Bob Broughton's Blog about British Columbia politics
More issues with "border security", buses
Written by Administrator
Sunday, 07 February 2010 21:19
The embarrassment to Canada's government over the treatment of journalist Ellen Goodman by the Canadian Border Services Agency (see OK, let's put a stop to this. Now. elsewhere on this blog) wasn't great enough to keep it from happening again. This time, the victim was Martin Macias Jr., who was turned back at the airport because he planned to attend some sort of anti-Olympics conference this week. His plans were to leave town before the actual start of the 2010 games.
The same Faith St. John who was the spokeswoman for CBSA in the Goodman case was the spokeswoman in this one. According to an article by Bob Mackin in 24 Hours, CBSA won't comment on barred Olympic journalist, "it’s policy to not discuss individual cases. She said the reasons for denying access include involvement in criminal activity, human rights violations, organized crime and for security, health or financial reasons."
The first sentence of this is reasonable, and has to do with the protection of privacy. If you had some sort of issue at a border crossing having to do with a custody battle over one of your children, you wouldn't want the details to be available to anyone who files a Freedom of Information request. However, people such as Mr. Macias can choose to waive the right of privacy.
I hope that he does so. Was he denied entry to Canada because of "involvement in criminal activity, human rights violations, organized crime and for security, health or financial reasons?" If so, let's hear about it. Was he denied entry because he holds opinions that NBC, Visa, Coca-Cola, MacDonald's et al don't especially like? If so, let's hear about it, to open up CBSA to legal action under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Bob Mackin has been doing a great job of covering stories about the 2010 Olympics that the Vancouver Sun, CKNW, and the other mainstream media won't go near. These stories deserve a larger audience, so I'm posting a link to this one: Bus trouble for VANOC as drivers revolt.
We should be concerned that there are buses on the road that have overheating brakes, non-functioning tail lights and turn signals, and drivers behind the wheel who have worked over the 13-hour legal maximum for a day. However, here's something more political to be concerned about: Gameday Management, the Florida company that was hired by VANOC to manage transportation for the 2010 games, is busy managing transportation for the Super Bowl in Miami instead. This is potentially another BC Rail.
Ingmar Lee couldn't have picked a better set of targets. Giving Gordon Campbell any sort of "good for the environment" recognition is ridiculous, and shame on Tzeporah Berman for having anything to do with this.
1. It is none of the Canada Border Services Agency's business whether Amy Goodman or anybody else wants to talk about the 2010 Olympics or not. From the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: "Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
(a) freedom of conscience and religion;
(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
(d) freedom of association."
2. "The Canada Border Services Agency didn't respond to our request for an interview." Let's see if they will respond to a subpoena instead.
Story by Petti Fong of the Toronto Star: What Olympics? Baffled U.S. radio host interrogated at border "Canada Border Services Agency spokeswoman Faith St. John said she could not speak specifically about Goodman's detention. But she said anyone entering the country may be subject to a more in-depth examination.
"It should not be viewed as an accusation of wrongdoing." Wrong, Ms. St. John. If there was no accusation of wrongdoing, why was Goodman told that she had to be out of Canada within 48 hours?
Video story (with transcript) from Democracy Now. Includes quotes from Chris Chaw, David Eby.
Vancouver radio listeners suddenly discovered on November 6 that they had one less talk radio station, and Simi Sara, Dave Brindle, and Nikki Renshaw learned the previous afternoon that they no longer had jobs. Instead, the Vancouver market now has two all-sports radio stations. Most of the content on Team 1410 will be national sports talk hosts such as Jim Rome.
I can't find anything good about this development. There are a lot of things going on in British Columbia that could stand more attention from the citizens: the Virk/Basi trial, disappearance of salmon runs, privatization of rivers and electric power, loss of civil liberties related to the 2010 Olympics, government unwillingness to prosecute polygamists, to give a few examples. Consider this: the takeover of Burlington Northern Santa Fe by Warren Buffett last week could have a significant impact on transportation and employment in the Lower Mainland, but local press coverage consisted of a wire service story in the back pages of the business section of the Vancouver Sun.
We now have fewer sources of information about what's going on than we had a week ago.
What brought this on? The latest ratings for the Vancouver market gave Talk 1410 AM a 1.8% market share. To put this in perspective, CBC AM got 11.6% and CKNW got 11.5%. (CKNW's share was in the 17-20% range in their heyday.) The 1.8% even compares unfavorably with Jim Pattison's geriatric "all time favourites" CISL (650 AM), with a 3.4% share. Low ratings mean low ad revenue, which means less money to pay Sara, Brindle, Renshaw, and the rest of the hired help.
