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Quebec Plans To Require Website Blocking, Studies New Internet Access Tax
An anonymous reader writes: Michael Geist reports that the Government of Quebec released its budget (PDF) yesterday featuring two Internet-related measures that are sure to attract attention and possible litigation. First, it is moving forward with plans to study a new tax on residential Internet services in order to provide support for the cultural sector. Second, the government says it will be introducing a new law
requiring ISPs to block access to online gambling sites. The list of blocked sites will be developed by Loto-Quebec, a government agency. The government views this as a revenue enhancing measure because it wants to channel gamblers to its own Espacejeux, the government's own online gaming site.
Allez chier ma gang d'osti de calisse de lèche-cul de tabarnaks.
I hate it how everything I create, enjoy doing, or enjoy consuming isn't considered culture, and policies need to be put in place to defend so call culture. Just let the free market decide what we want self sustaining art to be.
Anytime you hear the word "culture" in Quebec, watch out. It has a much more ominous overtone there than in most of the rest of the world.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Another stick up of the tax payer to provide for 'the culture sector', aka the indolent.
So the tax is to "support the movie, music, and book publishing industries."
Shouldn't those "industries" be funded by investors, who get a return from sales?
Or is this about propping up movies, music, and books no one wants to buy?
If it can't be written in ASCII, it ain't worth sayin'.
This sets a dangerous precedent that it is perfectly okay for the government to block websites in order to generate more revenue. If this passes, expect states in the US to try the same thing, especially if they have casinos that aren't doing well.
As a resident of Quebec, let me laugh at that statement. Help culture? The Liberals don't give a toss about culture, they're just completely fixed on the notion of having a zero-deficit budget by any means necessary. They'll slash health and education funding, they'll add hidden taxes while claiming none are added, they'll do whatever it takes to reach this, because they're considered to be the "economically focused" party. To give context, when a journalist asked them if they could promise that the significant cuts in healthcare funding would not affect services, they straight up said that they can't say that because there might be "obstruction" or "slow uptake" of their new magical plan which makes more with less.
If culture sees a single cent of that tax, I'll be impressed. This is strictly a way of balancing their budget without raising the tax rates, which would've caused furor. This internet tax sailed past all major news organizations as far as I can tell.
If you don't know Quebec, it's what Bohemia would be like if it were actually populated by Bohemians.
is the Trans Canada , heading West...
The only thing's that are infinite are Government Greed and Human Stupidity.
I've been disappointed with Montreal and Quebec in general for a long time but always fell back on the cop-out "it's not better elsewhere" loser mentality.
It is better elsewhere. But where do they still hire PCB designers?
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This is more government bullshit, you cannot dictate or decree culture, if you are doing that then what you are doing is you are actually destroying what the real culture is to impose your own version of it and I cannot imagine that can work in real life and be an actual substitute for actual culture.
You cannot force people to like things you like, you cannot force people to enjoy things you enjoy. You can make people HATE things you hate in some cases by pretending that thing being a threat, that's how dictators operate (including elected dictators).
This is a bullshit money grabbing measure, nothing else.
You can't handle the truth.
Quebec drags down Canada's bottom line. All they do is supply an endless train of bilingual mediocre employees to the Federal Govenment. Language carries more weight than actual capabilities and skills. What a useless province.
Well I guess Quebec bashing from the rest of the country is to be expected in news like those.
Well like it or now, Quebec bring a shit lot of stuff and specialization for Canada that isn't to look down (aerospace, hydroelectricity and videogame to name a few). Furthermore, I don't know in what world you live but I don't see how speaking a different language is in any way related in actual capabilities or skill.
Elok
When I hear the word "Culture"..... that's when I reach for my revolver. Original quote "Wenn ich Kultur höre ... entsichere ich meinen Browning!"
Obligatory Godwin, but sometimes they got it right.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
I don't believe Quebec has the power to regulate ISPs. AFAIK, telecommunication regulations are the domain of the federal government.
Quebec is an island of francophone culture off a continent that is dominated by the U.S. Either you embrace protectionism or risk losing all that makes you unique.
That is a nonsense argument. If one needs to resort to protectionist measures to "preserve" your culture from a peaceful (to you) neighbor, then your people don't really support said measures even if they claim to. Actions speak louder than words. People claim to hate McDonalds and yet they sell millions of burgers every year to many of those same people. If the people of Quebec really want to speak French or engage in Francophile activities then they will do so. If they don't then they shouldn't be forced to. Cultural norms shift over time and there is nothing fundamentally bad about that.
