Evil Cable Monopolies
Overall, Shaw Cable gives pretty good service. I am a personal fan of Jim Shaw, in fact.
However, every once in awhile (with any monopoly), you get the asinine decision that infuriates you, and you are completely helpless to do anything about it.
Here is a copy of my latest complaint to the CRTC:
- Without any notice, effective this morning, Shaw Cable in Victoria moved CNBC, the last remaining business news channel on basic cable to digital.
Their explanation is that this was one of the least popular channels. However, there are 4 sports channels on basic cable, a market that I would argue is ‘overserved’ by basic cable subscribers, and with the move of CNBC, there are now 0 business news channels on non-digital cable.
This is an outrage. There are 3 premium business channels available: CNBC, RobTV (Canadian), and Bloomberg Television. Would it be so radical to request that Shaw include just one of these channels in their basic lineup? I understand that more people watch sports than business news, but that is no reason why those who watch business news should be completely unserved while those who watch sports should have such a wide selection.
Truth is, I’m addicted to business news. It’s what I watch. It’s the point of my television. Now, I may have to turn off my television and stagger outside and wonder what that large yellow orb is in the sky.
Most people who I know that watch business news watch it almost exclusively. Take away one sports channel and people can flip the channel. Take away the business news and the TV becomes an oversized paperweight.
Needless to say, if there was any competition in this market, I’d be phoning the competition right now. And, if competition does arrive, it will be from TELUS, which is quite possibly the worst company in the world, or certainly the last one I would ever want to deal with.
Unfortunately, Shaw can simply make haphazard decisions like this without considering all the facts, and we are stuck with two choices: a boat anchor in my office, or buying a $300 device for my office to get what I used to get yesterday.
The CBC Money Pit
A Senate Report has suggested that the CBC discontinue all advertising, and that the Government increase funding to the CBC.
This follows the news that the news is getting bumped for an American reality TV show import.
This reminds me of the gun registry. A misguided Government program is failing, so we pour more money into it. I have argued before on this blog that the CBC is long past its prime. These latest desperate measures only reaffirm my beliefs.
I cannot imagine what planet the Senate Committee is from that they should even consider increasing funding to the CBC. There are two other solutions that make far more sense:
- Privatize it. This could be fun. Here’s one neat-o idea: issue 10 shares to every Canadian taxpayer registered with the CRA, then launch trading on the TSX, and see what happens! Here’s another fun one: sell $10 shares on a telethon (Margaret Thatcher-approved), and see how many you can sell. This would be less fun, but effective: sell the assets to the highest bidder.
- Set up a public broadcasting foundation, put them to work, and slowly trim back the Government dole. Make them apply for any Government grants to the arts in competition with every other arts group in Canada.
I don’t really care what method is used. I only care that they stop cashing the blank cheque from the Canadian taxpayer.
Conspiracy Theory # 37
If you owned a business, and your business was called ‘National Hockey League’, and it was the Stanley Cup Finals, and there was an ever-popular Canadian team and a team from the Southeast United States, which one would you want to win?
Of course, given the waning (or ‘waned’) popularity of the sport in the United States, the answer is clear: Go Carolina!
Go advertising revenue! Go American interest in Canada’s national sport!
I don’t actually believe this game is rigged (like Pro Wrestling, Figure Skating and Zimbabwean Democracy), but I have heard the theory before, and having been a Canucks fan for far too long, I already gave the theory more credibility than most.
To the conspirators: Hey, it would just be nice to see a Canadian team actually win Lord Stanley’s cup again one day. Throw us a bone once in awhile.
Breaking Rumour! Toronto MP Crossing Floor to Tories
Is ‘breaking rumour’ a valid term? It’s not news. It’s rumour, and I haven’t found it on another blog. So, here goes:
Anonymous insiders have disclosed that a Toronto Member of Parliament is ‘strongly considering’ a switch to the Conservative side of the aisle.
As polls across Canada have put the Conservatives miles ahead, even in traditionally weak areas, Toronto has stubbornly kept the Tories in 2nd (or 3rd in some polls). Is the tide shifting? One Liberal scandal too many? Who knows.