There's another side to this, however. That 1.8% is the highest share that Talk 1410 AM had in over a year. And what short of listenership do they expect to get with reruns of Vancouver Canucks games and (this isn't a joke) radio coverage of golf. They also lose ad revenue for Coast to Coast and (ugh) Laura Schlessinger, syndicated programs carried at low cost.
The owners of CTVglobemedia, who also own Team 1040, The Beat 94.5 FM, and 103.5 QM/FM, had other options available to them. The nearby Air America Radio affiliates, KBAI-AM 930 in Bellingham and KPTK AM 1090 in Seattle, both carry some live sports programming to bring in some additional ad revenue. There was nothing obvious to stop CTVglobemedia from carrying BC Lions games and other live sports coverage, continuing with Coast to Coast, and keeping Sara and Brindle, whose programs were growing in popularity, on the air.
Was there something else going on here? Did somebody in CTVglobemedia's management get a phone call from Gordon Campbell or Stephen Harper's office, expressing displeasure with the subject matter under discussion on Sara's and Brindle's programs? One thing's for sure; if nobody asks this question, we're not going to hear any answers.
It wasn't easy, but pro-health activists managed to end the association of the healthy sport of tennis with the unhealthy habit of tobacco in Canada nine years ago.
The use of professional tennis to promote tobacco use has not come to a complete end, however. There is a "Davidoff Swiss Indoors" tournament happening in Basel, Switzerland. Pictures of Roger Federer, who is currently ranked #1 in men's singles, are being used in the promotion of this event, and it features ballboys and ballgirls wearing t-shirts with Davidoff logos.
1. The provincial government funded an invitation-only party for the opening of the Richmond speed skating oval with a half million dollars, and the government came of with this money on two days' notice.
VANOC should be ashamed of themselves for requesting this money, and they should return it.
2. Three Crown corporations, B.C. Hydro, ICBC, and the B.C. Lottery Corporation, have spent more than $1.4 million on Olympic tickets.
This money could be recovered by simply re-selling the tickets. eBay will work.
I've been running this blog for four years now. I also maintain several other blogs, including vancouver2010insider.ca and tbirdbaseball.net. I have never asked for any financial support for doing this. Until now.
And actually, I'm not really asking for this money for myself (although it's possible that I could profit from it; see below). It's for a cause.
Here's the deal: because of the way that Canwest Global has run its business into the ground (for example, throwing away money on the National Post and turning their Vancouver newspapers into Fraser Institute shills), the value of their common stock has dropped from $3.07 per share last September to $0.13 as of August 13, the day I'm writing this.
This is a disaster for people who invested in Canwest Global, but it's an opportunity for myself and like-minded bloggers who are concerned about the concentration of media ownership in Canada.
The way I want this to work is, if I can raise $1,300 from the PayPal donations I'm asking for, I could, at today's price, buy 10,000 shares of Canwest Global. Canwest Global has 99 million shares outstanding, so I would own 0.0013% of the company. If 50 other bloggers do the same thing, that would be .06% of the company. That may not sound like much, but keep in mind that a lot of shares are held by nervous institutional investors (pension funds, for example) and mutual fund managers. Me and my fellow concerned shareholders could put shareholder proposals on the ballot, put up another slate of corporate directors, and attend shareholder meetings to ask embarrassing questions about, for example, why CEO Leonard Asper deserves to be paid $1,053,780 per year for the job that he's doing.
Now, about the "personal profit" issue; Yes, I could sell my shares and take the money any time I wanted to, but I'm not going to do that. The commitment I'm making, in return for your financial support, is that I will remain invested in Canwest Global until the objectives stated above are achieved, or a point is reached where there is no longer any chance of success. If Canwest goes under, I won't make a cent out of this. Frankly, it's because of this possibility that I'm unwilling to invest very much of my own money in this. If Canwest is bought out, the shareholders might end up with some cash; if this happens, I'll re-invest the proceeds in a similar "shareholder activism" project. And one other thing; if Canwest should pay a dividend at some time in the future, the dividend will be used to buy more Canwest shares.
So, that's the pitch. And if you don't like the idea of giving me money so I can invest it, you can always buy shares in Canwest Global yourself. Or, follow my example and take up your own collection.
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