Labour Day Signals Labour Unrest to Come

Now that the summer vacation season is all but a warm and fuzzy memory, we’ll get back to our informative posts – from a brief summer break.

Speaking of summer vacation, yesterday’s Labour Day holiday across North America was the official last long weekend of summer.

I enjoyed it wandering around Canada’s largest fall fair, the Canadian National Exhibition – CNE – or just “the Ex” for locals in the Toronto area.
It sure felt like fall, it was unusually cold and wet seeing as the hot, sticky and dry weather we’ve had most of the summer.

Figures, the one day I spend all outside, it rains.

Going to the CNE is a Canadian tradition for many, and certainly it was for me. Every year I get up extra early on Labour Day, go out with friends to a local restaurant for breakfast, then head to the fall fair.

This was my first Labour Day at the Ex – I have gone during the Labour Day long weekend, but never ON Labour Day itself.

Maybe because it was the last day of the Canadian classic – the CNE has been around for 132-years – it was packed with people, despite the poor weather. I don’t think I’ve seen so many people at the Ex – ever.

While wondering around the CNE, I saw many wearing t-shirts sporting anti-government, pro-union messages like “Keep the TTC from falling into private hands, keep the TTC public” in reference to the potential privatization of Canada’s largest city’s transit system. Saw a button on someone that said: “Unions keep jobs in Canada.”

Maybe that was an old button from years ago, because even the largest unions haven’t prevented a slew of jobs from heading to other countries. In fact, more companies than ever are outsourcing to places outside North America.

It used to be that just big multinational companies could afford to farm out labour to cheaper third-world countries. Back in the 1990’s, big sporting giants Nike and Adidas drew bad press when the media reported they were using “sweatshops,” for much of their products sold in Canada and the United States.

According to the reports, some of these sweatshops were dirty, dungeon-like factories, employing even young children, in dangerous manufacturing jobs, which paid literally nickels and dimes an hour – if they paid. Some of the reports indicated that the people running these sweatshops withheld what little pay they provided, to ensure the poorly treated workers came back to work the next day.

Nike and Adidas quickly distanced themselves from the sweatshops, and went on a public relations mission to clear their names.

Funny, with all the outsourcing that happens now, we don’t hear much about the poor working conditions, the below average wages, or the inferior quality checks and balances anymore.

Well, we do hear about the poor quality of goods produced these days – just look at Toyota’s massive recalls, the tainted pet food from China, and the constant warnings from food and health agencies about fruit and vegetables with e coli, salmonella, or some other dangerous by-product of a society that rarely produces anything itself anymore.

Try and find something NOT made in China, India or somewhere else these days – go ahead and try.

Unions have their pros and cons, but job security ain’t one of ‘em.

What we need is for governments to take a stronger stand with companies that want to do business here in North America. If federal governments mandated that at least 70 percent of the products they sell in North America be made in North America by North Americans, with North American-made materials, then we’d have a start.

Problem is, governments over the past two-decades have been weak – no, they have intentionally pandered to the interests of companies instead of to the very people they serve – their citizens.

Government legislation over the past two decades provides for tax relief and grants for companies with offices here in North America, that have to bring in goods made elsewhere. This provides the illusion that just because the companies aren’t shutting down in Canada and the States, that their are still jobs here in Canada and the States.

But that’s just the government pulling the wool over our eyes – just look at our continuing to crumble economy, with job losses across every sector in Canada last month, except teaching (and that’s because September is back to school).
Our country’s leaders continue to brag about the economic recovery, and how they have taken steps to ensure our countries are world leaders in the new economy.

What our country’s leaders aren’t telling you is they’ve created – and continue to create and build – an economy that doesn’t include you.

Unless of course, you’re one of the few chosen to relocate to some distant land, to manage the production of goods and services elsewhere – then you really are one of the few lucky ones.