I will keep you posted if I hear more.
Energy Disincentives
Despite the Financial Post’s ‘Junk Science Week’ articles, and all the global warming skepticism, there are two things I am pretty convinced of:
- Oil is a finite resource that we could theoretically completely use up.
- Burning oil, coal or any of the fuels made with these resources pollutes our air. Whether or not the CO2 emitted leads to global warming is an important discussion, but regardless of the answer, curbing use of oil and coal is a good idea anyway.
So, there’s a bunch of stuff we can do:
- Encourage the purchase of hybrids and alternative fuel vehicles.
- Reduce energy usage, both consumers and businesses. More energy efficiency is key.
- Build new greener power plants to replace traditional sources (wind, solar, tidal, and where possible, hydroelectric). Force power monopolies to purchase private green energy; better yet, break up the monopolies and fasttrack development applications for green energy sources.
- Encourage development of a vibrant consumer market for micro-power (like solar calculators and wind-up radios, but preferably neater stuff).
Part of the problem with the ‘incentives’ around Kyoto is that they have largely acted as disincentives. The minute the Federal Government signed onto the Kyoto Protocol, the market forces and incentives began working against the environment, and the foot-dragging on actions only exascerbated the problem. What we need now is a concrete, decisive environmental plan. This is what I expect to see from the Conservative Government very soon, and we have seen bits of it already (i.e. ethanol initiative).
Here is how the Kyoto Protocol has created disincentives that have harmed the environment:
- Industry did not know by what measure they would be granted carbon credits, and what incentives the Government would give to them. Presumably there would be a date on which things would be measured. To ensure they get the maximum allocation, the incentive was to pollute ‘as much as possible’ until then.
- Investing in more energy efficient operations might have resulted in a lower allocation (which, even if they didn’t need it, it would be a good asset to sell).
- Investing in more energy efficent operations might have been counterintuitive, because they would have had to made big investments for these. What if they did this, and then the Government came along and subsidized all their competitors to catch up. They’d miss out on the big pay day.
- Electricity in Canada is too cheap, and artificially so. Consumers and businesses should pay the actual cost. If we did this, we would all consume less, and there would be more money with which to build the greener power sources for the future.
- Consumers didn’t replace old appliances with newer more energy efficient ones because they were waiting to see if the Government would help pay for it. In cases where broad-based incentives to replace the old appliances were introduced, people bought second-fridges and freezers, perversely increasing energy consumption.
- Consumers will buy a hybrid car if it makes economic sense to do so. There could have been incentives years ago to make the price of hybrids closer to the price of internal combustion engine cars, but the Government missed the boat, and have another six million or so gas guzzlers on the road as a result. Only now are the prices starting to get close enough for the average Canadian to see the obvious benefit.
We will eventually run out of oil. Pollution leads to health problems and other miseries. That’s reason enough to change our ways, but we cannot ignore the market and the way incentives work. If the Government is to give people and businesses incentives to change their ways, they need to consider them carefully.
Advertising campaigns like the ‘One Tonne Challenge’ and flawed agreements like the Kyoto Protocol do nothing.
I think Canada should do something.
Damned No Matter What: An American Congressional Story
For the record, I love America. I visit often, and it is a fabulous country. But I do think the American Congress needs to give its collective head a shake once in awhile.
So, CSIS and the RCMP crack the homegrown terrorist case of the decade in Canada, foiling the plans, exposing the terrorists, bringing down the whole operation, and saving Stephen Harper’s carotid artery.
While the U.S. administration praises Canada’s success, a couple of nutjobs in Congress only find new ammunition to blame Canada for all the evil in the world. Quick! Let’s erect a 400 meter concrete, barbed-wire capped fence along the border, and require mandatory body cavity searches for anyone entering the United States from a strange and foreign land — only after the delousing, of course.
Does this lunacy sound familiar?
After testing thousands and thousands of cows, a single case of ‘Mad Cow Disease’ is discovered in Canada … and the crowd goes wild!
