robert_viera

List of MPs who did not vote YEA or NAY and were not paired in yesterday's HST vote, grouped by party: Anderson, David Cypress Hills—Grasslands Saskatchewan Conservative Bezan, James Selkirk—Interlake Manitoba Conservative Blackburn, Jean-Pierre (Hon.) Jonquière—Alma Québec Conservative Bruinooge, Rod Winnipeg South Manitoba Conservative Chong, Michael (Hon.) Wellington—Halton Hills Ontario Conservative (On China trip) Clement, Tony (Hon.) Parry Sound—Muskoka Ontario Conservative Duncan, John Vancouver Island North British Columbia Conservative Guergis, Helena (Hon.) Simcoe—Grey Ontario Conservative Harper, Stephen (Right Hon.) Calgary Southwest Alberta Conservative (On China trip) Keddy, Gerald South Shore—St. Margarets Nova Scotia Conservative Lunney, James Nanaimo—Alberni British Columbia Conservative MacKay, Peter Gordon (Hon.) Central Nova Nova Scotia Conservative McLeod, Cathy Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo British Columbia Conservative Miller, Larry Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound Ontario Conservative Prentice, Jim (Hon.) Calgary Centre-North Alberta Conservative Reid, Scott Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington Ontario Conservative Richards, Blake Wild Rose Alberta Conservative Richardson, Lee Calgary Centre Alberta Conservative Schellenberger, Gary Perth—Wellington Ontario Conservative Smith, Joy Kildonan—St. Paul Manitoba Conservative Storseth, Brian Westlock—St. Paul Alberta Conservative Thompson, Greg (Hon.) New Brunswick Southwest New Brunswick Conservative Verner, Josée (Hon.) Louis-Saint-Laurent Québec Conservative Young, Terence Oakville Ontario Conservative Andrews, Scott Avalon Newfoundland and Labrador Liberal Bains, Navdeep (Hon.) Mississauga—Brampton South Ontario Liberal Bélanger, Mauril (Hon.) Ottawa—Vanier Ontario Liberal Bevilacqua, Maurizio (Hon.) Vaughan Ontario Liberal Byrne, Gerry (Hon.) Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte Newfoundland and Labrador Liberal Coderre, Denis (Hon.) Bourassa Québec Liberal Dion, Stéphane (Hon.) Saint-Laurent—Cartierville Québec Liberal Eyking, Mark (Hon.) Sydney—Victoria Nova Scotia Liberal Fry, Hedy (Hon.) Vancouver Centre British Columbia Liberal Holland, Mark Ajax—Pickering Ontario Liberal Jennings, Marlene (Hon.) Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine Québec Liberal Karygiannis, Jim (Hon.) Scarborough—Agincourt Ontario Liberal MacAulay, Lawrence (Hon.) Cardigan Prince Edward Island Liberal Malhi, Gurbax (Hon.) Bramalea—Gore—Malton Ontario Liberal Martin, Keith (Hon.) Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca British Columbia Liberal McGuinty, David Ottawa South Ontario Liberal McTeague, Dan (Hon.) Pickering—Scarborough East Ontario Liberal Murray, Joyce Vancouver Quadra British Columbia Liberal Oliphant, Robert Don Valley West Ontario Liberal Pacetti, Massimo Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel Québec Liberal Patry, Bernard Pierrefonds—Dollard Québec Liberal Ratansi, Yasmin Don Valley East Ontario Liberal Regan, Geoff (Hon.) Halifax West Nova Scotia Liberal Savage, Michael Dartmouth—Cole Harbour Nova Scotia Liberal Silva, Mario Davenport Ontario Liberal Simson, Michelle Scarborough Southwest Ontario Liberal Szabo, Paul Mississauga South Ontario Liberal Wilfert, Bryon (Hon.) Richmond Hill Ontario Liberal Cullen, Nathan Skeena—Bulkley Valley British Columbia NDP Julian, Peter Burnaby—New Westminster British Columbia NDP Martin, Tony Sault Ste. Marie Ontario NDP Stoffer, Peter Sackville—Eastern Shore Nova Scotia NDP Thibeault, Glenn Sudbury Ontario NDP Cardin, Serge Sherbrooke Québec Bloc Québécois Arthur, André Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier Québec Independent

No. You have not explained. How has my local TV survived for more than 50 years without charging anything for what you claim is it's product? Distribution networks and advertising would have no use without viewers. The broadcasters are selling access to viewers. The business of local over-the-air broadcasters is selling advertising. Advertising is not 'additional revenue', it is their main source of revenue. Yes. Web content providers do have ways to charge visitors to their web sites, but to do this they have to deny access to all visitors who do not wish to pay. Are local broadcasters prepared to stop broadcasting over-the-air or to scramble their signals? You conveniently fail to mention satellite distributors. When you talk about monopolies, you have to look at ownership. How many of the "ten or so stations" available in your area are owned by the same few broadcasting conglomerates?

