According to this article in Healthzone, “A question about pregnant women and the H1N1 vaccine provoked a bizarre bout of heckling and laughter on the Tory benches in the Commons on Tuesday.”
Showing their class once again and reaffirming their disdain for Canadians in general and women in particular, the “Harper Government” shouted down Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett when she tried to ask a question related to the kind of vaccinations pregnant women should be getting.
“I "just was astounded," she told reporters after question period. "I don't know why these people think it's funny or whether it's just offensive or what it is. ... They were just heckling and laughing."”
Another disgusting display by the Reform-a-Tories.
Bell touts its automatic top-up plan for prepaid cellular subscribers as a convenience, “to keep your account active”, and “not have to worry about your service being discontinued”.
Well that’s about as honest as a Conservative Cabinet Minister.
I enrolled in their top-up program a few months ago and all was well until today when the phone wouldn’t allow me to make an outgoing call. So it’s on the phone and then through 10 layers of auto-attendant hell before finding a menu option that would connect me to a real live person in some third world country speaking passable English.
The conversation went something like this… getting increasingly heated over time.
Me: “Hi, there seems to be a problem with my phone.”
Bell: “Yes sir. I see your funds have expired.”
Me: “But I have the automatic top-up feature.”
Bell: “Yes sir, but the time expired today.”
Me: “Excuse me?”
Bell: “The time expired. Your last top-up was 60 days ago and it expired today.”
Me: “I thought the automatic top-up took care of that for me.”
Bell: “Yes sir. It will when they process the top-ups tonight. If you want I can process it for you now, but you’ve already lost your unused credit.”
Me: “WHAT?”
Bell: “Yes sir. You had $9.85 cents of unused credit that you lost when the time expired.”
Me: “But I have the automatic top-up so that won’t happen!”
Bell: “Yes sir, but when the time expires you lose your credits.”
Me: “APPARENTLY!”
Bell: “Yes sir.”
Me: “So let me get this straight. If I run out of money on the account, the automatic top-up kicks in another $25 and I’m good to go.”
Bell: “Yes sir. As soon as your balance goes below $5.00.”
Me: “But if my 60 days runs out before the funds do, I lose any unused money in the account.”
Bell: “Yes sir.”
Me: “AND, I lose the use of the phone for up to 24 hours between the time you steal my money and the time you top up the account with more of my money.”
Bell: “Yes sir, but it’s not usually 24 hours; it’s more like 6 to 12 hours.”
Me: “ARE YOU SERIOUS?”
Bell: “Oh yes sir. I’m sorry if you misunderstood our top-up program.”
Me: “YOU’RE SORRY?”
Bell: “Yes sir.”
Me: “Okay, here’s what you do. You cancel the top-up scheduled for tonight. I DO NOT WANT another cent going on that account.”
Bell: “Yes sir.”
Me: ”AND you can delete that number. I am cancelling your service.”
Bell: “Yes sir. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”
CLICK!
The only way these morons will ever learn is when people take their business elsewhere – and I’m slowly but surely eliminating Bell Canada from my life as soon as other options come available.
Well I for one am certainly glad that the Ontario Provincial Police are unstinting in their pursuit of crooks, villains, evil doers, criminals of the highest order, and assorted other ne’er do wells. Why just last week they stopped a trucker on the 401 and charged him with … not speeding, or improper passing, or dangerous driving, or having an unsafe load, or road rage. No, they stopped him for smoking!
According to this article in The Toronto Star, the driver was pulled over and given a $305 ticket for smoking in the cab of his rig.
The man, who hails from London, Ont., was headed for Windsor when he was pulled over Wednesday along Highway 401 and given a ticket under the Smoke-Free Ontario Act.
The law, considered a Canadian standard-setter when it was passed in 2006, forbids smoking in all workplaces and enclosed public spaces, including buildings, structures or vehicles worked in or frequented by employees, according to the government's website.
What makes this so egregious is that it is his own rig. He’s an owner-operator and it’s his property, his home away from home. Yet the long arm of the state still thinks it has the right to reach in and legislate what he can or cannot do in his own property.
What’s next for Ontario’s finest? Will they be raiding my home office to see if there’s an ash tray on the desk? How about busting the farmer flouting the law by having a quick puff in the cab of his tractor? Oh and don’t forget those dastardly real estate agents who might want a quick nicotine fix in their car with the agent’s name and logo on the side – clearly a workplace in need of protection.
And while they’re doing that perhaps they could, if they get a chance, keep an eye out for the guys who have broken into several homes in this area over the past couple of months, or find the hit and run driver who put a friend’s son in hospital, or maybe even try to find some of those many missing native women. That is if they’re not too busy with important stuff like this.
And they wonder why respect for the law is decreasing.
In yesterday’s Ottawa Citizen, Amir Attaran, Canada Research Chair in Law, Population Health and Global Development Policy called out the Harper Government on it’s mean and churlish attitude towards helping poorer nations fight the coming swine flu pandemic.
Here are a few excerpts from that piece. You can find the complete article here.
Last week, as Stephen Harper was tooling around Washington and talking up Canada's virtues, across town a more substantially moral leader, Barack Obama, announced a global plan to donate life-saving influenza vaccines to poor countries in Africa, Asia and elsewhere.
…
Those donations are likely to be, for many countries, the only vaccine that they get. Heeding the World Health Organization's call, Australia, Britain, Brazil, France, Italy, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland also went along with the donation plan.
Canada, however, declined.
…
With 50.4 million doses of vaccine in Canada's entitlement, and 32 million Canadians, perhaps only half of whom want to be vaccinated, PHAC officials are certainly correct that we have "more than enough for any Canadian that wants to receive it."
…
The Harper government must do better than continue its mean streak. In this, and much else to do with international aid, poorer foreigners notice Canada's new beggar-thy-neighbour attitude, and wonder how a country once known for its generosity has fallen so far. The usual preening about Canadian internationalism is nonsense, where WHO has justly called on Canada to share a life-saving resource, and we refuse.
"The news is spreading throughout the world: Canada's back," Harper told the crowd of about 35,000 on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Sunday.
"Canada's back as a vital player on the global stage ... Canadians are citizens of the world and we're making a positive contribution in every field of human endeavour."
Well we’re back all right – at the back of the pack. Here’s what the United Nations thinks about our relative position in the world when it comes to ‘green’ stimulus spending.
The Global Green New Deal update for the upcoming G20 summit in Pittsburgh revealed the Harper government was spending the equivalent of about $77 U.S. per person in green stimulus, putting it in ninth place out of 13 countries evaluated.
Yup, we’re right there at the bottom with Spain, South Africa and Mexico. Disgraceful.
Because it will give the media something to talk about other than H1N1!
Just once I would like to open a newspaper, turn on the radio, or catch the TV news without being faced with yet another fear-mongering story about swine flu.
The media have taken what was, and is, a serious health issue and in full Chicken Little fashion have managed, through a constant barrage of inflammatory and sensationalist stories, to instil fear and near-panic in large segments of the population and raise everyone’s stress levels to the extent that we have so-called health “experts” shipping body bags off to First Nations reserves and regular folks with a head cold making funeral arrangements.
