Suggestions for the Canadian Federal Government

With all the world events going on these days (both good and bad news), there’s plenty I’d like to write about. The purpose of this post, however, will be to focus on the Canadian Federal Government (in as party-agnostic a manner as possible) and what we can do as a nation to not only keep up with other countries technologically and economically, but to also take a step forward and lead by example, thereby gaining the respect we deserve in the international community in the 21st century and beyond.
To get it out of the way, I’ll start with a little obvious bias and state that I think Stephen Harper and the current Conservative Party are not doing a great job, but can also agree they’re not doing a terrible job; instead, we’ve ended up with something in between which looks more like stagnation than progress. Even I will concede though, that in these tumultuous times, staying where we’ve already been is certainly not the worst we could have ended up. This is especially true when you look at the total and complete destruction of other developed nations‘ economies including our biggest trading partner and ally the United States, and the ongoing financial calamities in Greece, Spain and Italy that threaten to spread to the rest of the EU and potentially result in the dissolution of the Euro.
Read the rest of this entry »
Top 12 Canadians for Canada Day 2012

Here’s something not totally tech-related for Canada Day 2012.
I decided to make a short but sweet tribute to my favourite Canadians who are making a difference in people’s lives all over the world, every day. My choices ended up in the list either because of something exceptional or newsworthy that they did in this past year (or because of an accumulation of work in recent years). These won’t be the same Canadians found on your typical “MuchMusic Top 10” or “CTV eTalk Daily Award Winners”, as most of them are alternative media journalists, alternative medicine practitioners or other activists.
My listing of my Top 12 cool Canadians for 2012:
Read the rest of this entry »
BC$ = Behavior, Content, Money

The goal of the BC$ project is to raise awareness and make changes with respect to the three pillars of information freedom - Behavior (pursuit of interests and passions), Content (sharing/exchanging ideas in various formats), Money (fairness and accessibility) - bringing to light the fact that:
1. We regularly hand over our browser histories, search histories and daily online activities to companies that want our money, or, to benefit from our use of their services with lucrative ad deals or sales of personal information.
2. We create and/or consume interesting content on their services, but we aren't adequately rewarded for our creative efforts or loyalty.
3. We pay money to be connected online (and possibly also over mobile), yet we lose both time and money by allowing companies to market to us with unsolicited advertisements, irrelevant product offers and unfairly structured service pricing plans.