Patriot Games: Election 2011

Not even a week has passed since Canada's ruling government was toppled, and already political posturing and scandals abound.

Last Friday, in an historic move, the Conservative Government was found in contempt of parliament on scandals of hidden costs of military jets and corporate tax cuts, to lying cabinet ministers and document doctoring.

Not 10 minutes after the final session of Parliament wrapped up did Stephen Harper's attack dog, John Baird, begin his annual fear mongering session on national news magazine's cameras declaring a conspiracy by opposition parties to form a coalition government that would throw our country into economic and political fires of Hell.

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff did his best to answer reporters questions about the possibility of a coalition government with the NDP without actually giving a yes or no answer. He did this for a couple of days then finally broke down and gave a resounding "NO!" to the question.

Michael Ignatieff Plays Dumb: "What's a Coalition?"

This likely indicates that the Liberals will be running an all-or-nothing campaign on the election trail, as I believe a coalition had being enthusiastically discussed prior to the government falling. Now that Ignatieff publicly stated that no such agreement would occur after the election regardless of the results, it seems likely that his career would be quickly eviscerated should he go back on his word.

Since coalition is out of the question now, this puts the Liberals in a pressure cooker to perform drastically better than the last election, if not actually form a government. It is unlikely that Ignatieff would be allowed to keep his job as Liberal leader if the party fails to gain a significant amount of seats in the House.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper seemed to be sitting pretty for the first few days of the campaign while the heat was on his arch-rival. Until Sebastian Togneri turned up like a bad penny again.

You may remember Togneri's name. He was a high ranking government aide for many years until he was forced to resign over allegations of interfering in several requests for government information made under the Freedom of Information Act.

Very recently, even Conservative Minister Rona Ambrose had no choice but to call for an RCMP investigation into Togneri's interference with the requests for information. (Though, I find it odd that the RCMP were called in a year after Togneri's resignation). Unfortunately for Stephen Harper, the request for an RCMP investigation coincided with a Parliamentary inquiry into Minister Bev Oda's alleged altering of government documents.

Well, now Togneri's name was in the media again, as some lucky reporter discovered that he was working on the campaign for Conservative hopeful Ryan Hastman in the Edmonton Strathcona riding.

Linda Duncan: A Little Orange Fish In A Big Blue Sea

Hastman has a somewhat uphill battle in front of him to begin with. In the 2008 election, NDP candidate Linda Duncan wrestled the riding away from Conservative incumbent Rahim Jaffer (after Jaffer himself suffered several political scandals). From all accounts, Linda Duncan, a long time Edmonton Lawyer is well liked, and has been made high-profile by the NDP since it was the first time an Alberta riding has been anything but Tory blue since the Anne McLellen days.

Unfortunately for Hastman and Stephen Harper, it doesn't look good having a disgraced government aide currently under police investigation helping out with a new Conservative candidate's campaign.

Things turned from bad to worse for both Stephen Harper and Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff the last two days as Green Party leader Elizabeth May burst on to the scene in a blaze of controversy, fighting for her political rights.

Elizabeth May Is Going To Debate Your Ass Off. Deal With It.

You may remember from the 2008 election, when the Green Party was just starting to gain credibility and a lot of media attention, that the Canadian Broadcast Consortium (basically a handful of executives from Canada's 4 main TV networks) decided that May would not be entitled to participate in the electoral debates. This prompted a huge public outcry, and a chance for all party leaders to look like the good guy on national television by stating that they believed May should be included in the debate. Finally the consortium relented, and May had her day in the spotlight. (She actually did quite well- check out my review of her performance here.)

This week, for some bizarre reason, the consortium again decided that May, despite being the leader of a national party that received 6% of all votes in the last election (that's 1 million votes - more than the Bloc Quebecois received) and that runs a candidate in every riding across Canada, was not worthy of participating in the debates because her party does not have a current, elected MP.

Let's not bother taking into account that the Reform Party and the Canadian Alliance Party, which are now both known as the Conservative Party, did not have elected MPs either during their first elections, but were still allowed to participate in the debates.

May has since launched a very public battle against the Consortium, and has retained a high profile lawyer to argue her case to the courts to sneak her way in to the debates.

This is particularly bad news for both Ignatieff and Harper. Partly because May seems to be very good a debating, and neither man likely wants her there. That being said, since Harper endorsed her presence in the last election, he can hardly say that she isn't entitled to be there for this election. He has since said he is open to her being there, but that all parties should submit to the rules put forth by the Consortium. Ignatieff on the other hand, has his barrels firmly aimed at Harper, and the more people included in the debate may lead the public to decide that there are other voting options rather than just the Liberals or the Conservatives, as he has been trying to prove in the media all week.