If the signal was the product, how has my local TV station been able to survive for more than 50 years while giving it's signal away for free? The product is access to viewers. The advertisers are the TV stations customers, not the viewers. Would like Internet Service Providers, and ultimately their subscribers, to start paying fees to any web site whose content is distributed over the ISP's lines? The broadcasters are just as much of a monopoly as the distributors.

The CRTC has already posted thousands of comments from the public here: http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/broadcast.htm#a2009614 I've downloaded most of them and read quite a few of them. A large number are simply form letters circulated by the broadcasters' campaign. A lot are people complaining about their cable/satellite bill without any reference to the fee-for-carriage issue. Your discussion of the producer/distributor model leaves out one important issue: What is the product or service and who is the customer? Traditionally for over-the-air broadcasters the service has been delivering advertising to viewers and the customer has been the advertiser. The cable companies have been delivering the broadcasters' ads to the cable companies' subscribers for decades but have not asked the broadcasters for a cut of their advertising revenue. Now the broadcasters are asking for a cut of the cable companies' subscriber fees.

Source: http://www.pco-bcp.gc.ca/oic-ddc.asp?lang=eng&Page=secretariats&txtOICID=&txtFromDate=2009-11-07&txtToDate=2009-11-30&txtPrecis=&txtDepartment=&txtAct=&txtChapterNo=&txtChapterYear=&txtBillNo=&rdoComingIntoForce=&DoSearch=Search+%2F+List&pg=4 These regulations had already been delayed two years by the Harper Government. The previous Liberal government also delayed these regulations for 2 years when they were in office. This makes for 5 years of putting off the kind of regulations that the United States has had since 1968! Here is an article with some background information on the issue: Harper government delays measure to mark gun imports http://www.canada.com/cityguides/winnipeg/info/story.html?id=20540780-078b-4bc8-8120-132e7fbf3ae5&k=51525

More of your taxes going to subsidize the biofuel industry: http://www2.nrcan.gc.ca/dgc-dposc/index.cfm?fuseaction=r.d〈=eng&fisc=2009-2010&qrt=02&id=2682&strt=121

I thought this was a refreshing take on the broadcasters vs. distributors fight: Persichilli: Broadcasters change channel in middle of show http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/731932

OK. The only Liberal MP in the top 40 spenders on printing is Sukh Dhaliwal (#40). The next after him is Raymonde Folco (#75).

Those aren't the expenses for MP mailings. The mailings come under the heading 'Printing', not 'Advertising'. Incidentally, who is your MP?

5 of the above mentioned 47 advertisements featuring the Conservative logo were to announce a BBQ the MP held in 2007. Here is a photo which appeared on the editorial page of the newspaper: http://www.zooomr.com/photos/robertviera/8594227/ The photo is of the MP at the BBQ event standing next to one of his Conservative campaign signs. This photo raises another issue. Should MPs be allowed to use taxpayer-funded advertising to promote partisan events?

Here are the top 40 spenders on advertising for 2008-2009: Yvon Lévesque Bloc 34305 Roger Gaudet Bloc 30812 Meili Faille Bloc 30616 Guy André Bloc 30585 Jim Flaherty Conservative 30496 Robert Bouchard Bloc 30492 Steven Blaney Conservative 30400 Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc 30393 Denis Lebel Conservative 30092 Claude DeBellefeuille Bloc 29989 Pierre Paquette Bloc 29983 André Bellavance Bloc 29923 Raymonde Folco Liberal 29685 Sylvie Boucher Conservative 29492 John Baird Conservative 29477 France Bonsant Bloc 29427 Mario Laframboise Bloc 29258 Christian Ouellet Bloc 29233 Josée Verner Conservative 29229 Louis Plamondon Bloc 29146 Michel Guimond Bloc 29140 Patrick Brown Conservative 29123 Jacques Gourde Conservative 29121 Réal Ménard Bloc 29099 Jean-Yves Roy Bloc 29093 Richard Nadeau Bloc 29069 Maria Mourani Bloc 28896 Robert Vincent Bloc 28860 Monique Guay Bloc 28837 Massimo Pacetti Liberal 28826 Rob Clarke Conservative 28803 Yvon Godin NDP 28793 Christian Paradis Conservative 28691 Johanne Deschamps Bloc 28495 Luc Malo Bloc 28457 Diane Bourgeois Bloc 28326 Carole Lavallée Bloc 28271 Stockwell Day Conservative 28255 Roger Valley Liberal 28042 Ted Menzies Conservative 27761 Source: http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/process/house/GeneraLInformation/MembersExpenses-2008-2009-e.pdf As you can see, the top 40 is dominated by Bloc MPs (24), and to a lesser degree Conservative MPs (12), with only a few Liberals (although one Liberal, Roger Valley, made the top 40 despite only serving for half of the fiscal year), and one NDP MP.