I spend a fair bit of time in Canada. I was married in Alberta and regularly vacation in Ontario. Canada is a wonderful country. Most of Canada has little difficulty maintaining what makes them unique because what makes them truly unique isn't stuff the government needs to pass laws to protect.
I live in quebec, I don't speak french, however language issues and saying quebec is a drag is totally BS.
It's a fine province with wonderful people (though people being people that varies). I don't actually care about this, at all.
I have more reason to care than any of you, I run darrencaldwellwebdesign.ca on a computer in my basement, so if they start messing with 'net laws too deeply they will eventually cut me.
However I don't gamble, don't give a damn about gamblers, and I do not mind small taxes on services (it's the canadian way after all) to keep everything running. Truth is if they need to balance their budget and did it this way, I'm fine with that, it was a creative and solid way to get some money without hitting any real arteries like health care and education, or to at least dim the amount they would need to cut from those core services.
Whenever an article even as much as mentions the word "Quebec", the Quebec bashers come out of the woodworks, most of them anonymous cowards. Take a moment to check an article covering any other specific place and you'll note that none of them are so overflowing with baseless attacks and claims, often completely unrelated to the topic.
I don't even understand why that is, which is probably the weirdest part.
Aerospace? You mean like CAE that is a depressing, miserable place to work for? Hydro? You mean a technology that can't be exported just anywhere? Videogames? This is your idea of an economy? A bunch of kids drawing pictures so other kids can spend their days in front of monitors? Fuck me! If you're 40 and still give a shit about video games you need a life re-appraisal.
And no other province can do that? They sure can, without the continuous background of corruption and high taxes.
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This isn't as anti-gambling or even as anti-competition as it sounds. Quebec's gambling laws have always been very different from the rest of Canada, in a very interesting way.
For example, in Ontario, gambling is really for lotteries and contests and casinos and that's about it. Everything else is illegal -- just like you can't buy alcohol in a grocery store, you can't gamble in a bar.
In Quebec, however, there are slot machines (fun ones) in bars all the time. Gambling is available everywhere -- especially where alcohol is. It's governed and licensed and available.
Two very different ways of controlling gambling, in a country where gambling is seen as an addictive activity to be controlled. Quebec's not wrong in wanting to control on-line gambling -- it's totally consistent with their gaming laws.
And, most of all, I promise that no one in Quebec is at a loss for opportunities to gamble. They are everywhere.
If this passes, expect states in the US to try the same thing, especially if they have casinos that aren't doing well.
States in the US have had a hypocritical fight against gambling going on for years. Plenty of states have prohibited and restricted gambling in one form or another for most of my life. It's a fairly recent development that casinos have been permitted outside of Nevada, New Jersey and Indian Reservations because the state wanted the gambling revenue for the state lotteries. It's been an uphill battle to allow casinos and other forms of gambling in most states until fairly recently. And now the brink and mortar casinos and the states both want to fight online casinos because those are a threat to their business model.
Brought to you by the guys that sold you scratch tickets in exchange for your welfare checque.
Start by blocking loto-quebec.com because lotteries are gambling, right?
They'll change their tune damn fast...
I wonder if any of Quebec's "legislators" (applying the term very loosely) know what a VPN is?
Quebec's gamblers soon will.
How to enforce? How to enforce?...
What a marvellous idea: following in China's footsteps.
Here comes the Great Firewall of Quebec.
Statist thugs, that's all they are.
-- Mike Greaves
Having heard too many stories of gambling addicts loosing everything in Casinos and even seeing it happen to my own father. I might have gotten behind the idea of blocking gambling websites if they blocked all of them period. But since Loto-Quebec will be making it so that people go to their online site instead it's not a move to help reduce the risk. Just making sure our own provincially hungry fox guards the hen house. People will still loose their shirts in the end and we'll still have these establishment who end up putting people in poverty which I find is only a short term boost to the provincial revenue for a long term lost.
I'm not even certain it's a good thing for Loto-Quebec since it would open the door to other provinces and countries blocking access to Quebec gambling sites. Who knows where this could end up? Once you start blocking one group of sites, you could start blocking other groups too.
