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.

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!