OK, this isn't going to interest most of the folks here, I know that. This is for my fellow Canucks.
Election time is upon us again (And this is the point where most folks go, "Canada has elections? I thought they had a King?"), and I want to talk about one of the issues that I'm pretty sure everyone Internet Savvy enough to post here already knows about: Internet Metering.
Well, we know about it, but as has been proven to us time and again, most politicians think the Internet is a "Series of Tubes" or some such, and the magic Internet Faerie brings it to them. Well, as they use the Big Corporate Accounts, it might as well. For the Residential and Small Business user, not so much. Especially small business and rural Canadians.
For those of you who don't know what it is, it's simple: The Big TeleCom companies tried to do a backdoor deal with the CRTC to charge for bandwidth used. "Big Deal", right? Ever know anyone that's gone over their "Cap" for their "Unlimited Internet" back in the day? Yeah, you can see how high those bills get. That bit of false advertising was eventually squashed, but we can't do "Eventually" on this one. This is an attempt to prevent various companies from operating, as well as squeeze yet even more dollars out of the average consumer for something that costs them, literally, pennies.
Well, as I said, it's election time, one of the major times we have to get the ears of the politicians and let them know what we think. So get all the issues you want to know about together, and phone all the offices of those running for your local Minister of Parliament, let them know what you're worried about, what you're thinking, and how they're going to respond. And certainly let them know you want to see the results of their actions in office, as it will determine your voting in the future. Even if you don't vote (Where's that Frag Grenade?), a simple phone call isn't that hard.
The Corporations aren't extraterritorial (Yet), and have to obey the laws of the land. Let's make sure the lawmakers know who the kingmakers are in Canada. Us.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled chaos.
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Yeah, I know. A serious post out of me. Weird.