In the end, I don't think it will be seen as legal. Someone will surely challenge this all the way to the supreme court.
"The government views this as a revenue enhancing measure because it wants to channel gamblers to its own Espacejeux, the government's own online gaming site."
Usually the blocking of sites is for morality issues, but Quebec is seeing this as a revenue measure. Much like the provisions against bringing in your own water bottle to a concert, so you can buy their more expensive one.
Communism is redistribution of wealth, or at least apportionment of resources (can be like old USSR, or like Star Trek if you've got machines to materialize anything you can want -- resources are no longer limited).
Fascism is a government that runs for the purpose of businesses and eventually, picks a winner (like 1940's Italy and Germany, and arguably Japan today, and America is getting close).
But what is it when the government BECOMES the company? Don't government's know they can just PRINT MONEY? SEE; Real World economics explained below.
Instead of a lottery/gambling;
Form your own bank, create bonds for local infrastructure, and pay 10% per diem with tax breaks to investors and meanwhile you can put people to work creating things that will enhance business and the community. You get more money back from the wages.
Gambling is a pernicious social problem, and these scratch-card financed governments can only capture revenue from other locations and their own citizens, who will be less productive and lose a work ethic for their "get rich quick" gambling ethic. It's a way to raise taxes on the people who usually have the least education, judgement and income. In short; it's robbing Peter to pay Paul, but doing it with Pay-Day loans and Paul is going to be a useless wife-beater wearing fool who insists everyone around him write their Le Menu in French.
*In the USA we have a fractional reserve banking system. Bonds are created to be offset by dollars created and the bonds are investments the government can sell. So money is created by debt. The Money just gets shipped to banks. Why doesn't the government be the bank, you may ask, since it's both the real lender and the one taking the risk (holding and paying off the bond) - and wow, Iceland just did it and it seems to have worked fine in the past in the USA. Great question, which will get you kicked out of economics class if you ask it again. but that's because it was necessary to pay off the rich people in charge at the time during the Civil War -- I'm sure people have learned interesting and convoluted economical explanations for why our Federal Reserve banking system is yadda yadda, but they can't explain how the system doesn't collapse if you pay off all the debts that created money in the first place (because of factoring, banks can loan $10 or more dollars for each on deposit - but leverage works both ways see; Nov. 2008) -- oh, and let's not notice that the #1 Investor is offshore banks. Anyone know if we don't just manufacture money to buy our own money? But I digress, all is well and go back to whatever and just know; governments don't need to tax -- EXCEPT to engage the citizens, and to redistribute wealth (some other fools think it's because they can't pay for things otherwise and stuff about who DESERVES what they earned -- as if most wages weren't decisions made by those who valued themselves higher), and it's a way to value their currency -- you have to back a currency with the ability to pay it back if you don't have nuclear weapons (OK, someone really needs to explain to the average person how currencies are valued; military power, and/or arbitrary decision of World Banker and his last bootie call -- you are welcome).
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
Not likely. The Millennials will become the Boomers. My generation is X, which has been shit upon by every other generation, most particularly including the Boomers, almost since we came into being. So if the Boomers get shit upon by younger generations, they're simply getting back what they dealt out.
(Gen X will not become as the Boomers because the generation is too small; we don't fit their shoes)
The "video game industry" in quebec is a joke. All the software stays under the control of the head offices - they only reason those drawing jobs are here is the 40% tax credit, not just for those jobs, but everyone supervising them as well. The highest government subsidies in the free world, and when the subsidies are gone, so are the jobs.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
And this is why Quebec is in such an amazing financial state.
And for those who don't know much about Quebec, I am being sarcastic. Quebec needs to stop putting itself into deficit year after year before it gets to a point where we get imposed stuff like they are doing in Greece because I promise you, there isn't a politician alive here with the backbone to refuse to pay the creditors and put it's population 1st.
Disclaimer: I live here too.
I guess Quebec bashing from the rest of the country is to be expected in news like those.
Well like it or now, Quebec bring a shit lot of stuff and specialization for Canada that isn't to look down (aerospace, hydroelectricity and videogame to name a few). Furthermore, I don't know in what world you live but I don't see how speaking a different language is in any way related in actual capabilities or skill.
