Category: New

It is like a cloud of locusts descending on land and water. It is also a tradition. That means it is both good and bad. It happens every year for the long weekend at the beginning of August. It is something of a tribal rite. It is an amusement park and an outdoor concert. It features more than 400 tents for hawkers of antiques, crafts, food and unusual and sundry services. It is a poor person’s Canadian National Exhibition. It girds the Bay at Babel and strangles local traffic.

For Saturday and Sunday, this year, the Fest was blessed with sun and warm breezes. Cars are parked helter-skelter for blocks around the bay, many blocking the egress of others. The mood remains friendly and festive. The bay itself is a a haven for houseboats and yachts, power boats and sail. Smart exhibitors use boats for sleeping accommodation during the gruelling three days.

Many boaters come to anchor offshore to hear the concerts at the Main Stage and Beer Garden on Saturday and Sunday. This main entertainment venue was moved this year to reduce the complaints from the condominium owners at the west end of the bay. The organizers moved it to the other end of the event on the south shore of the bay. The stage and speakers are all angled excellently to bounce the sound off the water and people on the east end of the bay can now hear the music with greater clarity…and volume!

It was surprising to learn this year that the Fest is not near and dear to the hearts of all Babelites. In fact some of the more vocal opponents are those who resent the fact that almost every weekend of the summer is taken up with some event on the lakefront. To me it is what makes Babel exciting and fun. One of the events that many hated were the go-cart races that closed the roads and provided us with front row seats. They were raucous and noisy and loaded with displays of skill and daring. When the Lakeshore construction is finished (whenever?), we sure hope they come back to Babel.

Checking with many of the vendors on this last day of the event, the word heard most often is “awesome.” The vendors were ecstatic about the crowds, the friendly mood, the wonderful weather and even if the weather threatened a bit on the last day, the rains held off and the event closed on a high note. What more could you ask?

– 30 –

It was almost three years ago that I started writing The Democracy Papers. They outlined, in a series of articles, why I believe Canadians prefer their first-past-the-post voting system over a proportional voting system. Events proved that Ontario voters agreed. They rejected changing to a form of Mixed-Member Proportional (MMP) voting by about two to one in the October 2007 provincial election and referendum.

British Columbia voters have also rejected a more convoluted form of proportional voting known as Single Transferable Vote (STV). They not only rejected it in a 2005 referendum but they got another chance to reject it in 2009. The government spent more on explaining STV to B.C. voters this time and more of them voted against it.

And yet people are still campaigning for some form of proportional voting. Before the B.C. vote newspaper readers saw remarks by Elizabeth May, leader of Canada’s Green Party. It seems that the gleam in her eye is still to convince Canadians to switch to some form of proportional representation. She recognized that the best hope for some seats for her party would be for federal and provincial governments to have some form of proportional representation. Her party is doomed to be an also ran in the foreseeable future without that type of change.

Ms. May had high hopes for British Columbia in its second referendum. And you can see why when reading B.C. newspaper articles and editorials, blogs and pro-change websites before the vote. The B.C.-STV advocates sank to new and surprisingly low levels of demagoguery in support of their cause. While STV is slightly less objectionable than the MMP that was proposed in Ontario, it is a foot in the door for proportional representation and needed to be addressed as such.

The demagogues of B.C.-STV wrote that it would give the voters greater stability in the governments. That is a surprising claim. Proportional representation rarely produces majority governments in what are considered literate societies. Take a look at the Israeli Knesset, for example, and figure out what stability that country enjoys in its government.

In their double-speak, the pro-proportional voting people get confused. They tell you that you get more effective representation with larger ridings and more competitive local contests. Then they tell us that the legislature will be more responsive. They say that larger parties will have more diverse candidates and that smaller parties will win some seats and provide some new ideas. You should ask these people if they have that promise in writing from all the parties.

Their most unusual claim is that proportional voting makes political parties more accountable. They throw some odd mathematics at you about 40 per cent of the vote and 60 per cent of the seats and 100 per cent of the power. It boils down to a much simpler equation: If party A is in power, it wants to stay there by paying attention to what people want. If party B, or C, or D are not in power, they pay even closer attention to what people want because they want to win next time. To say that our present system is perfect is a bit foolish. To say it is not accountable is to say something more foolish.

