Slashdot Mirror
Canada Splits Local Phone, DSL Services
s20451 writes "Running counter to the recent string of pro-consolidation FCC rulings in the United States, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has ruled that big Telcos like Bell and Telus must offer ADSL service even when local phone service is provided by another company. Effectively this ruling splits local phone and net services, opening both up for competition and lower prices. Press release here."
Don't forget that Canadians are people* too!
*Americans
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
I'm an American - (an) insensitive clod!
Isn't it nice to have someone else pay your share of taxes? You won't like it very much when you graduate and you're handing over 50% of your hard-earned income. Over the life of your career, you'll see that you would have rather paid your fair share now.
Life in Orange County
> why would I _not_ want to move to Canada?
:)
1) You'd start talking funny, eh.
2) You'd have to use weird words - your dollar currency would be called a "Loonie" (there's a Loon on the dollar coin), and your two-dollar currency would be called a "Twoonie," eh.
3) You'd have to start making fun of people from Newfoundland ("Newfies"). I don't know why, you just would.
4) You'd have to pretend there's a really big cultural difference between Canadians and Americans. To everyone who asks, or doesn't ask.
5) You'd have to listen to Canadian radio and watch Canadian tv, which would basically be American radio and American tv if it weren't for Canadian laws which require a certain portion of broadcast content be native Canadian. Which means you get to hear a LOT of Loverboy, eh.
6) You'd have to claim William Shatner as your own.
7) You'd have to laugh at Jerry Lewis. Oh wait, that's France. Nevermind.
8) Hockey.
9) Curling. (and I don't mean irons)
10) That stupid Labatt(sp?) Blue spokesbear.
11) No littering or cursing allowed in Canada. Also, please be kind; rewind.
12) If it weren't for Canada, all you Europeans would be speaking German right now! Oh, wait, that's America...
13) The inevitable McKenzie Brothers comeback movie, "Dude, Where's My Beer, Eh? (Hoser)"
14) A pound of Canadian bacon a day keeps the doctor away, eh.
15) All the nice imported American acid rain.
16) Americans can't find your country on a globe or a map.
17) That damned South Park song.
18) Having to bow and scrape to the "Queen of Canada."
19) Your socialized health care means you get to wait a _very_ long time to see a doctor. (But at least you can afford it.)
20) Your money ain't worth shit.
21) You'll develop very little sense of humour about your newfound (Newfie!) country, and lists like this one will really piss you off. Eh.
22) When you get candy called "Smarties" at the local food jobber, you won't get the tasty treat you're used to in the U.S. Instead, you'll get a bunch of things that look like M&Ms. They don't, unfortunately, taste like M&Ms. They taste like *STALE* M&Ms. And that's the way they're supposed to taste. When an American brings up this fact, you have to pretend to like them, anyway.
23) You have weird beverages with little balls of cellulose floating in them. On purpose.
24) There is no number 24 in the Canadian number system. Deal.
Okay, that's enough of these off the top of my head.
I am a Canadian with a graduate degree who worked legally in the U.S. for 5-1/2 years and have an American-born son. When Green Card processing was effectively shut down after 9/11/2001, and the telecom bust hit me, I had to return to Canada. Fair enough, I knew the H1B deal.
That does not mean I like it here. In fact, at the risk of overapplying generalities I find most Canadians liars at best, and thieves, and murders at worst.
1. Canadian health care: on a par with medicaid. 25% of all Canadians who are referred to a cardiologist die before they get to see one because of the waiting list.
2. Even this level of health care is not available to me despite the fact that my taxes pay for it. You see, to get it, (at least in Ontario), you have to claim to intend to never leave (i.e. live there permanently).
3. Purchasing private insurance instead of participating in the public plan (and agreeing to never leave, and thus be a tax slave forever), is illegal, even if you fund the public system.
Now, I made some strong accusations: that Canadians are (a)liars, (b)thiefs, (c)murders; at least the vast majority that support the status quo. Let's see how these accusations are backed up:
1. Liars. One is told that one will get health care "for free" via public tax participation. But, one does not get the care one could obtain on the free market based on what one has paid. Thus, the promise of health care is a lie. And a big one. Political students and other readers of "Mein Kampf" will recognize Hitler's "the bigger the lie, the better" propaganda point.
2. Thieves. Given that tax dollars are taken, by force, if necessary, with no commensurate compensation at free market levels, even a proponent of the legitimacy of tax collection on the basis if majority rule would see this as theft.
3. Because Canadians are impoverished to the point of not being able to afford proper health insurance, except for the rich who likely have to break the law if they do so, some die as a result. Enforcers and proponents of the system that does this are murderers and accossories thereto.
The U.S. and other nations have some of these attibutes, to be sure, but certainly not in the insidious combination that Canada does. If one points out the traps and pitfals, one is advised to "lie to get the service" (i.e. claim an intent to remain permanently, even when this is not true).
A nation with an entrenshed culture of lying as necessary to survive is surely one ruled by tyrants.
Clearly, I hate and dispise this Canadian nation whose citizenship I wear like a brand on my buttocks. Nevertheless, I live here and obey it's laws. One would think that a civilized society has room for political opposition -- flag burning and neo-Nazi marches are still legal in the U.S., despite the angst such expressions no doubt cause parents of sons and daughters who have fallen in her service, remebered with a revered piece of cloth; and survivers of 1930s German genocide of Jews. But this is not the case.
At every turn I am encouraged to not voice my opinions, that life "will be made difficult" for me by some ominious force. Is this Russia under Stalin, Italy under Mussolini, Germany under Hitler? Do I risk death for my views?
Having believed in American ideals (though, not necessarily present American political pressures which seek to quench them), and experienced life there, I am very much predisposed to dying on my feet, in mid-scream of my protests, than living on my knees. Perhaps it is the newness of my short experience of relative liberty compared to my upbringing, that I embrace a love of freedom over life itself whereas the American taste for the illusion of security has grown as the thrill of liberty gives way to the risks it implies, that leaves me with a giddy sense of patriotism to not a country, but to principle. But, the thought of the mere possibility of dying fr
You could've hired me.