[citation needed]

So what about an electoral threshold? Or preferential ballot?

Entirely agreed. That's one of the reasons why Peggy Nash lost any chance of my support almost immediately after she entered the leadership race. I received three robocalls from her campaign with no option to opt out. To the credit of the others, nobody else has robocalled me.

I did take a phone call from the Topp campaign, and not only was it from a live person but they went to the extra effort to make sure that the person who called me was someone that I'd worked with on another campaign and knew me personally. The cynic in me wants to think that's sort of a cheap ploy, but I know that's not only not cheap but not easy. Someone had to think of how to do it and how to organize it and that's the kind of machine I want on my side.

Emails on the other hand are a different thing entirely. Before even identifying their supporters most of the leadership contenders started asking for money. Not asking for my vote or identifying their platform. They came begging, with hand outstretched, looking for money. Paul Dewar was the first (in his first email no less), followed by Nathan Cullen and Peggy Nash. I don't know what world they live in, but if your first email is one giant clickable link to send you money, you aren't getting any money. Put a donate button in there if you want, fine, but you aren't getting laid on the first date.

If the fringe parties have enough electoral presence under PR that they're actually worth negotiating with for their vote, then they aren't exactly a fringe party, now are they?

The recording is available at http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/Shows/1221254309/ID=1917988496 that specifically introduces the caller as Elections Canada. There is no mistake here. Even if this was directed at their own supporters based on an incorrectly entered postal code, the recording identifies itself as being an official call from a government agency.

A long, long time ago, as an 18 year old just get getting interested in the way things worked I volunteered to be a scrutineer for a local candidate on election day. My job was to ensure that electors were being identified properly, that nobody was being improperly turned away from a polling station, and that in the event of a recount, I would be an observer to ensure no ballots that were marked properly were discounted, or ballots marked improperly were counted for any candidate. It was also our job to make sure nobody was passing out campaign material or wearing candidate tshirts in the station, etc.

As a scrutineer, you are acting as a representative of a candidate but the job you're being asked to do is really non-partisan, to make sure that the poll workers themselves are not intimated or influenced by anyone.

When I showed up and registered at my assigned polling station, the local liberal goons who had been assigned to the same station did everything they could to intimidate the other scrutineers. One guy stood right behind me, six inches away from me and just coughed and sneezed on me. The other guy made an announcement that "A blue Lumina with license number bla bla bla is being towed." (It wasn't) They stood outside the doors to the centre just down the street telling young people with polling cards that they needed to see them to verify and oh, yes, their polling station had changed: take the streetcar 12 stops and it's just down the street- you don't have fare? oh, here's a token because it's very important that you go vote.

The poll workers refused to eject them because they didn't want to seem "unfair" to any campaign. Police were called a number of times but they never showed up. In the end, the returning officer ejected the scrutineers from every candidate at that station and nobody got to observe for fairness.

Tactics like this- and these robocalls- are part of the same playbook. In polling districts where your candidate is not likely to get the lion's share of the vote, it is far easier to refuse voters their democratic right then it is to convince them to vote for you.

Hanging is too good for these fools. Anyone caught committing electoral fraud should be subject to heavy heavy fines, community service, and then jail time, just to think about what they've done. That goes for both winners and losers. Nobody gets a free pass just because it didn't get them in to office.

You signed up for the party, which is a lot different than some random Joe getting called during dinner. When you signed up for the party, you told them that you were interested in selecting the new leader. You purchased a vote share. You subscribed to the specialty cable TV channel and told them you'd be watching. If you weren't interested in participating, why did you take a membership instead of donating to the campaign?

That's the point. If your party has 20% of the seats in parliament, you have to work with the other parties until the bill you are passing represents at least 50% of the electors. Proportional Representation is a safeguard in minority representative situations to ensure that someone elected with 39% of the vote doesn't override the needs of the remaining 61%.

Here is a link to one of the recorded robocalls: http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/Shows/1221254309/ID=1917988496

Before audio was made available, the Conservative spin team was saying that it was an administrative error and that they were trying to help people find their polling station but they incorrectly crosslinked some postal codes. When the audio became available, clearly and fraudulently stating that the call was from "Elections Canada" they started playing dumb.

Are they implying that they're centrist between the Democrats and Republicans? The rest of the world is watching American politics with some bemusement (and some worry) because there's really no left or centre in American politics. Both of your parties drift to the right ideologically compared to most other nations with open democracies. I see very little practical room between your two parties that would advance your nation forward in a healthy, productive, or sustainable manner.

3web has caps, but don't expect to find out information about their plans on their web site. It's harder to pin down facts about them than it is with Bell.

Oh, I know. I've been living in Montreal for the last five years and I still go with a DSL company based in Ontario. Videotron isn't exactly competition. Sure it's fast but who is going to pay $70 a month for internet when there are alternatives? Only the uninformed or those with poor DSL access.

The problem is that Bell thinks it has the right to shape traffic and bill for data transfer on the last mile and have successfully petitioned the corrupt CRTC for that right. Between the Bell CO and the external internet, the bandwidth is bought and paid for by my ISP to their bulk upstream provider who isn't Bell. They already pay Bell a set rate for the use of the copper between the CO and my home. It doesn't matter how many non-Bell customers are connected, nor does it matter if they saturate connections, because they cannot saturate Bell's pipe, because they are only connected to Bell's pipe at the last mile. The argument that non-Bell customers must pay for more usage due to network saturation is absurd and should have been thrown out the moment it was brought up before the commission.

The cap is pretty much universally 40GB with overage fees around CAD$3.00/GB. Some providers cap the overage fees and cut off service (possibly illegal for VoIP providers) whilst others don't and just rack up the charges. The actual tariff has not yet been finalized but that's the standard figure being pushed by providers who have started billing already. I'm with Acanac who hasn't started billing, has no caps, has declared that they have no intention to add them and is fighting Bell both at the commission and in the media.

This is a direct result of Netflix hitting the Canadian market a few months ago as it competes directly with Rogers and Bell, the two largest ISPs who happen to also be the two largest cable and satellite providers. Netflix HD movies take around 4GB each and a couple hours of TV programs is about the same. If you are in the habit of watching two hours of TV a night then you'll easily go over 100GB in a month. Bell wants to blame this on piracy but the fact of the matter is that this is perfectly legal and normal usage.

Internet connections used to be faster and cheaper and the providers were rolling in cash. We've seen price hikes, throttling, and severe curtailing of progress. The current government is clueless on the portfolio but wants the market to sort it out- the only problem is that we don't have one and the regulatory commission is stacked with former Bell/Rogers execs with active financial interests in the company. It's a blatant conflict of interest but the conservative government claims they're powerless.