Foolishly, after May made her public tirade about not being included in the election debate, Ignatieff stated he was most keen on having a second debate televised solely between himself and Stephen Harper. Harper seemed keen on the idea as well, and all but issued a public challenge to his rival. Ignatieff then ran in front of the nearest camera and said it was on. However, as media attention intensified around May and her rhetoric of the debates being anti-democratic for shutting her out, Harper quietly back-peddled on his two-man debate idea. This gave Ignatieff an opportunity to call Harper "chicken", but also gave the impression of him being an elitist.

So to recap, in the last two weeks or so, we have had the government charged with contempt, allegations of creative bookkeeping, Ministers engaged in doctoring documents, police investigations, candidates receiving help from disgraced government aides, finger pointing at undemocratic television execs, threatened legal action, political threats and challenges, and a good deal of back-peddling from most of the party leaders. And we've just gotten started. Imagine where we will be in another 4 weeks!

Patriot Games: A Canadian Election For A New Generation

Oh, it's on, baby.

So last Friday, (March 25th) the Conservative's minority government was toppled when a confidence motion tabled by the opposition parties found the ruling conservatives in contempt of parliament.

The Look Of Contempt: Stephen Harper

This is intriguing for two reasons.

First, since the beginning of March, it was widely assumed that Prime Minister Stephen Harper would be forced to dissolve the parliament, but it was assumed that the motion of confidence that would be the downfall of the ruling government would be the Conservative's proposed budget. Not a decision that the government was in contempt of parliament.

Secondly, it's important because never through all of the political scandals or outrageous diatribes of the 144 years of parliament in Canada, has a ruling party found to be in contempt.

There were several reasons why the Conservative Government had been found in contempt. Firstly, there was the matter of 65 new F35 fighter jets that the government announced it would purchase for a reported $9 billion ($18 billion once a maintenance agreement was signed). The purchase announcement was made in July of 2010, but recently, the Parliamentary Budget Officer went public with his estimation of nearly double the cost to a whopping $30 billion.

Needless to say, this caused a frenzy on Parliament Hill, with the opposition parties attacking the Conservatives like rabid dogs on a lame rabbit. The opposition demanded to see numbers on paper, and their requests were repeatedly rebuffed. At the same time, it had been implied that the government was similarly down playing the expected costs of tax cuts being proposed for big corporations.

The second and more bizarre catalyst was the inquiry into International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda's document tampering scandal.

Bev Oda: Document Doctor

In 2009, a church based aid group known as Karios applied for renewal of it's international development grant. Oda stated publicly that the decision was actually made by the Canadian International Development Agency. However, upon digging up documents on the matter, it was discovered that the CIDA actually signed a note recommending the approval of the grant. And, that the note in question had actually been altered when the word "not" had been manually written before the word "approved".

Bev Oda later admitted in front of a committee that she had been the one who ordered the alteration of the document (if not altered it herself). And of course, no sooner had the admission left Oda's lips, were opposition MP's calling for her head to roll down the aisle of the House of Commons.

Predictably, after the committee wrapped up on Oda's case, the information that had been gathered on the F-35 fighter jets and the corporate tax cuts were all wrapped into one bundle of government-toppling joy. The final bow that had been attached to the bundle was the fact that the Liberal party intentionally stalled on voting on the Conservatives proposed budget, so they could bask in the glory of toppling the government on charges of contempt, rather than the budget.

And so, on March 26th, 2011, Stephen Harper was forced to seek the Governor General's approval to dissolve parliament, and presto! Election in May. So far from what we have seen, all of this political manoeuvring and scandal will just be the tip of the iceberg.

4G Phone? That's What YOU Think.

Think that new 4G smart phone you just bought for an exorbitant amount of money is the latest and greatest in download speeds? You're dead wrong.

For the last few months Sprint, Verizon & T-Mobile has been advertising the power of 4G speed on their networks as the new breakthrough in mobile technology. Telus also followed suit here in Canada, and today it was leaked that Bell Mobility will jump on the 4G advertising bandwagon.

But does anyone really know what the difference is between 3G and 4G connectivity speeds? Apparently there isn't one.

The International Telecommunications Union initially defined 4G as a reference to Long Term Evolution mobile standards (LTE for short). LTE meant a new version of wireless technology that could potentially offer speeds of 100 Mbps. So far, no commercial wireless network on the planet has deployed such a technology. And, as far as I know, no wireless communications company has even managed to develop such a technology that would work in a stable fashion on a consumer level.

The initial definition of LTE (100 Mbps) is considerably faster than the HSPA networks that are currently used by Bell, Telus & Rogers. Their HSPA networks generally tops out at 7.2 Mbps. Even improved HSPA networks known as HSPA+ only reach top speeds of 21 Mbps.