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Vancouver 2010 – Canadian Media Censors Public Reaction to News Reports

The commercialization of censorship online is growing, making credible news outlets more resemble government controlled mouth pieces for the government. Nope, we aren’t talking about some Chinese government censored news outlet, we’re talking ones right here in North America – Canada to be exact.

Last week, people posting comments about the lack of Canada’s second official language – French – at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics on websites of major news organizations carrying the story. Suddenly, the words “COMMENT REMOVED” began mysteriously filling web space once held by someone’s comment.

From the Canadian government-owned and operated Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), to the privately held newspaper The Toronto Star, to many other big names in Canadian media, comments started disappearing.

Private companies have been retained by some media outlets to moderate the comments left on their web sites for what they call “illegal, invective, needlessly profane posts, or inanely offensive commentary.”

Granted, the ability for anyone, anywhere, at anytime to go online, and anonymously post whatever happens to pop into their head at the time of seeing something online can produce provocative, and possibly even offensive feedback.
But isn’t that part of what makes the free-for-all wild west of the Internet . . . well . . . uh . . . er . . . the Internet?

Yes, we’re bound to come across comments from people with less than a full deck of cards, and some of these comments may be just as far flung, and may even offend the majority of the population.

But who are we to decide what does and doesn’t appear on the net?

In the case of some of the major media outlets, looks like they didn’t want to answer that question either – they farmed out that mega-huge responsibility to a third-party company to do it for them. Maybe they figured if they weren’t directly involved in the so-called “moderation” of their websites, then they couldn’t be held accountable for the censorship which naturally would follow.

Which raises another sticky question – just who’s rules dictate what is and isn’t fit for public display? When you hire a third-party company to determine this, in many ways you give up the right to tell them how to do their job.

What if that third-party company has clients whose interests they want to maintain – say the International Olympic Committee?

Then even comments which may not really be all that offensive may be removed, just because they are negative comments about the Olympics.

Sounds very much like when China held the Olympics, and they banned media outlets, and actually cut off their Internet and phone access when they reported things which the Chinese government just didn’t like.

Funny, how when that happened, the first to stand up and scream about it were the very media outlets that suddenly lost contact with their news teams in China.

Now it appears the tables have turned, and it is the very same Canadian news media censoring people from saying anything bad about the Olympics here in Canada.

Perhaps the Canadian media needs to be reminded about their experiences in China during the last Olympics? But then again, the real victim is us all – because when the media starts to censor itself, the next logical successor to do the same, will be governments and other private corporations.

And then free speech won’t exist anymore, not online, not on the street, not anywhere.

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Toyota an Example of a Failing Global Village

Today, Japanese auto giant Toyota announced another series of recalls which could lead to the injury or death of drivers, passengers, and even pedestrians.

Today’s recall affects over a million vehicles in the States – previously the automaker announced a similar recall affecting about 270,000 cars in Canada and 2.3 million cars in the States. The problem – a faulty gas pedal which could stick, propelling the vehicle into oncoming traffic, people, or whatever else happens to be in the path of destruction.

Toyota says they may be recalling vehicles in China and Europe as well, making this a problem of global proportions.

Which is fitting of sorts, the problem is global in nature – outsourcing parts and manufacturing operations to other countries, where labor is cheap and quality assurance doesn’t exist.

You don’t have to be an academic to see the troubling trend, just reviewing the headlines in the major newspapers around the world reveals all.

We’re seeing more recalls and consumer alerts for faulty products every year, as companies continue to cut corners to save money.

In recent years, food producer Maple Leaf Foods had numerous Listeria outbreaks – a deadly bacteria which snuck into their processing plants. Over a dozen people died, many more reported possible contamination, and the company’s reputation sunk quicker than a sunset.

Pet food made in China was linked to numerous dog and cat deaths around the world – it had anti-freeze in it. If you have a dog or cat feeding dish made in China, you may want to toss it, some have caused serious illnesses because of lead-based paint.