There are fewer Canadians today who remember the Bennett’s, pere et fils, who often gave a chuckle to political observers in other parts of the country when serving B.C. as Social Credit premiers. Eventually the province will live down the stigma. Luckily the voters did not refresh the idea of B.C.’s wacky politics by changing the way they elect their provincial politicians to a method nobody really understands.

– 30 –

When my older brother was promoted to head office of Alcan, he moved his family to Montreal. Born and educated in Ontario, he and his wife only spoke English. With their limited language skills, real estate people pointed them to the west island area of Greater Montreal where a high percentage of the households were Anglophone. They bought a new home in a development in Pointe Claire. And as Alcan’s head office was in Place Ville Marie, quite close to the central train station, for the next 20 some years, my brother was a regular train commuter to and from his work.

While, in time, his company made sure that he became quite proficient speaking French and his children became, to varying degrees, bilingual, he and his family enjoyed the mix of language skills in their Pointe Claire neighbourhood. What he also enjoyed was the convenience and comfort offered by the trains he took to and from work. He was an enthusiastic booster of commuting. That was probably reinforced daily as his train breezed towards downtown and he could see the ever present congestion on the parallel Route 2 highway to downtown.

The only drawback I could see to his arrangement was that he lived about three kilometres (just less than two miles) from the train station. He was philosophical about this as his was a quite sedentary job in his office all day and he felt that the combination of his walk to and from the station and walking the dog helped keep him fit. I did note though that as he got older, he did appreciate someone picking him up at the station in inclement weather.

This background is by way of explaining my expectations pertaining to our GO trains here in Babel. A while ago, a gentleman from Babel wrote a letter to the editor of our freebie newspaper. In the letter, he complained about the plans now afoot to create a boarding point for the GO trains in the area of our historic Allandale station. Since this is the point where Canadian National Railways has the layover yard for the GO trains, where the trains are stored and cleaned overnight, for their next day’s run to the big smoke, it does seem dumb to not let passengers board there.

But this gentleman objects. He claims that the need for people to park their cars, makes this a very bad place to allow people to board the trains. He disagrees with the business case study that shows that boarding the trains in this central Babel location will attract as many as 140 new riders. At the same time, he wails piteously about his projection of at least 150 more cars that would want to park at this new boarding point. This mathematical whiz feels that we would be wasting the funds recently used to increase the parking spaces at the station down at the south end of Babel.

One wonders if this genius has taken a look around and considered that this excellent location was chosen more than 100 years ago as a terminus for tourists attracted to Babel’s beautiful bay. Yet his concern is that parking for tourists will be foreshortened because of the commuters taking up the preferred parking places. The first question that comes to mind is why he thinks tourists would want to park at the same time as commuters? One further ponders the question as to whether this citizen has actually contemplated that today there are many thousands of people living within an easy walk of this location. Have the days of walking become a thing of the past?

Many of us in Babel are tiring of the ludicrous arguments that people get into over the historic train station. What should have been done first was to bring back the trains to Allandale Station. Smart developers would have followed.

– 30 –

When first testing reaction to this site, we allowed comments as part of the test.  What we found was that some of the comments had no relation to what had been written.  Rather than get into an endless round of editing comments, I decided to turn them off.  That does not mean I do not appreciate comments.  Just send them to   [email protected]

I have finally had it with Ma Bell. I have always made alibis for her. I have defended her. I have even worked for her and believed in her. I have been a loyal customer from the day I moved to my first home away from my family. I have stuck by her for many, many years.

But enough is enough. I am joining the legions of Canadians from Ontario and Quebec who no longer wish to endure her pseudo-sexual or other favours or do business of any kind with Ma Bell. And that is not a simple thing to do. After all, I get a small pension from her. The cheque goes into my bank account every month. It is one of those indexed-to-inflation mites that adds a few dollars with the cost of living. When I first started receiving it, I was quite satisfied with it, despite its small amount.

That pitiful pension was, at the time, more than enough to pay for my telephone, my cell phone and my Internet service. Ma’s grinches at her headquarters in Montreal refused my simple request to truly be treated as a pensioner and be allowed to continue the employee discount that I enjoyed in the years that I worked for the company. I was told that I had not worked for the company long enough to be included among those privileged pensioners.

Despite my hurt feelings over the denied discount (35 per cent off your telephone, Internet and cell phone bills is nothing to sneeze at), I stuck with her. I reasoned that since she was paying for my telephone services, there was no reason for me to go elsewhere. And, an indexed pension meant that I could look after any small increase.

