Slashdot Mirror
Canadian Government Going Big Brother?
Eh-Wire writes "If this article by Canadian privacy expert Michael Geist is any indication of what the Canadian Government has in mind for the Canadian Internet surfing public, then it looks like the Canadian public should be concerned. This does not look good!"
There was an article a month or two ago outlining how the FBI was looking into requiring VoIP providers to allow FBI agents to wiretap conversations. At least one of the Canada's initiatives seems similar to this. Now whether the FBI followed threw with this or no, I don't know.
Hmm, hopefully our privacy commissioner will step up to the plate on this issue. A few weeks ago, Slashdot was trumpeting the privacy commissioner as a good thing for Canada - now I see a few other posters desparaging Canada. This is good, but hopefully if people raise enough awareness (the Star article will help), and word gets out things can change.
Our government bowed to public pressure with respects to the American ballistic missile defence programme, and they'd bow to any sort of pressure towards the ISPs with regards to this. Of course, it can't hurt to let the privacy commissioner know that people care about this issue.
Privacy Commissioner: http://www.privcom.gc.ca/
"There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all."
- Bob Dylan
Article Mirror:
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73! -KB3MGR
By the way, here in the U.S., schools (and everybody else) can freely surf my website. I guess you canuck educators will have to send me a check. Just remember, it was your idea.
See what I've been reading.
Time to learn how to spell touque. :)
It's actually toque in English, I live here, I know. It's from the French word tuque.
There is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. -- Boondock Saints
I lived in Vancouver, BC for a couple of months a few years ago.
I've lived in Vancouver for 32 years, and I think you did not get an accurate picture in your couple of months. There is great outrage whenever scandal shows up. The provincial NDP party was recently voted into oblivion due to scandal. No premiere has survived re-election for as long as I can remember. The federal Liberals went from massively dominant to a minority government due to scandal.
There was the
bingogate scandal
fast ferries scandal
sponsorship scandal
casinogate scandal
tainted blood scandal
strippergate
The list goes on. If I was to complain about something, it would be about too much scandal.
If only that were true. The government's plans on lawful access as described in the article, as well as the recommendations on copyright, come from politicians and policy makers, not lobbyists. Geist's website now includes a link to a version of the article with background links on these issues.
Thank you Micheal Geist, for blowing something this routine out of proportion.
Thankfully, Canada has one of the most online governments on the planet. Here's exactly what they, and the public that responded to the governement, had to say about the Lawful Access updates. Of particular note is the Privacy Commissioner's comments:
The law isn't going to pass if it doesn't meet those criteria, among others. I honestly don't see a problem. The only reason that this update is going through is to ensure that law enforcement have the same abilities, irregardless of the technology. They can already intercept telephone and fax communications lawfully, this just ensures tehy can do the same with TCP/IP traffic.
I would give her a shout, as well as your local MP if this concerns you as much as it does me.
- If this law can pass, the law to render retroactively illegal something you already do can pass to.
- Technically, you break the law when you recieve kiddie/bestial porn spam. Once it's in your possession, you're breaking the law.
file trading (including music) is entirely legal in CanadaIt's not. It's... loopholy, for now.
You can't take the sky from me...
So what is the difference, then, between the way universal health care works in Canada and the way it works in various European countries (e.g., France and Germany)?
A lot of those countries still have real live nobles kicking around, who are untouchable by the law, richer than any Middle Eastern oil guy, and have lots of non-nobility friends who aren't quite as rich. They aren't going to leave Europe for serious healthcare problems, and they aren't going to suffer the hassle of being denied healthcare when they have the money to buy anything they want.
Because of this, the European countries are hurting badly for money. They've got upcoming financial problems that will be as a disemboweling to the stubbed toenail that is the worst of the predictions of the USA's social security problems. Canada routinely has a surplus, which equates to ``somebody in Canada died, and the government had more dimes to spend on trying to save them.''
