouch could play flash video, it would be perfect.

The itouch is so amazing can literally be a religious experience (i've
read parts of the bible on it).

The adapted Safari browser is without equal.

I feel I should have paid more for this device.

2007-10-15

Permanent Resident Admits on Blog to Voting Illegally in Ontario Election

Subtitle: is calling Canadians cheap in violation of Canada's hate law?

I had a good chuckle reading the comment section of one of L-girls' blog posts. She called Canadians cheap (I'm assuming she was referring to the English speaking variety) and, as predicted, there were a bunch of polite comments telling her she was nuts (she finally admits to having father issues).

But what is worth checking out, is the comments "removed by author". Based on the comment on the comment by L-Girl, we can guess that "Alex" admitted to voting in the provincial election, then realised he wasn't allowed to and retracted his comment.

If I didn't have to work tomorrow I'd use the wayback site to figure out who this Alex guy is... OK, turns out doing so only took me two minutes (but if I'm tired tomorrow it is all your fault). The mysterious Alex can sleep sound in knowing that the wayback machine has no records of the post.

However, speaking of immigrants committing illegal acts, I would submit that L-Girl violated Canada's Hate Law by stating that English (assumed) Canadians are cheap.

PS. L-Girls wouldn't know a Canadian if one smacked her across the face. You see, in the two years she has been blogging in Canada, the only part of Canada outside the GTA she has been to is the QEW to Buffalo. So really, she is calling Torontonians cheap. And with the rents those people are paying, I'd be cheap too.

Correction (2007-10-18): L-Girl has actually been East of Toronto. Extra points for doing so in the winter.

Four Lanes from Halifax to San Diego

As of last week, you can drive from Halifax to San Diego without ever crossing an intersection. Four plus lanes of controlled access the whole way. You will have to stop at the border and at a couple of tolls, and at immigration and fruit control points in California, but otherwise you can speed 110km/h ish the whole way.
 
Put it an other way, you can now drive from Halifax to Vancouver (via the USA) and not have to worry about oncoming traffic. Ditto for Halifax to Miami, Halifax to Mexico, Halifax to Toronto (via the USA).
 
Never has the human being able to travel between two points as far away without crossing an intersection (or worrying about oncoming traffic). This isn't exactly man on the moon, but still.
 
Don't you find in odd that you can drive from Halifax to Mexico on four lanes (two in each direction), but, in the Summer, you can't drive AT ALL to Canada's Arctic ocean! Worse, you can't drive AT ALL from Labrador's Atlantic coast to Ontario without taking long ferry trips (to be remedied when the now rich Province of Newfoudland and, ahem, Labrador gets its act together and completes the Trans Labrador Highway (supposedly some time in 2009)).
 
Also odd, you can't drive to South America. We can land on the freaking moon, but, thanks to the Darien Gap, we can't take a drive to see Hugo in Venezuela.

2007-10-11

First post using ipod touch

Thanks to appsafari.com i have finally figured out how to log into my
gmail which i more often than not use to post to my blog.
Moncton wifi was not working today which was dissapointing. However,
there are plenty of unprotected networks in town. So i spent a good
part of the early evening straining my eyes and freezing my fingures
at High Park.

Youtube looks great! The rest of the internet, not so much.

2007-10-09

Will Dion Win Gatineau Back From the BQ?

Will the Liberals do worse in Gatineau with Stéphane Dion as leader? Gatineau is the riding accross the Ottawa river from 24 Sussex Drive (the Prime Minister's residence). In the last federal election, the Liberals with Paul Martin did pretty badly in the Ottawa area. The civil servants' union officially supported the Liberals, but considering how many civil servants lost their jobs when Martin was Finance Minister, they could perhaps be forgiven for holding a grudge.

Only 17% of Gatineau voters voted Conservative. So the protest vote theory has some logic. However, 39% of the voters chose a party who's mission (Quebec being an independent country) would transfer jobs from Ottawa to Quebec City!

However, assuming every sovereignist voted for the Bloc, that still leaves at least 61% of the Gatineau population againts Quebec becoming a country.

But now that job slashing Martin is out of the picture, will Ottawa area residents (1.1 million and counting) start to dread the potential doom of a majority Conservative government? And if so, will the ridings within swimming distance of Parliament revert to being federalist?

I wont hazard a prediction.