Boy, was I kidding myself. I was still paying less than my pension amount when I moved to Babel. I had even been able to upgrade my Internet service from dial to Digital Subscriber Line (DSL). Where I lived in the big smoke, I was located too far from the central office to be able to use that service and had to use a second telephone line to connect to the Internet. In Babel, I could use the same line for both a home phone and high speed Internet. It meant I actually paid a bit less for my Bell services.

Not for long. Ma Bell soon launched her insidious program of extra costs for the unwary customer. I used to call 310-Bell every month when I got my bill to ask why this item or that item had been added to my bill. The odd time, because of Bell’s contractual obligations, I got apologies and rebates. When I got the occasional older employee still working the phones, we would compare notes and I would earn further discounts through creative use of the rules.

But the program of added costs was too pervasive. I could not stem the tide. In the past four years, my monthly bill from Ma Bell has increased by 50 per cent. It is amazing what companies can do, even when semi-regulated. You add a dollar here and a dollar there. A new network charge can net $7.95 per month and then another $2 that Ma never got before. You thought you had a good deal on long distance until Ma adds a charge of $5.95 per month for just having the plan.

The latest charge is the one for the DSL modem. When I moved to Babel, my inexpensive little made-in-China Internet modem, that blinks at me as I surf, was included at no charge. Suddenly a modem charge of $2 per month appeared on my bills. When I complained about that, Ma actually choked my service, reducing the bandwidth. I not only got slower service but I had to pay the $2 a month for a modem I had already paid for five times over. When I got the information recently that Ma was going to double the modem charge per month, I was outraged. When I called about it, I got some out-sourced call centre where the woman on the line had no clue what was going on. When she understood that I did not want to pay for the modem but wanted to keep the service, she told me to go buy my own modem and return Bell’s.

I quickly found out that there are very few sources where you can buy a DSL modem. It seems the telephone companies are controlling that market. Places like Best Buy and Future Shop said ‘no way.’ I finally found a modem that was actually better than the one from Bell and after some interesting modifications I find it works just fine. Then I found that the call centre airhead had lied to me. The problem is that if you return the old modem, Ma Bell will not stop charging you for it.

I have a problem with that. If somebody charges you for something that you do not need and have returned to them, I don’t think that is honest. There is no contract that says you will use Ma’s cheap little modem at an outrageous price. I am no longer paying Ma.

I am now trying out Yak Communications. It might be a stupid name but the company resells the services on Bell’s copper wires, so there is not much that can go wrong. Yak is charging me less for more services than I got from Bell for my home phone. I am also paying less than I paid Ma for my Internet service and getting a bandwidth of 4.2 Mbps which is ten times faster than the service that Bell provided. (And I use my own modem without charge.)

So far Ma has had a few out-sourced call centre people call me but as soon as you realize how poorly they are trained and how little they know about the business, you end the call. Bell Canada management would be amazed at how much respect they would earn if they just respected their customers.

– 30 –

Go green and win friends. Go green and win elections. Go green and try to convince people you know what you are doing. I came up with that last one myself. As you know, today’s politicians vie with each other to be the greenest. What they need to learn is that it’s a lot like being in favour of motherhood. After a while, you get more people saying ‘That’s nice. So what?’

The Ontario government is very much in favour of being green. Judging from the cancelation of plans to go more nuclear in Ontario, the premier and vice-premier (McGinty and Smitherman) will have no choice but take Ontario green whether anyone likes it or not. McGinty drew a line on the grass earlier this year and declared that NIMBY’s need not try to impede the greening progress.

At the time, our pemier was pointing a finger at some Scarborough ratepayers who object to a scheme to put a wind farm of generating turbines out in Lake Ontario off the Scarborough Bluffs. “Not in my backyard” stated the NIMBY’s—which explains why they are referred to as NIMBY’s.

To be fair to these ratepayers, the location is not my backyard. I therefore looked out at my view of the bay here in Babel and imagined how it would look with an arrayof wind turbines off shore. Sorry NIMBY’s but I think it would look great.

There is just something lyrical and beautiful about wind turbines. They have such a gentle dignity as they turn in concert to the breezes. I will take the wonders of wind turbines over dark and sombre solar panels any day.