Lead-based paints in children’s toys proudly boasting a “Made in China” label have also caused health scares across the globe.

Toyota’s recent recalls are just the latest in a very public series of events showing a serious failing of our global village – quality control.

For the past decade many companies have been farming out their products and services to other countries, where wages are lower, saving them money. The problem is, as is always the case, you get what you pay for.

When wages are low, so too is the way the company treats its employees. And when companies don’t treat their employees well, quality doesn’t matter.

Sure, it may cost less to make a widget in Mexico than in North America – but if that widget falls off while you are driving over a 100 KM/Hour down the highway, and you can’t stop, that cost savings just cost a lot more – your life.

But that’s assuming companies that cut these cost savings corners actually care about you in the first place.

A lot of the heads running these global organizations just don’t appear to care – that is until it is their good company’s name making the horrible headlines about faulty products and services, recalls, or in some cases, even the death of their customers or others.

Do people have to die before a company wakes up, and realizes the ultimate cost of using cheaply made products and services?

Sadly, even death doesn’t influence the corporate movers and shakers anymore. Less than a year after the deadly Listeria outbreaks at Maple Leaf Foods, despite a large-scale media campaign where the company president appeared on television, radio and full-page newspaper ads assuring us it wouldn’t happen again – it did.

Toyota’s recent recall isn’t the first for the automaker, and it isn’t the first for any automaker. All the car companies have had recalls of varying degrees.

However a truly global village example may be a recall that you’ve never heard of before, but could affect you or the ones you love.

The average commercial jumbo jet has thousands of parts, many made all over the world. There have been instances where an airplane manufacturer, or in some cases even the manufacturer of a specific part or series of parts, have recalled the part, or issued a service bulletin advising of specific maintenance which must be done, to ensure the part or series of parts doesn’t fail. Some of these bulletins have even been issued by governments – in the United States they are issued by the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) and called “Air Worthiness Directives.”

When the FAA issues an Air Worthiness Directive, it must be followed. It’s the American government’s way of saying this must be done, if you want to continue to fly your planes in our airspace.

There have been instances where an airline hasn’t followed an FAA Air Worthiness Directive, resulting in a faulty part, which has brought down an airliner, and caused numerous deaths and injuries.

As consumers, we have no way of knowing about these internal airline documents – the average person doesn’t even know they exist. Yet these product recalls and fixes affect all of us who fly, and all the families and friends of those soaring in the sky.

Where does it end?

Again we have to ask, do people have to die before the corporate minds providing us with the products and services we depend on change their ways?

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Censorship on the Chinese Information Highway

China is a country with a long and controversial past when it comes to what it always calls “protecting its citizens,” especially on the Internet.

The Chinese government has been known to block Internet addresses and domains which it deems unfit for the public to see. During last year’s Olympic Games, the Chinese government blocked access to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) websites, after the Canadian broadcaster revealed that parts of the opening ceremonies which were supposed to be live, were pre-taped.

So when the government of China says they are censoring something to protect their citizens, it is questionable as to what exactly they are protecting – their citizens, or their own reputation.

China’s government is taking censorship to a whole new level, thanks to technology. Effective tomorrow, all computers sold in mainland China must come with a program called Green Dam-Youth Escort.

This program—at a cost of over $6 million in developmental fees paid for by the Chinese government – is being mandated by government law to be installed on every computer sold from July 1 onwards. By filtering keywords, Universal Resource Locators (URLs), image recognition, and contextual phrase recognition, the application is supposed to make the Internet safer for children, by blocking access to banned sites.

Problem is, those who control which sites are banned and which aren’t are those in the Chinese government – so despite the government’s claim, this program will most likely be used to block all Internet sites which don’t mesh with what the Chinese governments political views.

The Green Dam-Youth Escort program, developed in China, by a Chinese software company, is also full of security holes, which leaves anyone using the application vulnerable to hackers, viruses, Internet worms and other malicious electronic attack.

