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Canada infamously has some of the most corrupt and expensive telecom in the entire world. I seriously doubt this article is accurate. It looks like Trudeau is p

by shiado 6y ago

Canada infamously has some of the most corrupt and expensive telecom in the entire world. I seriously doubt this article is accurate. It looks like Trudeau is preparing for an election with empty promises.

DudeInBasement 6y ago
What are they going to do, vote him out, lol
- Simulacra 6y ago
  Canadians don't seem to "vote" people out but rather vote them to another part of the government until they can come back again. At least in America when a politician is out, they're out.
  - jeromegv 6y ago
    Examples? Can't name a lot of prime ministers that left and came back.
  - AzzieElbab 6y ago
    This won’t age well
bioinformatics 6y ago
Still waiting for that electoral reform ...
- smnrchrds 6y ago
  Forget about electoral reform. It looks like they are going to completely botch pharmacare. EDIT: I am getting downvoted, which is fair. I did not provide any context and assumed it was common knowledge. In his throne speech, Trudeau had this to say about pharmacare: > The Government remains committed to a national, universal pharmacare program and will accelerate steps to achieve this system including: - Through a rare-disease strategy to help Canadian families save money on high-cost drugs; -Establishing a national formulary to keep drug prices low; -And working with provinces and territories willing to move forward without delay. Essentially, the government will try to make drugs a tiny bit cheaper for consumers. It does not look the Pharmacare program is going to be universal and free, like the Medicare is. But perhaps your 2000$ per month drug price would come down to 1500$ per month, if you are below a certain income threshold, etc, etc. This is not nowhere near enough after Liberals promising Pharmacare for decades. EDIT 2: The price of insulin in Canada is an order of magnitude lower than the US. Despite this, many Canadians are still forced to forego or ration their insulin and other drugs and supplies [0][1]. Reducing prices does not work nearly as well as one might think. Making them free does. > At T1International, we found that 19 per cent of Canadians with type 1 diabetes had rationed insulin in the last year; 3 per cent were rationing at least once per week. > Yes, Canada has less insulin rationing than the US (25 per cent) and at lesser intensity for sure; Americans who rationed often skip doses daily whereas rationing once per week or month was more common here. But Canada is a far cry from countries like the United Kingdom, where there was essentially no insulin rationing reported. > In the U.K., all diabetes supplies, including insulin, are covered by the National Health Service. Such is also the case in many other high income countries. Even many middle income countries, like Morocco, cover the cost of insulin for their diabetic population. [0] https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2019/07/29/canada-shouldnt-be-smug-about-insulin.html https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2019/07/29/cana... [1] https://www.cbc.ca/radio/whitecoat/blog/the-soaring-cost-of-insulin-1.4995290 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/whitecoat/blog/the-soaring-cost-of-...
  - 908B64B197 6y ago
    Pharma sounds like something that should belong 100% to the provinces.
    - smnrchrds 6y ago
      Even medical care is strictly withing provincial jurisdiction. But the only reason we have universal coverage in the form of Medicare is that the federal government forced provinces to offer a minimum set of services through the power of funding. I am glad they did it, and I hope they expand it to Pharmacare, but I am not holding my breath.
      - 908B64B197 6y ago
        The feds basically offered a subsidy right? It's the provinces that truly made it a centralized public system no?
        smnrchrds 6y ago
        You know how the US forced all states to increase drinking age to 21? That's how Canada forced all provinces to adopt universal healthcare. Essentially, there is a minimum set of requirements the provincial healthcare plans must offer. They are free to not adhere to it, but then the amount of funds they get through Canada Health Transfer (money from the federal government given to provincial governments to spend on healthcare) will get reduced or completely removed. Canada Health Transfer accounts for approximately 10% of all provincial government revenues, at least in Alberta and Ontario that I checked. It's a serious bit of change and a strong incentive to follow federal guidelines. As a side note, the fact that the federal government can use its spending powers to enforce policy that is not within its jurisdiction is very unpopular in Quebec and one of the changes Quebec wants made to the constitution. https://budget.ontario.ca/2019/chapter-3.html#section-6 https://budget.ontario.ca/2019/chapter-3.html#section-6 https://globalnews.ca/news/3496355/quebec-canada-constitution-amend-reopen/ https://globalnews.ca/news/3496355/quebec-canada-constitutio... https://ualawccsprod.srv.ualberta.ca/2019/07/federal-spending-power/ https://ualawccsprod.srv.ualberta.ca/2019/07/federal-spendin...
hourislate 6y ago
I figure he is probably trying to take credit for Starlink making decent Internet available to the Rural population of Canada. It was interesting how he let Rogers, Bell and Telus hide under the Umbrella of "Canadian Media Companies" to insure they had no competition from US Carriers under NAFTA 2.0. I was surprised they even allowed Starlink since it could threaten the potential business Rogers, Bell and Telus could have sometime during the next century.
- afterburner 6y ago
  You know what though, I think American telecoms can stay out of Canada, thanks very much.
  - codeOnMaster 6y ago
    Can you expand on your sentiment?
    - Scoundreller 6y ago
      Just taking a guess: There's not much variability in Canadian ISPs, they're all pretty bad. You can move across the country and your experience will be the same. The US has a lot more variability. Lots of big players and a million tiny ones. Usually you'll have 1 or 2 choices, but sometimes they're both worse than the usual suspect Canadian providers. These statements only apply to DSL/Cable.
      - exien 6y ago
        The costs are high, but the quality of service is really good. I have a fibre connection and receive 1 Gbps (speed test occasionally returns 1.1 Gbps) with 1 ms latency and Unlimited bandwidth. Previously I had cable and received 600 Mbps with 6 ms latency also with unlimited bandwidth.
    - afterburner 6y ago
      Telecoms are vital national infrastructure. And I would consider US telecoms security risks.
afterburner 6y ago
I bet the telecom Hizbollah manages is more corrupt, so let's not get ahead of ourselves here.
- throwaway2048 6y ago
  As a canadian, I wouldn't take that bet.
  - afterburner 6y ago
    I guess you're just committed to being incredibly hyperbolic then. Thinking that Canada and Lebanon are on the same level of corruption is such willful blindness that I'm guessing your statements are simply ideologically motivated.
    - throwaway2048 6y ago
      Well its more id believe that a telecoms agency operated by Hezbollah is probably more interested in providing service for the sake of service than a Canadian telecoms company.
      - afterburner 6y ago
        And what would you think of Hizbollah treating the telecom as its own slush fund to finance military operations? Or monitoring the transmissions of its factional enemies? You don't seem to understand the true extent of what corruption can mean.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
grecy 6y ago
Yes and no. I worked for Northwestel (division of Bell) which serves Internet (and phone, and TV) for ALL of Yukon, NWT, Nunavut and some of Northern BC. It has the largest operating area of any Telco on the planet. In virtually all communities they are the one and only provider. Yes, it's expensive. Yes, the CRTC is corrupt, and the whole setup is just guaranteed profits to the big telcos. But, you need to think about how hard it is to serve internet to communities of 20-100 people in the Canadian Arctic that don't have roads. There are hundreds of such communities served. There are weekly outages because of everything from ice build up on the towers at -50C, wind storms blowing down towers, Caribou eating through cables, etc. etc. Most outages require chartering a helicopter and going to the top of mountains 300km from a road or town of noteworthy size. Canada is BIG and the Arctic is REMOTE.
- WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
  How reliable is electricity in these small remote communities?
  - grecy 6y ago
    There is no "grid". Virtually all the sites (and the communities) are run on diesel (which has to be flown in).. and in recent years they're running more on solar/battery, but the weather makes that severely difficult.