Note that I'm not entirely against the notion of universal healthcare, but there are many caveats to my thinking. I'd love to treat every sick person; it's just a matter of finding the money to do it; however, I'm not willing to donate cash to some transexual's HIV drugs because he wanted to catch AIDS so that he didn't have to worry himself to death over when he was going to catch AIDS (search for `bug chasing'). This is especially true when that cash would be better saved against the time I (or my family) am in serious need of healthcare. I worked hard to earn it, after all. I worked hard through school and protected my brain to get to the point where I am. I don't want my gains going to someone who pickled his brain away before he was old enough to smoke tobacco legally.
And make no mistake about it, if you put an all encompassing safety net under some people, they'll jump from any height. The level of self destructive behavior going on in the world today is downright frightening, and I didn't work so hard just so I could pay for the backlash of this. It's their right to engage in self-destructive behavior, but when everyone is paying for it, it's harming everyone.
Don't believe everything the U.S. private health insurance industry tells you. Expensive or complex procedures are commonly done on a waiting list basis, "first come, first serve" basis, not randomly as you imply. As for organ replacement, it has the same limitations as the U.S., namely the organs go to whomever was on the waiting list the longest, and many people, wealthy or not, do die on the waiting list in both our countries because it's also illegal to buy organs in the U.S., and I see little done to change that.
Canadian health care is not nearly as bad as you've been led to believe. So, please stop misleading others.
In Europe, it's legal to go to a private clinic when the waiting lists at the public one are too long. In Canada, it's illegal. Don't like that your grandmother has to wait 8 months for her hip replacement on the public system? You've gotta be rich enough to get her to the US for treatment if you want to help out; illegal to get the private service in Canada.
They already have legislation that dictates what free speech is and isn't (veiled as 'hate speech' legislation).
http://http//fromthemorning.blogspot.com
[FromTheMorning]
Internet service in the US, like telephone service, is provided to most people by a small number of large companies (SBC, Verizon, Comcast, etc.). This means that undesirable content hosted overseas can easily be blocked for the majority of users by an action by a small number of companies. Internet acces for most Americans is not the "Wild West" that you make it out to be.
You're right, that's Germany where it actually is illegal to deny the Holocaust. In Canada it is perfectly legal to deny the Holocaust, you just can't spread that belief as part of a campaign to incite hatred towards a group (such as Jews) or propagate a movement based on this effort (such as neo-Naziism). Incidently, the person in question here was a German national, exported to Germany, and imprisioned by Germany under German law. He was also deported from the U.S. back to Canada while trying to obtain U.S. citizenship. So neither the U.S. nor Canada wanted him.
I know you're just making up a year to put with the joke in order to have it come out to a nice round 200 years, but putting the Lone Ranger in 1806 is ridiculous. The Lone Ranger carried a .45 caliber Colt revolver loaded with silver bullets in self-contained cartridges. Unless he was a time traveller, there's no way he was carrying such a firearm in 1806, when flintlock muskets were the norm. I'm not picking nits here-- you might as well have placed Gatling guns in the American Revolution.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
In Canada, these operations (and others like them) are available to you based on how many resources the government has to spend. How much of a syphilis outbreak would it take to to keep you from getting an operation you needed? The point is that in the USA you can work hard, take care of yourself, and purchase healthcare to help protect yourself. In Canada, you're not allowed to.
Wrong. American doctors are quite happy to take our money if we have it. As well, a good 1/2 of my taxes go to providing excellent, universal health care - not stellar, but excellent.
Besides you being sucked in by the "everyone will get ahead if they just work hard" BS that your government feeds you, we do get expensive, critical treatments when we need them if our life is threatened. We even jump ahead in the queue if needs be.
IOW, if you're a poor Canadian and you're stricken by a serious, life threatening illness, you get the help you need. In the US, if you're poor and you're stricken by a serious, life threatening illness, you die.
I prefer our solution, thank you very much.