North American and European business leaders have sent letters directly to the leaders of the Chinese government, asking them to reconsider their mandate. Even governments are getting up in arms over China’s increased censorship of the Internet. The U.S. Department of Commerce sent a letter to the Chinese government, listing several concerns.

The Green Dam-Youth Escort program doesn’t just block access to certain web sites, it actually can crash an Internet browser completely.

A Harvard University researcher posted on YouTube a demonstration, showing how the Green Dam-Youth Escort program freezes a web browser, whenever you type the letter “f” into the location bar. This happened after the letter “f” became associated via the browser’s auto-complete list with the “falundafa.org web” site, which is has ties to Falun Gong – a religious sect banned by the Chinese government.

Image by Raideres via Flickr

Falun Gong has no links to pornography, but because they believe in values which the Chinese government doesn’t agree with, they are blocked by the software.

Clearly the government is increasing its ability to control the Internet – they can update the software’s list of banned sites at anytime, just like your anti-virus software updates itself all the time with the latest security patches.

Though unlike your security software, which protects you from electronic harm, China’s Green Dam-Youth Escort software is only protecting the Chinese government’s shady reputation from being exposed to those who matter most – it’s citizens.

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Surfing the Net in Canada – Watch Where You Click

A proposed new law is being introduced in Canada’s House of Commons today, which would grant police the power to force your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to hand over all records of your online activities without a warrant.

Imagine having someone go through all your personal emails, chat room conversations, website histories, file transfers and surfing habits, without your knowledge, and for reasons which may or may not be justified.

The proposed law, a Bill called “An Act Regulating Telecommunications Facilities to Support Investigations,” gives Canadian law enforcement agencies unprecedented sweeping powers to dig up all this dirt, without justifying their reasons.

Simply cut off a cop on the highway, and next thing you know, they b

reak down your door because you downloaded last summer’s block buster movie off the net.

Supporters of the Bill – including police forces across the country – say situations like these aren’t likely, because they will only use these new rights to investigate criminal activates. They say the Internet has become an easy and important tool by criminals, pedophiles, terrorists, drug dealers and scam artists.

However, Canada’s Federal Privacy Commissioner and other privacy watchdogs are very worried about this proposed legislation, because it allows police to have carte blanche access to your complete online life, with nothing more than a hunch.

Currently, law enforcement agencies must obtain a warrant – by providing reasonable and probable grounds to a judge to get that warrant – just to listen in on your phone conversations, or to search your places of work or residence. They don’t presently have any rights to access your online usage from your ISP.

Police and other law enforcement agencies across Canada have been demanding this type of law for years, to help in their criminal investigations.

Granting law enforcement agencies the right to gather this information from ISPs isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but allowing them to have this information without a warrant is.

Being a police officer is a tough job, but being a cop also means having a certain element of power and responsibility.

Placing the responsibility in those that have the power is a dangerous combination – that’s why the proposed Bill is a bad Bill. It allows police to regulate themselves in terms of what prompts them to order an ISP to hand over personal online information.

You could be out at a restaurant with a group of friends, one joke taken the wrong way by a police officer in earshot, and that cop goes off and starts searching through your online life – and you may never know about this, especially if there is nothing incriminating against you.

If the police and other law enforcement agencies want to have laws allowing them to access the personal information of suspected criminals online – fine. But giving them unfettered access, based on what may just be a best-guess, is a step closer to living in a country like China, where the government regularly blocks Internet access under the guise of “protecting its citizens.”

Like when the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reported during last summer’s Olympic Games that some of the ceremonies broadcast “live” from China, were actually pre-recorded and edited by the Chinese government. Within hours of CBC reporting that story, the Chinese government had blocked all CBC sites within China.

It would take a long time, and many more similar Bills proposed and passed in Canada, before such a controlled online world were to happen. But this Bill is the first step towards just that.

Is that the type of society we want here in Canada?

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