Battletoads

Take quebec out of the picture and what does that 7 million drop to?

I think the discussion should be about why those jobs need to be bilingual. Does it serve a purpose, or are people just bending over to the french whiners. There are four other languages it would be more beneficial for British Columbians to speak "They" won't be part of the country soon enough so I don't view it as a skill, more of a bar trick. Unless you're the French in which case people will throw tax payers money at you so you can shove your culture down other's throats. First it was 11%, now its 20%. And french is a derivative of Latin, should we be learning Latin now? It's not the west making themselves ineligible, it’s the east as usual tacking on needless requirements to these jobs. Sister language? If french has a sister language it's Spanish or Italian, you know the one of the other romance languages. English is a Germanic language... Maybe you ought to read up a bit before you come in here telling people off for not knowing about their own language.

My mistake I thought I had included that those numbers were for BC only. Not that it changes anything, I don`t see any reason for British Columbians to cough up a dime to french special interest groups.

Besides racking up about 170K a year in travel expenses, just about nothing. James Lunny Con back bencher.

Native speakers of Langauges, as percentage ofpopulation English: 71.5% Chinese languages: 8.5% Punjabi: 4.0% German: 2.2% French: 1.4% As usual, there are better things to spend money on than the french squeaky wheel.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/technology/22iht-broadband22.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss South Korea provides internet access at hundreds of times the speed of an average Canadians access. Lets do a little joke comparison: The average access speed in South Korea is 100mb/s. If an avaerage Canadian were to have this access speed they would be able to utilize it for about 250 seconds before reaching a 25gb cap. That's at current speeds. If the South Koreas reach their goal of a gigabit network (1000mb/s) by 2012 it would take 25 seconds to reach the cap. With Canada so far behind even poorer nations like South Korea why is it that the Cons have yet to reveal any broadband plan for Canada? Even Australia, Harper's dream of a country, has unveild plans to build a national gigabit network (which would provide speeds about ~500 times faster than the average Canadian connection)

I don't see why kids should be forced to learn a langauge of a province that likely won't be part of Canada in the future.

The CRTC’s role was to foster competition in the Canadian marketplace and ensure that Canadian media didn't get overwhelmed by american media. That’s a good goal/mandate, unfortunately the CRTC is with people who have a huge monetary stake in the telecom companies their supposed to regulate, and unsurprisingly Canada has the most expensive (to the consumer) telecom system in the world.

Expensive Telecommunication, a part of our heritage.

While I appreciate any attempt to try and deal with native terrorists, I don't think vigilante justice is the way to do it.

If you don't know why the census is important you must have an IQ around room temperature. Do you honestly think every civilized country in the world goes through the census process for fun?

What can the cons, or anyone, do? Their entire support base is made up of the lazy and incompetent generation known as the baby boomers.

Nothing new, just look at their axing of the census. Hard data is enemy #1 of the cons.

Disturbing. I don't understand why the cons don't have the stone to stand up for what they believe in. If they wanted this funding cut why didn't they come right out and say it?

Someone with a large stake in the Canadian telecom business is against consumer protection. Shocking. If people like her and her friend Conard had their way you'd still be paying $1.50/min+ for long distance in this country.

Considering how the technology that allows isps to track individual usage has not been widespread for more than a year or two I'd say you're a liar. http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2011/02/09/technology-bell-internet-usage.html?ref=rss Bell still can't get it right, leading to massive overage charges on customers who haven't gone over their cap.

Bravo sir. I'd just like to add that if Conrad Von-head-in-ass (the CRTC head pushing for UBB) wants to claim bandwidth should be billed like a utility I don't see why anyone should pay a flat rate, everything should be done by UBB. Since it's a utility the government (provincial or federal) should step in and regulate rates as it does with every other utility in Canada to insure the utility provider provides a fair rate. Of course Bell, and their friend Conrad have no interest in a fair pricing scheme...

Sure! Where do I sign up for my no strings attached government subsidies?