The Mohawks in Oka (not O.K.A.) were protesting the building of a golf course on a gravesite, and they killed a Sûreté du Québec policeman, who would be the equivalent of a state trooper. The Canadian Army took several weeks to move in slowly and arrest the perpetrators. Slowly to make sure no women or children were killed (In the end they killed no one and the Mohawks killed no more; not one of their (the army's) own, as you say). They did this slowly also because and Mohawks has support, and weapons, from other Mohawks, across the border in the US of A. Weapons including a 50 caliber machine gun, and idealogically motivated Iroquois from the Warrior Society.
I recall that there have been many similar situations in U.S. history that ended less well: Wounded Knee and Waco come to mind.
You misrepresent the "notwithstanding clause" which allows provincial governments, not the federal government to ignore a federal ruling for a limited period of time.
In wartime... truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies. (Churchill)
You should do some more research before you call someone ignorant. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is quite different from the US Constitution (and its Bill of Rights), especially in that the the former is easily circumvented when deemed justifiable. Perhaps you should have read section 1 of it:
"The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society."
This specific clause has been used repeatedly in court to nullify the rights and freedoms supposedly guaranteeed by the charter.
Whatever stuff you and Ann Coulter are smoking... you should really share.
Your "points", where not incomplete are completly incorrect.
Read the application forms carefully: you have to agree to live in Ontario permanently.
Do you mean this form?
Um, no shit you have to live in Ontario permanently. As opposed to say, living in Quebec and renting an apartment in Ottawa for the weekend, then claiming both OHIP and Quebec Health Benefits? That form seems simple enough to me if you keep your idology in check. Permanent as in primary residence, not forever. There's a huge section of "returning to Ontario". Duh.
Canada does not prevent emigration, but, in many cases it makes it illegal.
In light of your misreading of the simple OHIP form, I think you need to elaborate on this statement.
For example, RRSP HBPs become repayable in full within 60 days of becoming non-resident, or subject to being included in income
You're correct, I would consider this "fair". You can't possibly suggest that it isn't because you feel overtaxed. Again, you fail to support your argument. RRSP have that second "R" in them for a reason. The gov't is trying to get you to save for retirement, not issuing a tax break. How you interpret the plan is not their fault.
there is no joint tax filing as there is in the U.S
I'm not familiar with US tax law, but if your spouse was a stay-at-home type, then he/she would pay no tax at all in Canada, and you could claim the spousal amount. If you put all your savings into both RRSP's and RESP's for your kids, you'd be paying some pretty low taxes I'm sure. If you were smarter and opened of a small business, you could write off your spouse as an employee if she did your books, then write off the car you leased, etc etc.
When you get down to it,US citizens pay less tax than Canadian however you look at it, so it's kind of silly to compare individual structures.
How many hundreds of thousands of dollars do I have to repay to make up for a CA$10k government scholarship I foolishly accepted in the 1980s
I have no idea what the heck you're on about here...Are you suggesting the only benefit you received from the gov't was a scholarship? Are you suggesting you shouldn't repay a student loan?
I'm not sure what you're talking about really.
If the government services were on a par with the taxes paid, it would not be so bad,
I suppose it's a matter of perspective... clearly, certain events in my family's history would have left us broke had we been without publicly provided health care. (Which in the US, a the son of a single mother of 3 we would have, certainly.)
As someone who made use of that helping hand and now sits quite confortably on the other side of the fence I have no problems contributing to our services. Did you factor in lower crime and higher quality of life into your "pragmatic" calculations?
A handy FAQ for the tinfoil brigade.
Of special note:
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
Here you go: http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/03/07 /cold-sentence050307.htm
You've got the wrong term. "Hoosier" is an American term -- it's what you call someone who plays on any of Indiana University's sports teams. See here.
You're thinking of "hoser". A hoser is anyone you don't like. See here for other definitions. It originates from the "Great White North" program on SCTV, hosted by Bob and Doug Mckenzie. See here for a synopsis of the show.