In addition to being able to send out newsletters and flyers at the taxpayers' expense, MPs are allowed to spend up to 10% of their office budgets on advertising. Here is a description of the entitlement from the 2008-2009 report on MPs expenditures: (3) ADVERTISING ─ allows Members to communicate with their constituents about their office location and contact information, assistance and services they provide and meeting announcements related to the discharge of their constituency functions, and to issue congratulatory messages or greetings to constituents and opinions or statements in support of their parliamentary functions. The Advertising Expenses Account is limited to 10% of the Member’s Office Budget. Here is a sample of the kind of ads my local MP, Patrick Brown, has run in the local daily newspaper, the Barrie Examiner: http://static.zooomr.com/images/8586263_34ce9614be_b.jpg This ad ran at the bottom of the front page in the November 30, 2007 issue and spanned the full width of the page. You'll notice in the lower left corner that there is a Conservative Party logo: http://static.zooomr.com/images/8586267_8e7cc4fa13_m.jpg I went back and checked old issues of the paper and found that Mr. Brown had run advertisements like this one 47 times between July 25, 2006 and September 6, 2008. 45 of the ads appeared on the front page, 2 appeared on the second page, and all included the Conservative Party logo in the lower left. In addition, Mr. Brown ran 2 full page ads, one in January 2007 and one in September 2008 which incorporated the Conservative Party logo in a similar fashion. Prior to July 25, 2006, Mr. Brown ran ads of the same size and in the same position on 7 occasions, but those ads did not include the Conservative Party logo. It is my belief that these ads were likely paid for out of Mr. Brown's office budget. In February of 2008, Mr. Brown did run a couple of ads which carried the line "Paid for by the Barrie Conservative Electoral District Association", but the ads were different in design, with larger Conservative Party logos and included the address of the party's web site. The Barrie Conservative EDA's 2007 financial statement, which can be viewed on the web site of Elections Canada, lists advertising expenses of $0.00. Should MPs be allowed to use their office budgets to put their party's logo on the front page of the local newspaper?

I came across the following, which appears to be the section on printing services from the Members' Allowances and Services Manual. I found it at the end of a report from 2006. I don't know if anything has changed since then. A link to the source is below. Members’ allowances and Services Manual ( a ) PRINTING SERVICES Members are provided with the following Printing Services at House Administration expense: Consultation, planning and production of: Householders, ten percenters, personalized stationery and business cards (maximum of 2,000); bulk photocopying, including up to 10 copies of committee transcripts; and binding. ( b ) HOUSEHOLDERS Householders are printed materials sent by Members to inform their constituents about parliamentary activities and issues. Members are entitled to print and mail up to four householders per calendar year three between January 1 and October 15, and one between October 16 and December 31 each year. There must be a 30 calendar day interval between householders submitted between January 1 and October 15. (Emphasis mine.) Unused householder allocations cannot be carried over to a subsequent period or year. For each householder, the quantity produced at House Administration expense cannot exceed the total number of residential, rural and business householders and Canadian Armed Forces military personnel registered as electors in the Members’ constituency. Members who require additional copies may have them printed and mailed as a charge to their Member’s Office Budget. Postage for additional householder mailings is subject to the preferred bulk ra[t]e set by Canada Post and is chargeable to the Member’s Office Budget. This preferred rate is available to Members only when items are posted from the House of Commons Postal and Distribution Services Office. When posted elsewhere by Members, items are subject to the prevailing regular postal rates. For a list of current rates, see the Appendix: Schedule of Rates located in the Budgets chapter. The Board of Internal Economy approves householder colors and formats. For further information, contact Printing Services. ( c ) TEN PERCENTERS Ten percenters are printed or photocopied material reproduced in quantities not exceeding 10% of the total number of householders in a Member’s constituency. Quantities exceeding that amount will be considered householders and will be deducted from the Member’s householder allowance. Each ten percenter is produced in black and white and must have a 50% difference in textual content from other ten percenters produced. Each document may be printed only once per fiscal year, must originate with the Member and have the Member’s name on it. Source: http://reports.fja.gc.ca/eng/2006/2006fc1544/2006fc1544.html

One concern I have with MPs using Twitter for communication is the limited size of messages does not allow for nuance or explanation. Twitter messages are the on-line/mobile phone equivalent of sound bites. Brief messages have their place, but I think we need to make sure that they don't replace fuller, more thoughtful discussion.