I'm confused how the network being saturated and bandwidth use have anything to do with each other. A net work can only be saturated when too many users are connected to it, seeing as individual users have a limited download/upload speed. and I don't see the why youhave the need to call those who want resonable bandwidth caps unproductive.

Some good point on dispelling the myths around Usage Based Billing, from industry insider Rocky Gaudrault, CEO of tekksavvy http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/02/07/internet-usage-debate-the-real-myths/ Some of the more interesting points: "Light users subsidize heavy users. If this were the case, you would think there would be a similar response around the world, not just in Canada. Yet only Canada seeks to impose a usage-based billing system on the wholesale Internet market to combat this supposed inequity. The CRTC itself acknowledged that all costs associated with the provision of Internet services are recouped by the flat-rate component of the service. This myth is equivalent to arguing that apartment rents should be based on the number of people living in a unit, because the rent of the person living alone subsidizes the cost of an apartment occupied by two people. UBB is a punitive measure because the marginal cost of higher use is miniscule once the network is in place. It has been acknowledged as such. This makes Canada seem like one of the few countries in the world that want to discourage access to the Internet." Not many people are heavy users of bandwidth. And with UBB as proposed, not many will be. That would be a shame because Canada will lag the world in that regard, and become a communications backwater. In any event, Mr. Bibic presents questionable, backward-looking data as the basis on which to form forward-looking public policy. Virtually every study from Sandvine to Berkman to the OECD predicts exponential growth in Internet-based video consumption, whether by movie lovers, students, businesses or grandmothers enjoying their grandchildren from afar. The answer to future growth is not to stifle it by imposing punitive pricing but to encourage it, accommodate it, and make more money on greater volume consumed at lower prices with more efficient infrastructure. That is how it is done elsewhere in the world and how it ought to be done here. And if it takes regulation of Canada’s telecommunications regional duopolies to achieve it, the CRTC and the government should do so, with an emphasis on the interests of Canadian consumers, not the duopoly. "Wholesale operators ride on the Bell network. This is a strange way to treat a valuable customer. TekSavvy has paid tens of millions of dollars to Bell, based on tariffs determined by the CRTC in a regulated framework no different from those applicable to gas or long distance services. TekSavvy “rides” on Bell’s system no more than do independent long distance providers. And that is frankly a comparison worth remembering. When the incumbent telcos controlled long distance, customers paid $1.50 per minute. With the entrance of competitors, customers now pay mere pennies. What Bell is trying to do with UBB is the equivalent to charging $1.50 per minute for long distance. Instead of caps and artificially high fees, the incumbent telcos should establish the real cost for bits, if material, and negotiate a fair “cost plus” tariff for those bits."

I don't see how banning the media from broadcasting knowingly false information is not in line with Canaidan speech laws. Seems they just want to pave the way for Fox News North... Wave goodbye to any semblance of professionalism in the Canaidan media, and welcome the Glenn Becks and Bill O'Rilelys. I wonder how long it will take before we start hearing about how Ignatieff or Layton want to gang-rape the Canadian way of life.

More people might switch to new media sources, the telecoms would call these people bandwidth hogs.

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/technology/Vancouver+seeks+Internet+metering/3993791/story.html http://openmedia.ca/blog/city-victoria-joins-stop-meter-movement So far Vancouver and Victoria have come out in opposition to UBB. Anyone know if any other cities have joined in with the opposition? Maybe with a bit of luck UBB can be killed before it gets off the ground.

Thats not to say wired internet is going anywhere... I would imagine this perceived faster growth rate is due to people comparing homes with internet connections vs people with cellphones. Plus all these wireless connections feed into the wired net at some point. Its a simple fact that wireless systems will never replace the wired net...

The population density of cities is all the matters, and I'd be willing to bet Canadian cities have comperable population desnities to european cities. Europe is just a much more pro-consumer place, and that leads fair rates rather than these grossly inflated rates we pay in Canada.