by shiado 6y ago

DudeInBasement 6y ago

What are they going to do, vote him out, lol

Simulacra 6y ago
Canadians don't seem to "vote" people out but rather vote them to another part of the government until they can come back again. At least in America when a politician is out, they're out.
- jeromegv 6y ago
  Examples? Can't name a lot of prime ministers that left and came back.
- AzzieElbab 6y ago
  This won’t age well

bioinformatics 6y ago

Still waiting for that electoral reform ...

smnrchrds 6y ago
Forget about electoral reform. It looks like they are going to completely botch pharmacare. EDIT: I am getting downvoted, which is fair. I did not provide any context and assumed it was common knowledge. In his throne speech, Trudeau had this to say about pharmacare: > The Government remains committed to a national, universal pharmacare program and will accelerate steps to achieve this system including: - Through a rare-disease strategy to help Canadian families save money on high-cost drugs; -Establishing a national formulary to keep drug prices low; -And working with provinces and territories willing to move forward without delay. Essentially, the government will try to make drugs a tiny bit cheaper for consumers. It does not look the Pharmacare program is going to be universal and free, like the Medicare is. But perhaps your 2000$ per month drug price would come down to 1500$ per month, if you are below a certain income threshold, etc, etc. This is not nowhere near enough after Liberals promising Pharmacare for decades. EDIT 2: The price of insulin in Canada is an order of magnitude lower than the US. Despite this, many Canadians are still forced to forego or ration their insulin and other drugs and supplies [0][1]. Reducing prices does not work nearly as well as one might think. Making them free does. > At T1International, we found that 19 per cent of Canadians with type 1 diabetes had rationed insulin in the last year; 3 per cent were rationing at least once per week. > Yes, Canada has less insulin rationing than the US (25 per cent) and at lesser intensity for sure; Americans who rationed often skip doses daily whereas rationing once per week or month was more common here. But Canada is a far cry from countries like the United Kingdom, where there was essentially no insulin rationing reported. > In the U.K., all diabetes supplies, including insulin, are covered by the National Health Service. Such is also the case in many other high income countries. Even many middle income countries, like Morocco, cover the cost of insulin for their diabetic population. [0] https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2019/07/29/canada-shouldnt-be-smug-about-insulin.html https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2019/07/29/cana... [1] https://www.cbc.ca/radio/whitecoat/blog/the-soaring-cost-of-insulin-1.4995290 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/whitecoat/blog/the-soaring-cost-of-...
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  Pharma sounds like something that should belong 100% to the provinces.
  - smnrchrds 6y ago
    Even medical care is strictly withing provincial jurisdiction. But the only reason we have universal coverage in the form of Medicare is that the federal government forced provinces to offer a minimum set of services through the power of funding. I am glad they did it, and I hope they expand it to Pharmacare, but I am not holding my breath.
    - 908B64B197 6y ago
      The feds basically offered a subsidy right? It's the provinces that truly made it a centralized public system no?
      - smnrchrds 6y ago
        You know how the US forced all states to increase drinking age to 21? That's how Canada forced all provinces to adopt universal healthcare. Essentially, there is a minimum set of requirements the provincial healthcare plans must offer. They are free to not adhere to it, but then the amount of funds they get through Canada Health Transfer (money from the federal government given to provincial governments to spend on healthcare) will get reduced or completely removed. Canada Health Transfer accounts for approximately 10% of all provincial government revenues, at least in Alberta and Ontario that I checked. It's a serious bit of change and a strong incentive to follow federal guidelines. As a side note, the fact that the federal government can use its spending powers to enforce policy that is not within its jurisdiction is very unpopular in Quebec and one of the changes Quebec wants made to the constitution. https://budget.ontario.ca/2019/chapter-3.html#section-6 https://budget.ontario.ca/2019/chapter-3.html#section-6 https://globalnews.ca/news/3496355/quebec-canada-constitution-amend-reopen/ https://globalnews.ca/news/3496355/quebec-canada-constitutio... https://ualawccsprod.srv.ualberta.ca/2019/07/federal-spending-power/ https://ualawccsprod.srv.ualberta.ca/2019/07/federal-spendin...