What leaves me a little confused is the why of putting the things out in open water. They would probably not be a hazard to commercial shipping because those people prefer deep water but there are bound to be collisions with Saturday sailors. I always thought higher winds were higher up. Why are we not putting wind turbines on top of the Scarborough Bluffs, where they can catch a better breeze? And what is wrong with using the Sandbanks Provincial Park? There can be no denying what centuries of reliable winds have wrought in that strikingly beautiful area of Prince Edward County. Or is that the back yard of Ontario’s rulers?

Even in Babel’s bay, I would worry about drunken Seadoo drivers in summer and the same drunks on their Skidoos in the winter. They would end up hitting the wind turbines. I expect these wind catching structures could also whack a few seaplane pilots, capture an occasional wind surfer or parachute-skier, and be a hazard to wandering fishing persons.

No doubt, all suitable locations have their problems. There will always be those who disagree no matter where we put them.

But in all this to-do about locating wind turbines, we never hear much about the economics of their generating value. When checking out both wind turbines and solar panels over the last few years, I have learned that the cost of establishing the generating capacity and connecting it to the Ontario grid seems to the same as the contractual payment from Ontario Power Generation. Frankly that is not a deal that has any appeal to me. It sounds like I can loan my provincial power authority money for years without interest. I might like to be green but that should not have to include being stupid!

Besides, there is little sense to wind turbines or to solar panels until our scientists show us how to store power efficiently. Our greening of our environment is never going to happen until we can use the power of the wind when it is not blowing and the power of the sun when it is not shining.

-30-

I can hardly believe it. On the front page of Babel Backward’s July 23 issue, there is a story saying “CRTC order helps A-Channel.” Not only is this story based on information that appeared in real newspapers two weeks ago but it does not even get it right. It makes the erroneous claim that the Canadian Radio-Television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) ordered cable and satellite companies to start paying broadcasters for carrying their programming. What the CRTC ruling really said was that there would be an increase of the Local Program Improvement Fund from one per cent of cable and satellite service gross revenues to one and a half per cent. That will mean that another 30-plus million dollars will now be added to the $68 million already available to support Canadian produced programs such as Flashpoint, The Listener and others, over the next year—paid for by cable and satellite customers.

But that is not going to do anything for A Channel unless the station needs a refurbished backdrop for its news programming such as the high-tech set now used by its competitive sister station CTV News down in the big smoke. What the CRTC really told the small market broadcasters is that they have to sit down with the cable and satellite people and negotiate a deal on how to wrest more money from cable and satellite customers. This money will be given to the broadcasters whose signals they have always distributed without payment.

Since civil discussion between broadcasters and distributors is unlikely, you know that the CRTC will be back to wrestle with the problem again. We certainly hope the commission will be back. For the broadcasters and distributors to sit together to decide how to split the pie, the only thing you know for sure is that the viewers will pay for it. Without the public being represented at the table, the viewers’ basic channel line-up costs are going to take a hit in the range of another $6 every month. That can be more than $70 per year per subscriber to add to the profits of the television networks.

What is galling to the television distributors is that these channels are the ones the CRTC demands that distributors carry as a condition of license. The door was opened to payment when, in the past, specialty channels were added to the cable and satellite line-up. These channels do not go over the air and you are paying for them as part of the charge for the line-up of channels you choose from your supplier.

Confusing the issue is that within two years, the CRTC has mandated that broadcast outlets must follow the American lead and switch to digital over-the-air broadcasting. Broadcasters such as A Channel in Barrie are arguing with the CRTC that it makes little sense to convert to broadcasting digitally when they claim that less than ten per cent of Canadians use antennas to receive their television signals. What nobody wants to tell people is that low cost digital antennas can provide better quality for viewers and going back to antennas can satisfy many current cable and satellite users. If A Channel goes digital from its current tower, I could point a cheap digital antenna out my window at the A Channel tower up off Essa Road and get a far better high definition picture from it than Rogers Cable can deliver to my TV. A digital antenna and hook-up would be a one-time cost of about $70. Compare that to about $50 (and rising) per month charged by the cable and satellite providers for basic service.

But I would not bother with A Channel for anything more than local news. The station produces nothing else. Rogers Cable does more for local viewers by offering Colts’ hockey games and city council meetings.

The accurate part of the front-page story in Babel Backward was when Peggy Hebden, A Channel general manager, is quoted as saying “It’s business as usual until we find out what’s happening.” Reading Babel Backward might not be an assist in that!

But Hebden is further quoted as saying that Patrick Brown, MP has been the station’s champion on Parliament Hill. That might help explain the station’s problems.