John Tory is Trilingual. John Tory: Elvis Graton Ontarien

Listen to this clip of John Tory, leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, attempt to push French back to later, "por favor". Compared to him, our humble premier here in New Brunswick could pass for Molière.

John Tory est plus bilingue qu'Elvis Graton. Il parle même trilingue!




Hat tip to Laruche.

Jugé de son français dans un bref entevue avec la SRC.

Here are others on the same subject:
-John Tory tries to speak French, por favor!
-John Tory tries to speak French, por favor!

Know It All Immigrants and mmp

There is something wrong about immigrants telling us that we should change our electoral system, which has arguably served us well for decades (I don't count the period when aboriginals and women didn't have the right to vote).
 
You could argue that the 18 years of age cut off is a tad high, or low, depending on the teenagers you know. But few, I think. would argue that fresh off the boat immigrant non-citizens should have the right to vote. They haven't adapted. Because even if you only moved a few hundred kilometers across the New York-Ontario border, you are still a foreigner.
 
You can receive Canadian citizenship rather quickly (3 years I believe). That is a good thing, as not everybody is into democracy, and not having the right to vote doesn't exactly help us sell the concept to new residents. In 3 years or so, you can learn the basics, and start to be integrated into Canadian society.
 
More importantly, new citizens( and teenagers) have little impact, because they are spread across many different ridings. With the MMP system, fringe groups (religious, age, ethnic origin, heck, even Americans) could each have their own MP. Is that a good thing? Not here in New Brunswick. No thanks.

2007-10-06

Nous sommes une société de loisirs

À ceux qui attendait la société de loisirs, eh bien, elle est ici. En voici la preuve: Le jeu vidéo Halo 3 rapporte 300 millions $ en une semaine . Mais c'est vrai que payer $130 pour s'amuser (plus les frais d'un X-Box) veut dire qu'on doit travailler...

That Ipod could be expensive: Minnesota woman must pay $222,000.

A whole bunch of people have been whining about the low capacity of the new iPod Touch and its previous incarnation as the iPod phone. However, it would cost thousands of dollars to fill one up. A 160GB iPod? Well, you do the math.
 
Anyway, I'm not sure when stealing became OK, but apparently it is now socially acceptable. And not just among teens. Adults with plenty of disposable income spend small fortunes on computers, MP3 and high speed (aka high bandwidth) Internet, but balk at paying a buck for a song. A dollar!
 
Teachers in Ontario have clearly seen the light by buying Bell: teenagers who steal music are becoming adults who steal music. And they need "high speed' Internet and are willing to pay for it (ironically, more than they ever would have on CDs or reccords).
 
I'm sure there are plenty of legitimate reasons for needing high bandwidth Internet, online gaming for example, but I'm sure plenty of Bell's and Rogers' customers are using it for illegal purposes.
 
That said, music is often, essentially, free. You hear it on the radio all the time. Clubs and bars blast it. And even when you do actually pay out of pocket for it, most of the money goes to the distributor, not the people who made the music. Musicians such as Alanis Morisette often make most of their money from shows, not albums. People who refuse to pay a dollar for a song will pay $80 to see an artist sing it...
 
The argument againts pirating software is we need the stuf to stay productive, and if the people who earn a living making it can no longer buy food, they'll spend their time doing something else. The free software model is based on the dubious buisiness model of people paying for tech support to fix problems caused by bad, albeit free, software.
 
But would people stop making music if they couldn't make money from it? I doubt it. Maybe music should be produced by amateurs, who have real jobs. Art, perhaps, should be a hobby. Maybe music should be free!
 
 

2007-10-05

Ageism is Real In Outsourcing (Not just on The Office)

Ageism is Real In Outsourcing (Not just on The Office). Or, Qualified people need not apply.
 
It is kind of freaky when you see your employer advertising in India to, you know, replace you (thank goodness I speak French!). What is even freakier, however, is how they "adapt" to the local market.
 
I found these gems on the Indian web site of my employer, advertising for my job: Technical Support job requirements: "(...) or 1 year unrelated experience". "Preferred hiring age 18-35, however age is not the rejection criteria."
 
And these, for the same job, on some third party site:
 
"Good command over English".
"Desired profile: BE BTECH with More that 65% NEED NOT APPLY."
 
A BE Tech is a Bachelor of Engineering Technology.
 

2007-10-02

Quebec Now Has Carbon Tax. Ontario Does Nothing.

