Dearche

One hour lineup on fri.

Frankly surprised at how many others showed up that day, but glad. People need to be more active in the democratic process or else it only benefits the already powerful because they never forget to vote.

As much as some people get annoyed by this, I think it's actually a good form of peaceful protest. It brings awareness to the issue without disrupting the election process. Anybody who ends up having difficulty voting because of this simply hadn't been thinking much about the election before picking up their ballot or hasn't really thought voting was important.

First-past-the-post has definitely being a net detriment to Canadian democracy and perpetuates the two party system that are far-right and right-of-center. The fact that most governments manage to come into power without the even getting half the votes, much less the majority of Canadian support, is proof that the governments we elect haven't been representing the will of the people.

I'm personally a fan of proportional representation as that means you can simply vote for your favourite candidate and ensure a greater mix of parties reach the table. This makes small parties and independents matter more, as they basically don't matter at all right now. They're just a formality since even if they can get a seat, they won't be heard with such little representation. It does increase the number of seats by a large amount, but it almost guarantees smaller voices will reach the table unless if the support for a single party in a region is overwhelming, which in itself is democracy doing its job.

Ranked ballots aren't bad either, just that I feel they're weaker since they tend to strengthen whatever party that forms the government and makes it easier to ignore other voices. But this does mean that smaller parties are more likely to get seats if they align with district interests more. To not have to vote strategically and just let people vote for their favourite candidate makes it far easier on the voter and helps get their voice out.

I understand spending $100million of it's to fix Ontario's infrastructure and get more people connected, but this isn't it. It's simply paying off someone else to put in a band-aid solution that only looks good on the surface.

I understand the idea of building up the infrastructure for isolated communities to become connected, but I strongly feel that this isn't the way. It's forcing a group of people onto a monopoly that can be taken away at any point. If the government really wanted to do this, then they'd fund cell towers to these isolated communities instead. That'll give them reliable internet access that isn't beholden to a single company on top of helping local companies. Nobody would be forced to use hardware from a specific company or suffer complete loss of service.

This is likely more expensive, but it's far more beneficial and forward looking and may even bring people together more. And it doesn't exclude Starlink for those who want it as well. They just have to pay for that on their own, but Starlink is already priced to be affordable to individual families.

Early polls have started as well! Never too early to vote against a wannabe dictator that tosses your rights away like a used candy wrapper!

I think this is the key. While I do think that a government can juggle multiple issues at the same time successfully, the population can only pay attention to a single issue at a time. Splitting attention dilutes a party and news outlets will have trouble disseminating so many issues at once. Concentrating on just a small number means that people can get a good and slightly nuanced idea of the party's policies making disinformation harder, accidental or purposeful.

Hence the reason why only Conservatives rely on fearmongering.

I don't think talk of separation itself is bad, even if I think it's exceedingly stupid.

But people should stop talking about other provinces separating when such sentiment obviously isn't there at all. If the prairies want to separate, stop acting like BC is in on it as well. From what I can tell, it feels more like BC wants to have nothing to do with Alberta if it can help it, and it's the federal government that's forcing them to play nice together.

All this separation talk is entirely Alberta, with a bit of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and even then the numbers suggest that it's at most 30% of Alberta that is actually talking about it.

I agree here. The issue is that lobbyists can give donations and kickbacks. The act of lobbying isn't a problem, it's that lobbying as it stands right now is basically the same as legal bribery, which is the real issue.

Politicians shouldn't be able to receive anything from lobbyists (or anybody for that matter), and be barred from working for companies connected with decisions made during their term for at least ten years.

It's obvious looking at the US, that corruption had flourished for decades to the extreme, making politicians being entirely pocketed by large industries rather than working for the people who actually voted them in. It's not as bad up here, but you can see how so many of our leaders chose the interests of specific businesses over the public interest.

Isn't the the sort of thing you're supposed to complain to the CRTC if the providers refuse to deliver their services within the city? You said you're in the GTA, right? So it's well within their official coverage range.

And even if not, cell coverage according to their maps, extend to almost the whole of Southern Ontario. Together with a decent plan, you could piggyback on that (though I suppose speed would vary on location).

I see. Didn't realize that Xplore wasn't Canadian anymore, nor that actual performance was that bad. I just saw some speed tests and those didn't look that bad.

That said, I still don't think we should be spending $100 million on Starlink. For the purpose its suppose to serve, I would think that we could meet all the proposed needs with single digit million at most, even if we have to rely on Starlink to do so. We taxpayers are being shafted hard by such a contract.

If private individuals want to get Starlink for their normal internet, I don't oppose such a decision since it's not like we have good alternatives for high speed satellite internet until the EU's version gets fully deployed. But that's a decision on an individual level. A provincial decision should minimize excess expenditure on something that's a pure luxury and instead concentrate on meeting the needs of its people first, since Ford is already pulling so much funding from public resources to pay for his vanity projects that keep getting rejected by the courts.

Do you have electricity? That probably means you have poles erected for your area. Fibre can be installed onto those same poles, and it's the ISPs' job to ensure as complete coverage as possible.

Like I said before, this is specific to Bell Fibe, not 56k modems. In the first place, DSL is still more than good enough for such a purpose, or do you not remember the early days of streaming where pretty much nobody had fiber optics and had to run dedicated cable or DSL that piggybacked on regular phone lines?

I agree its subpar. But my question is, is the solution worth 1.5% the entire province's budget?