-30-

It’s not the texting languages that people use. IMHO (In my humble opinion) most texting SUX. I expect the problem is you can only get so many characters on those tiny screens. And nobody wants to wear out their thumbs spelling multisyllabic words. It is when they try to write in understandable English, that we realize, as it says in the headline: Nobody writes good anymore. So, who cares? Other than English teachers, editors, writers and other people who care about effective communications, nobody.

But, as I explain to my letter-writing course students, effective communication can earn and save you a great deal of money. One story I tell them is about the time (years ago) I was told I could park anywhere in the big smoke without concern for parking tickets. I had to watch out for tow-away zones but parking tickets would be waived.

It had to do with a simple letter I sent “to whom it may concern” in the metro parking ticket office. The letter explained that Miss Johnson, my teacher in grade three, had told us children that there was a ’12 noon’ and a ’12 midnight’ but there was no such thing as ’12 pm’ or ’12 am.’ I had parked my car on a busy thoroughfare in the city one evening where a sign said there was no parking between 8 am and 12 pm. Since I had no idea when 12 pm occurred, I left my car there. When I returned there was a ticket on the windshield demanding a surprising amount of money.

Friends who were with my wife and I at the time wanted to share in the expense. My wife said that was not necessary, I would look after it with one of my letters. She was right. It was a fun letter to write.

It was short and to the point. It was also friendly. I ignored the amount of the parking ticket and merely discussed what Miss Johnson had taught me and politely requested clarification as to when it happened and what authority had ruled that 12 pm was a specific time of day.

Several days later, I received a telephone call from a gentleman in the parking office. While it was obvious from his accent that he had attended school in another country, he spoke excellent English. He told me that he called because he had enjoyed my letter very much and wanted to tell me that he also had been taught to tell time by a Miss Johnson. His Miss Johnson had also explained patiently to the children in his class about there being a 12 noon or 12 midnight and that 12 o’clock is neither am nor pm.

But, because he was educated outside of Canada, nobody in the city’s sign department would listen to him when he tried to get them to print noon or midnight on the appropriate signs. In disgust, he informed me that whenever I got a parking ticket anywhere in the city, I was to call him and he would cancel the ticket.

Do you think that has not saved me some money?

There is a small addendum to this story. When in the big smoke the other day, I noticed that they are now paying attention to my friend. The incorrect parking signs are being modified. It looked like they are using an adhesive strip. It will take a long time to complete the job. There must be many thousands of signs to change. The signs that said ‘12 pm’ now say ’12:01 am.’

-30-

I have stopped complaining. Many who know me will be amazed at that statement. This is a specific complaint on which I have relented and abandoned. It is my campaign to have the Anne Street Beer Store in Babel labelled as the Worst Beer Store in Ontario. I decided I might as well give up.

The Beer Store bosses do not care. Provincial politicians are not interested. Babel city councillors only drink VSOP Ontario wines. Why would they give a hoot about a beer store? My campaign of polite letters and e-mails to the headquarters of The Beer Store down in the big smoke has ended. It is a waste of time.

And they were sincere letters. The only thing that might have been slightly tongue-in-cheek was the suggestion that all Ontarions who shop at the more than 400 local beer stores be given a vote. I asked that ballots be distributed at every store and patrons could vote for the store they considered the worst. Of course, I should have realized that anything smacking of democracy would scare The Beer Store bureaucrats.

The Beer Store chain and its owner, Brewers Warehousing Limited, were created by the Ontario government to save us all from the evils of demon rum and other alcoholic beverages such as beer. Along with the monopolistic Liquor Control Board of Ontario, Brewers Warehousing has been controlling the distribution of suds to the province’s beer drinkers since 1927.

What started out as a puritanical effort to control sales of alcoholic beverages has become the biggest slush fund in the province. (Even more than the $2 billion it gets from lotteries and gaming.) We are not talking just a few millions here. The Ontario government, by keeping a stranglehold on beer and liquor sales in Ontario, is reaping billions of dollars in excessive profits. Not everywhere though. The smart Ottawa area resident who drives across a bridge to buy his beer in Quebec can save 25 per cent on a case of beer. Ontario consumers buying a two-four of Labatt Blue at regular price in the Beer Store are paying more than $10 to Queen’s Park just for the privilege.

