Monthly Archives: February 2011
KAIROS Doc Is No Longer About Funding
| 2/17/2011 | Posted by Patti under Canadian Politics |
It has become increasingly clear that for sure Bev Oda, Minister for International Cooperation, needs to resign or be fired. It has also become increasingly clear that Prime Minister Harper is going to stand behind her no matter how much subterfuge it is going to take.
We’ve learned in the last week that the ‘NOT’ which was inserted into the KAIROS document was done so on Oda’s orders. She may choose to split hairs over whether she knew who exactly picked up the pen and did so, but she had full knowledge the document was being altered. Therein lies the issue. Therein also lies a question.
The issue is that Oda knew the document had been changed and at what point. It was after the two CIDA officials had signed off. The issue is NOT if she made a decision to grant funding to KAIROS ornot. She has the right to make a decision, even if it disagrees with the recommendations of the CIDA officials. The fact she made the decision and then mislead the house and the Foreign Relations committee about the circumstances of the decision, THAT is the issue. (more…)
Who Altered The KAIROS Docs?
| 2/11/2011 | Posted by Patti under Canadian Politics |
photo credit: ViaMoi
Reference Article: The Globe & Mail
One would think it would be a no brainer that when a document is produced for the signature of one or more government officials or parliamentarians, that no alterations would be made to the document along the way. Doesn’t appear to matter with this current government.
Last year CIDA denied funding for KAIROS, a group of churches doing work in developing countries. In one instance, an MP, Jason Kenny, bragged during a speech that the funding was cut off because of the groups criticism of Israel. The official story became that the group didn’t meet the funding priorities of CIDA.
Rather fishy sounding but, with this government’s secretive ways, who was to prove different. Now we learn, the funding was not initially intended to be cut off. The document circulated for signing recommended the funding continue — at least initially. (more…)
Liberals Take A Stand on Bill S-10
| 2/10/2011 | Posted by Patti under Canadian Politics |
The Conservative dominated Senate has passed Bill S-10 which provides for mandatory sentencing for those convicted of having as few as six pot plants in their possession. The first of many faults with the bill is that the bill fails to distinguish between someone who has a few plants for recreational use and those who are operating a grow op. They are all going to spend at least six months in jail.
It is the jail time where the next major fault lies, it costs money to house prisoners. Money to build the prisons, maintain them and to staff them, not to mention the actual costs of care involved for the inmates. In these days of record deficits, those costs are not just federal dollars, they involve provincial costs as sentences of two years less a day are served in provincial facilities.
This bill like others the Conservatives call tough on crime bills promote a flawed approach to crime. The Americans have already tried and failed with the same approach. In the American experience, many states came close to being bankrupted by the increased costs of building and maintaining prison facilities mandated by federal legislation.
What’s that definition of in insanity?.. oh right… doing something over and over the same way in the hope it will work eventually. (more…)
Get Your Meter Off My Bandwidth
| 2/9/2011 | Posted by Patti under Canadian News, Canadian Politics, Media |
Last week we saw an outpouring of consumer anger over the CRTC’s decision about internet bandwidth metering. Well actually they gave the big players like Bell Canada, Rogers and Telus the right to charge the smaller players wholesale rates about 15% less than what the big guy’s customers pay for bandwidth.
Bandwidth which costs just pennies per gigabyte and their customers are paying $2.50 and up per gigabyte if they go over their monthly allowable limit. The big guys claim that just 10% of customers go over their monthly limit and therefore that 10% should pay the freight.
If they are talking about their own customers, anyone who accepts an internet package which only gives them 25gigs of bandwidth in a month is a very light user, or they don’t realize how easy it is to rack up bandwidth use and they quickly switch to another provider rather than pay their outrageous overage charges.
I spent several years paying what I considered to be an outrageous cost of almost $60 per month for internet by satellite because that was all I could get. The provider, ExplorNet started out good when they first introduced the service into the area, then the throttling started. You’d be on the net maybe half an hour and the speed would drop to slower than dialup. When I’d complain, I’d be told it was their “fair usage policy” being activated by my ‘excessive’ bandwidth use. (more…)
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