I'm inclined to agree with Charlie Angus: We are elected to represent our people. We go to committee to do serious business. I believe the issue of members sitting on committee with their inane Twitters about what happens at committee demeans the work of all parliamentarians. I am not going to speak on this party or that party. We have an obligation to represent the best of our country and I would like members of Parliament to put the inane little games away and get down to business of serving their constituents. http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=40&Ses=2&DocId=4231509#Int-2952661 Do MPs really need to be "tweeting" at committee meetings when the meetings are covered by journalists, streamed on the Internet (ParlVU) and transcribed in Hansard?

Oops! I hit Reply when I should have hit Edit. The above message should read: Forgive me. I didn't intend the "grown-up" comment to be a criticism of all Twitter users, just the ones who are acting like spoiled teenagers when they ought to be acting like professionals.

Forgive me. I didn't intend the "grown-ups" comment to be a criticism of all Twitter users, just the ones who are acting like spoiled teenagers when they ought to be acting like professionals.

Note: The description should read: Should they use "grown-up" communication and leave tweets to the kids? Not sure why it was cut off.

A recent Twitter status update from Barrie MP Patrick Brown: at children aids fundraiser at southshore in Barrie. good job by @jonaston and organizers 6:37 PM Nov 21st from mobile web Source: http://twitter.com/brownbarrie No. Mr. Brown did not attend a fund-raiser for children with AIDS. It was a fund-raiser for the local Children's Aid Society: http://www.simcoecas.com/en/foundation_events/events.asp That simple typo got me thinking. Is Twitter an appropriate mode of communication for a Member of Parliament? If mistakes like the one above can be overlooked in a message that is a mere 14 words long, maybe this is not the way the people who are responsible for writing our laws should be communicating. If it's not professional to put out documents with spelling errors, should MPs be using a mode of communications whose limitations encourage sacrificing spelling and grammar in favour of brevity? St. Catherines MP Rick Dykstra recently made the news when he was photographed apparently composing a Twitter message during a Remembrance Day ceremony. This raised another question: Where and when is it appropriate to be composing a message on a mobile phone? Scarborough Southwest MP Michelle Simson recently apologized in the House of Commons for a Twitter message in which she joked about another MP's waistline. She apologized for the joke, but should she have also apologized for the fact the message was composed during a committee meeting? Are our MPs giving enough attention to the professionalism of their communications? Should they be giving more attention to the people around them and less to the gadgets in their pockets?

I'm not aware of a similar document listing the expenses of individual Senators. Perhaps someone could ask the NDP: http://www.ndp.ca/press/senator-week-senator-nick-sibbeston-most-expensive-overall ... they seem to have the figures.

There is a link to a report containing all the office and House of Commons expenses for MPs in the first post in this thread. Here it is again: http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/process/house/GeneraLInformation/MembersExpenses-2008-2009-e.pdf The MPs are listed by name. If you'd like to see a list that shows MPs listed in order of how much they spent on printing, let me know and I'll try to post it here.

I've added a number of householders to the above link. Here's one with a large Conservative Party logo on it: http://www.zooomr.com/photos/robertviera/8563723/ ... paid for by you, the taxpayer.

Ten percenters I have received: http://www.zooomr.com/photos/robertviera/ 20 from Patrick Brown, 1 from Ruby Dhalla, and 1 from Glen Pearson.

There seems to be some confusion here and in some media reports. Here's what is says in the expense reports: (7) PRINTING ( a ) Householders – printed materials sent by Members (up to four householders per calendar year) to inform their constituents about parliamentary activities and issues; ( b ) Ten Percenters (additional householders) – printed or photocopied material reproduced in quantities not exceeding 10% of the total number of households in a Member’s constituency; ( c ) Ten Percenter Regrouping (additional householders) – some or all Members in a recognized party collectively submit, via their Whip’s office, an identical ten-percenter request; up to one regrouping per month is allowed, to a maximum of 10% of the total households represented by the Members submitting the request. There doesn't appear to be any reference to whether the ten percenters are sent to an MPs own riding or another riding. It would be interesting to see the bylaws of the Board of Internal Economy. Does anyone know if they are available online?

Perhaps people could scan or take a digital photo of ten-percenters they receive and then post them somewhere online so we could see what people are getting in different ridings.