So, with all that money, you would think that we would have some fairly nice beer stores. No we do not. We can deal with Anne Street in Babel first. That store is dirty, messy, badly run and the part-time staff is ill-trained, slovenly, slow and generally useless. Sometimes when you go in there, you are afraid your boots are going to be permanently stuck to the filthy floor. Customers are often greeted by the sight of the entire incoming rails for empties full of bottles and the floor around it loaded. The staff is often so busy they take your word for what bottles you have added to the piles of returns.

You would think that Babel beer drinkers would know better than to go to the Anne Street store. The problem is that it is the only beer store near to downtown and the waterfront. Sometimes we go to the newer, larger beer stores in the shopping areas in Babel’s north and south ends. These stores are open concept and you get to go find your preferred brand yourself. In summer, you can catch pneumonia in those stores. The problem is that you get lost trying to find a preferred brand. The people who designed those particular stores certainly had no sympathy for the poor Ontario consumer. They saved staff and left the consumer confused and in the cold.

Returning liquor bottles to the Beer Store was also one of the dumbest ideas ever perpetrated by politicians trying to be righteous recyclers. Let’s leave the recycling business to people who are not trying to sell us suds at the same time.

To be fair to our provincial politicians, they have a tiger by the tail with Brewers Warehousing and the LCBO. They can hardly forego all that revenue. There is no question that beer should properly be sold through convenience store and grocery stores. It would be cheaper. And we would certainly get better deals from competitive liquor stores. We would also have to pay billions more in provincial taxes. As the poor maiden was told back in 1927, if you succumb to the temptations of the demon drink, some Lothario is going to have his way with you.

I already know I am getting screwed, I just want it done with a little more class.

– 30 –

Babel’s earnest Member of Parliament, Mr. Brown, must have very thick skin. Every time he comes up in a pile of manure, he seems to busy himself digging into it to see if someone left him a pony. He recently took on a job usually left by politicos to the spin doctors. In a July 10 news release on his web site, Mr. Brown claims success for his local petition to help save CTVglobemedia’s ‘A’ Channel in Babel. In making such a claim, he ignores the advice of members of the Conservative caucus who serve on the House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

It is possible that he never read the Conservative minority report from the committee that was issued last month. It is even more likely that he did not know that the committee was studying the problems of local television while he was getting an unnecessary petition together for A Channel. Mind you, he only got a few hundred signatures on it. In a riding with a population of some 135,000, you would think the sitting Member of Parliament would be able to get thousands of signatures.

But not Mr. Brown. Maybe, his constituents are tiring of his constant in-your-face campaigning. Or maybe, he was too far out of his depth with the subject matter. Does he think there is a nice warm feeling to having a television station here in the riding? The station is just one of the hundreds of channels available to cable and satellite users in the market area. His caucus colleagues, who heard hundreds of hours of submissions from industry experts on the subject, indicated in their report their “most fervent and rigorous opposition to any potential fee–for–carriage system, either negotiated or imposed.” In this, they were just more strident than the majority report. The opposition members of the committee of the House had also rejected taxing cable and satellite users to support local stations.

Mr. Brown’s little victory came from last week’s report from the Canadian Radio Television-Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). The CRTC had done what it had already told the committee it would do. It has instructed the major carriers of television signals—cable and satellite providers—that they had to sit down with their counterparts at the local broadcasting outlets and negotiate a solution to the ‘fee-for-carriage’ argument. There are many observers of the industry who would like to be able to serve the tea and crumpets for those social events. The only problem is the threat from the CRTC that if the signal distributors and the local outlets do not play nice and find an equitable solution, the CRTC will step in and find a solution for them.

If Mr. Brown thinks that is a win, it shows how little he knows. He does not seem to understand that money A Channel might extract from the cable and satellite companies will come from the pockets of the voters in his riding, the users of cable and satellite services. While the famously avaricious Lord Thompson once claimed that a television station licence is a licence for the holder to print money, modern broadcasters are making their money from specialty channels, targeted audiences and production of programming. We are already contributing part of our cable and satellite fees to producers of Canadian programs. Nothing is free.

But bear in mind, times are changing. Television is working with new technologies in a world linked by satellites. Programmers try to outdo each other to build audiences. Some of their ideas are brilliant and some are disgusting. It is the viewer watching the programs who determines where we are going.

There are times when we should take a tip from the classic 1976 movie Network and tell Mr. Brown and A Channel and the cable and satellite providers that we are ‘mad as hell and we’re not going to take this any more.’

And then we can go play golf on our Wii.

– 30 –