Humm, let's see. Hydro Quebec gets 80% of it's current revenu from Quebecers and constantly demanding increases of 4 to 5% per years while making record profits. So while it makes a lot of money, it's not doing it from what it sells to the US because it has to sell there at a lost and subsidize to companies who threaten to leave the province.
Aerospace? Bombardier is cuttings a lot of jobs of late because of poor decisions and I got a friend working there who is currently quite nervous of loosing his post.
Videogames? You mean that sector being subsidized by the provincial government who decided to cut the amount to smaller studios who in some cases are looking to move to Ontario because the tax credits there are better? The same Ontario where most of the big studios who have offices in Montreal also have them in Toronto? Without those tax credits I promise you the video game industry would leave in a heart beat because it's not hard to move that sort of company around.
It's not just Québec. New Hampshire controls all liquor sales within the state. You can buy beer and wine anywhere, but everything else is at the state stores. The lotteries are also state run.
Just like this story, the US has talked about Internet taxes countless times and the US certainly tries to block or limit gambling to government controlled entities. I'm sure every country has either discussed or acted on both to some extent.
I don't think most people would disagree with you, but I think it'd be an enormous loss if every country ended up being just like every other country.
Never going to happen. Heck there are pretty substantial regional differences even within single countries. Go visit the Louisiana Bayou and then go to NYC and tell me America is homogenous.
But if you get to some other location and it's the same language, same restaurants, same shops, same recreational activities, what a waste.
"Waste"? Not at all. Shared cultural experiences have huge benefits, not the least of which are increased commerce and reduced conflict. It's hard to think of someone as the Other if they look, talk and act like you. Many people very much like familiarity even when in a foreign place. And it doesn't take a lot to feel displaced. Even something like moving from the US to Canada (or vice-versa) results in some pretty significant cultural adjustments even though the two countries are very similar in a lot of ways.
I'm not at all arguing that everyplace should be the same (quite the opposite in fact) but there is nothing wrong with having some, or even a lot of similarity.
In the end, I think a lot of places that want to be Americanized (or whatever you want to call it) will end up so, and then they'll soon come to regret it.
I could say the exact reverse and it has the same potential of being true. There is nothing wrong with adopting bits of a different culture if they appeal to you. The US has adopted cultural practices and language from around the globe. There is no reason why it should be bad for other cultures to take bits of American culture and language they like (or not if they don't). Different merely for the sake of being different is every bit as bad as everyone being the same.
I'm all for taxes on people who do not understand math. They should help lower taxes for those who do.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
In Montréal, they have to say ARRÊT.
Not "ARRÊTEZ"? Isn't that a bit rude? The give way signs in France are "Cédez le passage" not "Céde le passage".
Quebec, the province, or Quebec, the city? Because what you're describing is more of a Quebec city thing!
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This is about gambling in Ontario not Quebec, but it is related none the less. I thought it funny and someone sad and ironic when watching TV the other day. There is a new TV commercial that is pretty well done involving the metaphor of boxing and keeping getting up after taking a beating and coming back for more, saying in essence you are not going to win, you will just hurt yourself more in regards to gambling addiction. This was bought and paid for by government. The commercial that IMMEDIATELY followed it was one made by the OLG, Ontario Lottory and Gambling corporation, announcing the now easy access to internet gambling, and fun fun fun! Which is also more less paid for by government. Pretty brutal.
I have friends that work for the OLG and they will be quick to point out that people with gambling addictions will seek out gambling no matter what, at least with them the proceeds go to government and some gambling addiction programs and the like. Still, it is the enabling and ease of access...
True. However I think that is more about the gambling laws in Ontario being antiquated more than anything else (Though that is not always a bad thing). Plenty of other provinces have easier restrictions, VLT in the east coast for example, which I would use as a bad example of policy. They are a scourge. Most bars have a room for them, and it is a sad room.
However many "reasonable" things are technically illegal in Ontario, but not enforced really. I like many, am in a annual hockey pool. Technically it *is* illegal. However the police have better things to do than go after some buds in a 50$ hockey pool. Heck, they are likely in one themselves! Bars that run trivia or bingo with rewards is another... Most get around it by calling it something else and offering gift certificates or in house prizes (i.e. not cash). Again, typically ignored. Small time stuff that is tolerated.
So yeah, Ontario could be more progressive, however seeing the results of some other places, I would say that careful thought needs to be taken when considering gambling policy.