hourislate 6y ago

I figure he is probably trying to take credit for Starlink making decent Internet available to the Rural population of Canada. It was interesting how he let Rogers, Bell and Telus hide under the Umbrella of "Canadian Media Companies" to insure they had no competition from US Carriers under NAFTA 2.0. I was surprised they even allowed Starlink since it could threaten the potential business Rogers, Bell and Telus could have sometime during the next century.

afterburner 6y ago
You know what though, I think American telecoms can stay out of Canada, thanks very much.
- codeOnMaster 6y ago
  Can you expand on your sentiment?
  - Scoundreller 6y ago
    Just taking a guess: There's not much variability in Canadian ISPs, they're all pretty bad. You can move across the country and your experience will be the same. The US has a lot more variability. Lots of big players and a million tiny ones. Usually you'll have 1 or 2 choices, but sometimes they're both worse than the usual suspect Canadian providers. These statements only apply to DSL/Cable.
    - exien 6y ago
      The costs are high, but the quality of service is really good. I have a fibre connection and receive 1 Gbps (speed test occasionally returns 1.1 Gbps) with 1 ms latency and Unlimited bandwidth. Previously I had cable and received 600 Mbps with 6 ms latency also with unlimited bandwidth.
  - afterburner 6y ago
    Telecoms are vital national infrastructure. And I would consider US telecoms security risks.

afterburner 6y ago

I bet the telecom Hizbollah manages is more corrupt, so let's not get ahead of ourselves here.

throwaway2048 6y ago
As a canadian, I wouldn't take that bet.
- afterburner 6y ago
  I guess you're just committed to being incredibly hyperbolic then. Thinking that Canada and Lebanon are on the same level of corruption is such willful blindness that I'm guessing your statements are simply ideologically motivated.
  - throwaway2048 6y ago
    Well its more id believe that a telecoms agency operated by Hezbollah is probably more interested in providing service for the sake of service than a Canadian telecoms company.
    - afterburner 6y ago
      And what would you think of Hizbollah treating the telecom as its own slush fund to finance military operations? Or monitoring the transmissions of its factional enemies? You don't seem to understand the true extent of what corruption can mean.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

grecy 6y ago

Yes and no. I worked for Northwestel (division of Bell) which serves Internet (and phone, and TV) for ALL of Yukon, NWT, Nunavut and some of Northern BC. It has the largest operating area of any Telco on the planet. In virtually all communities they are the one and only provider. Yes, it's expensive. Yes, the CRTC is corrupt, and the whole setup is just guaranteed profits to the big telcos. But, you need to think about how hard it is to serve internet to communities of 20-100 people in the Canadian Arctic that don't have roads. There are hundreds of such communities served. There are weekly outages because of everything from ice build up on the towers at -50C, wind storms blowing down towers, Caribou eating through cables, etc. etc. Most outages require chartering a helicopter and going to the top of mountains 300km from a road or town of noteworthy size. Canada is BIG and the Arctic is REMOTE.

WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
How reliable is electricity in these small remote communities?
- grecy 6y ago
  There is no "grid". Virtually all the sites (and the communities) are run on diesel (which has to be flown in).. and in recent years they're running more on solar/battery, but the weather makes that severely difficult.