steveintoronto
Superstar
Terms for government contracts have existed for generations. The one you should be most concerned about are ones demanding domestic content.Wynne’s latest release about fair pay for government contracts is yet another example of well meaning policy that expands government for the purpose of expanding government. So basically we will pay more for an expansion of government beaurocracy so that political insiders can get positions setting Kafka-esque rules that will increase the costs of all future government contracts the government enters into?
Is this more to your liking Ricky?
https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/wyn...y-american-criticized-by-opposition-1.3793330Paola Loriggio, The Canadian Press
Published Wednesday, February 7, 2018 11:25AM EST
Last Updated Wednesday, February 7, 2018 4:47PM EST
TORONTO -- Ontario's threat of a trade war with U.S. states that adopt Buy American policies sparked swift criticism Wednesday from the opposition, who called it nothing but a "reckless" political gambit from the governing Liberals as they fight to stay in power.
Premier Kathleen Wynne announced Tuesday night that her cabinet would soon table legislation that would reduce procurement opportunities for states that pass Buy American laws by allowing provincial officials to write regulations targeting individual states.
The opposition parties saw the move as a Liberal attempt to avoid responsibility for domestic problems. [...]
I'm no fan of Wynne's, but even less of a fan of the present knee-jerk reactionary so-called Cons. What would you have? That Wynne rollover and spread Ontario's legs to get defiled? Extensive negotiations and missions occurred long before it came to making a stand. And best the "present day reactionaries" research how real Conservative regimes have handled this in the past.
When you're dealing with the likes of Trump, well....I'll spare myself of taking that point any further, it's wasted on knee-jerk reactionaries who hold him in esteem.
Meanwhile:
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/sta...t-be-complacent-on-policing-social-media.htmlWith elections looming, Canada cannot be complacent on policing social media
Bots, fake news and cyber attacks are all obvious threats to our democratic process, Tim Harper writes.
[...]
Federal MPs began important hearings Tuesday on data privacy concerns and their repercussions, and Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien made it clear the data of 622,161 Canadians harvested from Facebook could be used to influence an election in this country.
Yet there is a puzzling, laissez-faire approach from our governments, which seem to find comfort in studies that show the remnants of the mainstream media hold greater levels of trust here than their peers in other countries.
They seem to still take false security from the fact Canada has largely immune to interference or onslaughts of fake news, the likes of which we have seen in Britain, France and the United States. We like to think that we are fail-safe because we have paper ballot backups, but a cyber attack could corrupt the process before we need to start counting by hand.
The Communications Security Establishment has warned that cyber attacks on the 2019 federal election can be expected, and Facebook has promised an “election integrity’’ project ahead of that vote.
Part of that initiative will involve an education program from Ottawa-based MediaSmarts, which will try to educate citizens on how to spot fake news, differentiate between fact and opinion, and identify malicious posts.
A study for Elections Canada recommends a process for monitoring and regulating bots, which mimic the social media accounts of real people to spread propaganda and misinformation, shape public opinion or spread malicious attacks against candidates.
Rolled together, these are helpful, but largely amount to band aids. Something more substantive is required.
There are lessons for Canada in Europe.
All major parties in Germany agreed before last year’s parliamentary elections there that they would not use social media bots and would strongly condemn their use.
They also passed a law providing penalties of up to $60 million for social networking providers who did not quickly take down defamatory or fake news reports.
It worked.
[...]
Not that I'm drawing a crooked line to Ford's coronation in the OntCon camp.....
If the OntCons had elected a leader with a sense of moral fortitude and quantifiable worth, things might be different when it comes to pointing out Wynne's failings. Coming from a complete loser, however, only counts for those who've already counted themselves out.