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Surprisingly not many people really understand the work of the Canadian Industry Minister, Jim Prentice, and his recent attempt to violate Canadian citizens in the worst possible way–by taking our rights as consumers.

I have recently drafted an open letter I will be forwarding to Bill Estabrooks, the MP for my provincial riding. I will be posting this letter on my website likely towards the weekend when I have sufficient time to review and mail a copy to my MP.

In the mean time, if you have not brought yourself up to date on the issues presented in Bill C-61, Michael Geist has created an excellent resource for us non political types which breaks down the important details here: http://www.faircopyrightforcanada.ca/

As the next parliamentary hearing will occur on or around September 15th, you can be sure I will bring more details, and probably start a permanent page for any related correspondance.

UPDATE 2008-09-06: I have created a page with the letter I have sent to several members of both my MLA and MP. Please find this in the menu, along the left hand side of this page, entitled “Bill C-61: Open Letter”

It seems that in the last 4 weeks 3 people have been killed (or turned into vegetables) because of stupid decisions leading them to wonder in front of the C-Train. For you non Calgarians, the C-Train is a Light Rail Transit system. Even though it is termed “Light” they weigh 49 tonnes, and typically travel at around 80km/h. So you think it would be sensible that people would simply look before crossing over the train lines.

Growing up, my parents always taught me to look both ways before crossing the road (and I distinctly remember this being part of my kindergarden through to grade 3 curriculum), while I will admit they never pointed out situations involving trains, it only seem logical to extend this line of thought to any rail crossings.

In all 3 incidences that have happened this month, not once was there any equipment failure. All (of several) visual and auditory alarms were present to notify pedestrians of an oncoming train, yet for some reason these pedestrians continued to cross the rail lines illegally.

These incidences do certainly support Darwin’s theory though; If you act like a retard, you die.