So if Bell, Telus & Rogers all top out at 7.2 Mbps, how can they possibly call themselves 4G?

In December, the International Telecommunications Union have changed the criteria or definition of 3G and 4G. Now 100 Mbps speed is no longer a definition of 4G. 4G is now considered any technology that shows a "substantial level of improvement in performance and capabilities" over existing 3G networks.

As an example, Bell Mobility now refers to 3G as being any speeds slower than 3Mbps. And, since Bell's network can theoretically offer speeds up to 7.2 Mbps, (which IS a significant improvement over 3Mbps) presto! Bell is now a 4G network!

So the interesting part to watch for is how this will play out in the long term. Since all the 3G phones currently on the Bell and Telus network should theoretically be able to use the max network speed of 7.2Mbps (which can be less depending on location or network traffic), will Bell issue "4G" phones that operate in the same way so that everyone still has a phone that works at the same speed, (which would allow them to simply market their entire network as the latest and greatest 4G network) or will they attempt to choke bandwidth to keep existing 3G phones slower to encourage customers to upgrade to new 4G marketed handsets?

There is an old saying "Caveat Emptor". Or in English "let the buyer beware". I don't think there is any other product that this warning is most suited for than Telecomm Services.

Bell Mobility Overcharging For Data?

Kate & Daniel Methot from Merritt, BC, have been fighting Bell Mobility for several months over astronomical data charges that they have been receiving from Bell.

In October of last year, Kate purchased a Samsung Galaxy smart phone (shown above). After her first month of usage, the Methots received a bill for over $1000, mainly consisting of data charges.

The couple was shocked. Initially they thought they must have done something that they didn't realize was consuming huge amounts of data. Daniel deleted every app he had downloaded to the phone, thinking maybe it was an app that was accessing network data when not in use. Kate and Daniel also became scrooge-like with their data usage, basically not using the phone for any data if at all possible.

The couple also called Bell asking for an explanation into how is was possible they had used so much data. Bell was unable to give them an answer.

Even with their efforts to keep their data usage to a minimum, The Methots received another astronomical bill in December of 2010. At one point in December, the bill stated that they had used 30 hours of Data in one 24 hour period. The Methots maintained even if they had been frequently using their data capabilities on the phone, it would be impossible for them to use the phone continuously for a 24 hour period.

The couple has spent countless hours of time on the phone with Bell Customer Service to attempt to find an answer about the billing. Every time they called Bell, they were not able to speak to the same service agent, and would have to retell the whole story from the beginning. The responses from Bell was typically an agent telling the couple that they must be downloading video and to stop watching movies on the phone.

One other possibility that Bell suggested was that the couple had the hot-spot feature of the phone turned on, which allows tethering to 3 other devices. In other words other wireless devices that the Methots use, or someone else nearby uses has been connecting to the phone to access the internet.

The couple categorically denies that scenario is possible, stating that since the first two bills came in, the phone is rarely used and is always turned off because of the fear of excessive data charges. Daniel also maintains that some bills show data usage during time periods in which he knows the Samsung phone was turned off.

By the end of December, Bell Mobility had offered no answers for the outrages billing and had offered no solutions for the gigantic bills. Finally the Methots enlisted a lawyer for $400 and had the attorney send a letter to Bell, but that did not bring about any results.

However, in January, Daniel thought he had finally made a breakthrough with the phone company. On a call with a Bell rep that Daniel had recorded, the rep told Daniel that the problems they were experiencing was "known", and was a software problem that Bell was experiencing. Their account was immediately credited $3300. The couple thought that was the end of their problems.

They were wrong.

Within a few days, the couple received another bill for $1200. Bell has since recanted their admission to a software problem, saying the Account Rep the Methots spoke with was incorrect. Bell now says that the software issue they had been experiencing had charged a small number of customers for the correct amount of data, but at a rate that was much higher than in accordance with their monthly plan. Bell says this cannot be the same issue, as the Methots claim they are being billed for data they didn't use.

Since the Methots have taken their issues to CBC news, the couple claims that Bell has now offered to cancel their contract and waive all outstanding fees. The couple has not yet accepted this offer, as they feel this is not enough to make up for the hours of conversations with Bell Mobility, and the $400 for the unanswered lawyer's letter.

The CCTS, or Commissioner of Complaints for Telecommunication Services say this happens more often than people think. Last year alone the CCTS received almost 1000 complaints solely for over-billing by cell phone companies. And those are just the customers that actually filed a complaint. The CCTS also recommends installing a third party app on your smart phone that monitors your phone usage. It's important that it's a third party software, so if there are discrepancies between billing and usage, the customer has some evidence to back them up.

If you are having problems with your cell phone company, and want to file a complaint with the CCTS, you can do so here.