Green Plates

The Ontario government recently introduced a plan to give people who purchase electric cars a "green liscence plate" in order to encourage people to purchase these cars when they hit the market in the near future. These plates will encourage people to buy these cars as they allow th driver special privileges, such as special parking spots, recharge stations and even allowing the vehicle to drive in the HOV lanes seen around the GTA with only one passenger. Though these benefits seem generous we must ask ourselves how many people will actualy purchase one of these vehicles, heres a few reasons why I won't.
1) well cmon im a student, i dont have any money.
2) evein if I did have money the cars are expected to be very expensive, like cost of a mid range bmw, to me no contest
3) unproven technology, electric cars have been tried many times, always fail.
4) is it realy green? What do we do with this massive toxic battery when the car dies?
5) price of gas sucks yes, but recharging every 70-80km is brutal.
Seems to me like an unrealistic idea, again good initiative by the government, but unreasonable and ineffective, especialy during a recession. Nice try but no dice.

H1N1, coming to a city near you.

I just recieved an e-mail stating that the H1N1 flu vaccine is now available to students at Brock University. The panic to become vaccinated can now begin. I have to wonder why this is so, we are now almost in December and only now is this vaccine becoming available, yet as I stated in one of my earlier blogs the rich customers of private clinics who were willing to pay for it revcieved it weeks ago. Now I must admit that I personaly think the whole "epidemic" is ridiculous, its flu people, but that is not the point. Does logic not suggest that a university with thousands of people crammed togather would be one of those places that should be targeted first. Way more importantly, why was the government not prepared, this is not some obscure disease that has transformed and infected the country. The whole thing seems ridiculous to me, and once again we can look to not only provincial government but federal as well. Good thing were gona pay more tax soon!!!
P.S thinkin on gettin the flu shot...check this out befor you do
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mScGC7nFDxM
Of course this is extreme, but still something to think about.

HST, lets pay more tax

How far can the elite continue to push the middle and lower classes seems to be the question here. The HST appears to attack mainly consumers and medium and small businesses while helping out large business, and thus the elite. Obviously Canada needs to maintain competitive in order to keep jobs, but this seems to have come to a whole new level of ridiculousness. The dissapearing middle class is becoming the lower class, these people are often forced to work two or more jobs just to make ends meet. Why on earth would governemnt want to make these people pay an even more ridiculous amount of tax while big businesses recieve tax relief while paying their CEO's yearly bonuses that equal more than the average lower class citizen would make in 20 years at one of their menial jobs. Reduce the deficit? How about responsible government instead, HST= us the public bailing out the government and big business. Debt has become the biggest control mechanism in today's society, Canadians pay to much tax for the services we recieve, now we will pay more.

"Free" health care

H1N1 seems to me to be to be an extremely overblown issue, however, reports surfaced this week that clients of an upscale private clinic in Toronto were able to get vaccines for the virus before the general public. Once again we see preferencial treatment of the rich, this is absoloutly ridiculous. To me the one massive ideal that Canada holds true which makes us different to the United States is that of free universal healthcare regardless of economic status, race, religion or any other reason. How then can the rich buy better healthcare in this country? Slippery slope anybody?? This to me is truly offensive, and Il bet some of our provincial politicians are clients of these health centers. We are beyond overtaxed in this country and province specificaly, we pay dearly for our healthcare, how often can you screw the working class around. Mr Marx? Any ideas?? All I want to know is, when is the revolt?

Ontario to Continue Gouging Students

As our modern society evolves it is becoming increasingly more "important" to have some form of post secondary education. According to an article in the Queens journal Ontario University students pay an average of just under $6,000 a year, in contrast Quebec students pay an average of $2,300. The national average is $4,917, Ontario is the highest of any province by far. Last year Ontario Universities had a 5% increase in their tuition fees, again by far the largest increase in tuition was felt in Ontario. What this does is makes it impossible for deserving legitimately intelligent students to go to University, yet shall we say "less intelligent" students who come from families with money are able to attend. Personaly coming from at best a middle class family the debt that will be accrued from attending school is ridiculous. it would perhaps even be justifiable if a degree guaranteed a job, but this certainly is not the case. The Ontario government and Dalton Mcguinty argue that Ontario has the highest standard and quality of education thus why we pay more, at least from my personal experience is this is the highest quality of education I would hate to see the lesser schools. Students need to not accept this from the provincial government, at very least we should be able to get down to the national average for tuition fees. I also feel as a political science major that we are to blame for not fighting this, please follow the link for drop the fees, of course the provincial government is to blame for this but we as the educated public must not allow this to continue. Follow the link, become educated and as students perhaps we can change this injustice.
http://dropfees.ca/index.php?section_id=7
for more info follow:
http://www.queensjournal.ca/story/2009-10-23/news/ontario-tuition-highest-study-says/

Ontario, a fair representation of Canada?

The most densely populated area of Canada is without doubt Southern Ontario. This small part of the country is home to over 12 million people as of 2008 according to statistics Canada. Ontario is also home to the national capital of Ottawa, the question becomes what truly is being Canadian? Such a diverse and open country becomes difficult for us to represent it. Are the citizens of Ontario a true representation of what Canada is or should we look to the praries or coastal areas for this identity. It is an interesting topic as the GTA has a larger population than British Columbia, in fact adding the populations of all other provinces and territiories equals only marginaly more than that of Ontario. Their is always concerns raised that each area of the country is not represented fairly at the national level, or that northern regions of Ontario are not represented fairly in provincial politics. With such a dense populations in one area though it is undeniable that Ontario and specifically Souther Ontario deserves the majority of the representation. What is being Candian? This is a difficult question but it seems that our representation model works as well as one can hope in this situation.

A Safer Drive??

In an effort to make Ontarios roads safer the Provincial government has decided to make it illegal to use not only cell phones but also ipods, GPS units or essentialy any hand held electronic device while driving. This move has not come without it's controversey, many motorists who enjoy a multi hour commute through the GTA are able to conduct important business during their commute by using wireless devices. This ban will therefore either force them to work longer hours or be less productive. This ban will also effect a great number of people, according to Canada's office of consumer affairs there are over 16.8 million wireless subscribers in Canada.
In a country of thirty million, minus children and the elderly, it is easily the great majority that use wireless technologies. Offenders of this law will face a fine of up to $500! The most recent data from the United States showed that 5,800 people have died and 515,000 were injured as a result of vehicle accidents caused by distracted drivers. Of course I'm sure if the cell phone companies hired a "third Party" to investigate these numbers that they would drop. Regardless, that this may be an inconvenience to many motorists if it is able to save one life it seems worth it. Perhaps the problem is not that people need these devices to stay productive at all times, but rather that this is what as a society we expect. America and Canada, democratic and capitalistic countries, free people enjoying a great quality of life. Why then are people crippled by stress in our societies? Why is debt out of control? What ever happened to the middle class? I digress yet this topic is sooooo much further reaching than it appears on the surface.
I for one applaud this move by the Ontario Liberals. Business, greed and profit must not always come first, now perhaps they can enact some legislation for a shorter work week and increased holidays???