Come on! Test enough meat, or explore enough anonymous tips, and you are bound to eventually find something. Isn’t this the point? Stop it before it becomes a real problem?
Instead, all the publicity around the ‘stopping’ seems to arm the (sadly, mostly conservative) spin-doctors with proof of ‘a problem’, rather than proof of ‘dealing effectively with a potential problem’.
Canada isn’t perfect. We have our homegrown terrorists just like every other country (except, USA, of course, according to the blinding light of Congress). Only difference, perhaps, is we have been more effective at stopping them (at least so far).
More guns come North from America than terrorists go South from Canada. Maybe we should build a wall, and start shooting tourists who ‘look suspicious’ as they cross the border.
Or maybe we should be proud of our accomplishments, embrace freedom, work together to ensure the security of the continent we share, and hope that lunatics don’t get the last say.
A funny thing happened on the way to the Internet…
So it turns out that the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) did not cancel the YouthForVolpe.ca domain name. This does not surprise me, because CIRA is extremely careful about legal issues, and is very guarded about their reputation. As country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) operators go, CIRA is globally recognized as a leader, and rightfully so.
They even went to the extraordinary step, in this narrow incident, of issuing a press release to defend themselves. Given their history, and my personal experience with the organization, I have absolutely no reason to doubt their complete innocence in this matter.
According to sources quoted by Stephen Taylor, the registrar believed the content of the website could be deemed defamatory, discriminatory or harmful, and cancelled the registration.
I’m going to guess, but cannot say with any certainty or insider knowledge, that somebody made a threatening phone call to the registrar in question. Be it somebody from the Joe Volpe campaign or a third-party trying to “help” his campaign is anyone’s guess. I’m also going to guess that the registrar considered their options. Here they were:
- Cancel an improperly registered domain name registration for a joke website that was probably put together by a couple of witty college students, or
- Potentially put up with a nuisance lawsuit from a deep-pocketed individual/group that was looking for the instant gratification that an action of canceling a domain name would have upon the website.
As the owner of a company that is also a registrar certified by CIRA, I do sympathize with the registrar’s situation.
We have had similar threatening phone calls in the past, from all sorts of people who want to include us in their personal legal frustrations. We try to explain our role to them, and they don’t get it, or don’t care. Sometimes they are lawyers, and they, understandably, just want their problem ‘fixed’!
It would be a nuisance lawsuit because the content of websites is not a concern of registrars. Think of the domain registry like a land registry: the registry records who owns what; the registrar (or registrars, in the case of domain names) amends the registry as needed; courts, legal agreements (and sometimes binding arbitration) indicate when transfers of land shall occur. This is exactly how the domain name registry works.
My lawyer cannot march into Toronto City Hall and demand that they change the registry to show that I own the Skydome. Only a legal agreement of sale, or a court ruling could change this. Lawyers, of all people, should understand this concept.
Remember this the next time a political opponent registers your candidate’s domain name before you, and you get all mad about it. Here’s a good idea for your EDA: register all your nominees’ domain names before they are nominated.
Back to the registrar of YouthForVolpe.ca… As registrars, we can indeed “cancel an active domain name within the first 7 days of it having been activated by CIRA.” We have used this function in the past, though rarely. The most common reason for using it is people registering a misspelling of their intended domain name, or a clear case of credit card fraud. In either of these cases, this is a good feature to have. In the YouthForVolpe.ca case, based on the information I have learned about it, I can say that we almost certainly would not have made the same decision.
Our consistent answer on the matter of domain name registration is that it is a matter between the registrant and the person disputing the registrant. If the offended party does not like that answer (which they usually do not), then we suggest they contact CIRA directly. Presumably they do, and presumably CIRA tells them the exact same thing.
Their option is to take the registrant to court, or in the case of ownership disputes, a less expensive arbitration process is available.
I’m happy to report that, to date, after 6 years as CIRA Certified Registrars, we haven’t been troubled by anyone desperate enough to incorrectly name us in their nuisance legal actions.
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