There is no reason the federal government didn't do this, but you have to question why so many other provinces haven't done this in response to the federal government's inaction.
 
As Ontario is in an election, it would be nice to hear about an Ontario carbon tax eh!
 
Being out of the loop in New Brunswick, I'm not sure how the Quebec government plans on spending the $200 million yearly windfall. (C$ =0.99US$).

TORONTO (Reuters) - The province of Quebec slapped the country's first carbon tax on energy firms on Monday, as Canadian business leaders urged "environmental taxation" to rein in greenhouse gas emissions.

Indeed, other non-energy companies which use large amounts of carbon products could also take a hit from the tax, warned the president of the cement industry, citing companies such as St. Lawrence Cement and LaFarge.

Cement is "certainly an energy-intensive industry ... but this tax unbalances our competitiveness across Canada, with the United States, and with the global cement industry," Pierre Boucher, president and chief executive of the Cement Association of Canada, told Reuters in an interview.

The carbon tax, proposed more than a year ago, is expected to raise C$200 million ($202 million) a year to fund the province's plans to reduce emissions.

It includes a per-liter levy of 0.8 Canadian cent for gasoline, 0.9 Canadian cent for diesel fuel, 0.96 Canadian cent for light heating oil, and C$8 a tonne for coal.

It wasn't immediately known whether the oil companies, including Petro-Canada and Imperial Oil, would pass along the cost to consumers.

Separately, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives said on Monday Canada should become "an energy and environmental superpower," and suggested higher energy prices to help cut emissions.

"The price signal is an important means to ensure that energy use reflects its environmental costs, and these signals can be strengthened through market-based mechanisms such as emissions trading and environmental taxation," the council said in a statement

Since 1990, greenhouse-gas emissions in Canada, a net exporter of energy, have risen more than in any other leading industrialized country, data submitted by the Group of Eight rich nations to the U.N.'s Climate Change Secretariat shows.

Quebec has pledged to meet its targets under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

Canada has signed on to the agreement, which calls for a 6-percent cut in emissions from 1990 levels by 2012, but Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said that target is impossible to achieve.

Instead, the minority Conservative government aims to cut emissions from greenhouse gases -- the key contributor to climate change -- by 20 percent from current levels by 2020.

2007-10-01

Moncton Call Centre Blues, multimedia version

Above is a way to accurate reenactment of how I "earn" a living. Special thanks to Acadieman for the comic relief. More about Acadieman in English from the CBC .

Below is proof that reality is sometimes funnier than fiction.

What I would have said: "I'm sorry, the off button is not supported by your service plan" (contains profanity):



The Government of Canada Uses Key Word Advertising

Your tax dollars support my blog.
 
You know you should have invested in Google when you realise the Canadian Federal Department of Finance has key word advertising on your blog.
 
The following caught my attention above my post about dropping the Queen.
 
Tax Fairness Plan
Finance Minsiter Jim Flaherty looks out for Canadian taxpayers
http://www.fin.gc.ca/access/truste.html
 
 

Off With Her Head: 53% of Canadians want to drop the Queen

The Angus Reid survey of Canadians didn't refer specifically to the guillotine, but the result would be the same: no more queen for Canada.
 
From the Canadian Press:

The survey by Angus Reid Strategies found that 53 percent wanted Canada to drop the monarchy.

Support for severing ties was highest among men, and among French speakers, while women, and those earning more than C$50,000 (24,677 pounds) a year, were most likely to support the current system, the survey of 1,032 adults found.

"These are the lowest results for the monarchy that I've ever seen," said Tom Freda, national director of Citizens for a Canadian Republic, noting that support was similarly low shortly after the death of Princess Diana.

In Quebec, the result is 74% ! Get rid of the undecided, and the results are even more striking, only 35% of Canadians would oppose getting rid of the Canadian monark (only 13% in Quebec)!
 
What is really striking (and perhaps explains why politicians stay a mile a way from this subject) is that only 2% of people 55 years and over where undecided about breaking ties. 55% of our "elderly" support dropping Lizy and Charlie, only 43% oppose.
 
Smart poor people are more likely to support droping her majesty, rich ediots want to keep her.
 
Your britishness is more likely to make you favour the Queen, with regions with regions with large aboriginal or French populations supporting the political equivalent to the guillotine.
 
Let's do this!
 
Detailed PDF (Acrobat) file of the questions and result.
 
 
-

 

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