Your communication rights - use them follow this link for the full crtc ruling . A move in the right direction for customers at long last - PR
Telecom Decision CRTC 2006-XX: "Your right to register a dispute or complaint
You have the right to dispute charges and to file a complaint about the service you receive. There are processes in place to assist you if you are having difficulties getting service or answers from your phone company.
Disputing phone charges
You have the right to dispute any telephone charges on your billing statement that you believe are incorrect. If you dispute a telephone charge, the phone company will investigate your claims, and will make the results of its investigation available to you. The phone company cannot consider the charges that you are disputing to be past due, but you are required to pay the undisputed portion of your bill.
As a general rule, the phone company cannot threaten to suspend or cut off your phone service over any amounts that you are disputing (see 'Your rights when the phone company wants to cut off your phone service' section).
Various scams and frauds exist that may affect your telephone service and could lead to additional charges on your phone bill. You are responsible for keeping yourself informed and protecting yourself against various scams and fraud. For more information about known scams and fraud, contact your phone company.
Complaints
You also have the right to complain to the phone company if you have any problems with the service you receive. If you have a dispute or complaint, the first step is to speak to your phone company. If the representative handling your call cannot resolve the problem to your satisfaction, you can ask to speak to the service manager or a supervisor in the customer service department.
If you are still not satisfied with the answer you are getting, you can contact the CRTC. The CRTC will ask the phone company to respond to your concern shortly thereafter. You should receive "
Thursday, August 31, 2006
CRTC unveils phone "Bill of Rights"
If you are tired of being abused by the telephone monopoly -It seems that you ahve some tools to fight back . Please do so
PR
CRTC unveils phone "Bill of Rights": "CRTC unveils phone 'Bill of Rights'
16 rights cover everything from rules about protecting privacy to right to service for disabled"
PR
CRTC unveils phone "Bill of Rights": "CRTC unveils phone 'Bill of Rights'
16 rights cover everything from rules about protecting privacy to right to service for disabled"
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Privacy advocates warn of Big Brother
Why do we bother with a bill of rights? PR Privacy advocates warn of Big Brother: "Internet and privacy experts also fear the federal government will revamp Internet surveillance legislation as early as this fall, giving law enforcement officials and Canadian Security and Intelligence Service agents access to personal information without a warrant.
Deisman, an Internet law expert, says Internet providers have been 'intimidated' into complying with the incoming surveillance act.
'There were even suggestions that Internet service providers would have to keep people on staff to respond to police warrants on a 24-7 basis,' he said.
'If we read between the lines of this legislation, this is how the government has scared them into doing this on their own.' "
Deisman, an Internet law expert, says Internet providers have been 'intimidated' into complying with the incoming surveillance act.
'There were even suggestions that Internet service providers would have to keep people on staff to respond to police warrants on a 24-7 basis,' he said.
'If we read between the lines of this legislation, this is how the government has scared them into doing this on their own.' "
Value for money? Which deadbeat are you happy with?
Ombudsman Rips Family Responsibility Office
Ontario’s Ombudsman, André Marin, released a scathing report today on the province’s Family Responsibility Office (FRO).The agency is charged with enforcing child support orders in the province and, Marin found, is fundamentally failing to do its job.Here are a few facts and quotes from Marin’s press conference.
Support payment arrears are at an “all-time historical high” of $1.35 billion because of the agency’s “lackadaisical” attitude toward collection.
Welfare payments are up $200 million as a consequence and “dead beats in this province have been having a free ride on the backs the citizens of Ontario,” he said.
Just 70 per cent of the 185,000 support orders filed annually with the office are compliant, which the FRO defines as someone who pays at least 85 per cent of order. Marin found one instance where a prison inmate was deemed to be “compliant” because he was in no position to pay, and thus took the agency’s numbers “with a grain of salt.”
When confronted with specific problems, FRO offered “platitudinous excuses or outright evasions,” Marin said.“I can tell you for the last decade it has been the bane of existence for overseers in this province,” he said.“It has been a money pit for the government and it has been the source of immense frustration for those receiving child support payments.”“We need to fix this and put it to rest once and for all,” Marin said.
Ontario’s Ombudsman, André Marin, released a scathing report today on the province’s Family Responsibility Office (FRO).The agency is charged with enforcing child support orders in the province and, Marin found, is fundamentally failing to do its job.Here are a few facts and quotes from Marin’s press conference.
Support payment arrears are at an “all-time historical high” of $1.35 billion because of the agency’s “lackadaisical” attitude toward collection.
Welfare payments are up $200 million as a consequence and “dead beats in this province have been having a free ride on the backs the citizens of Ontario,” he said.
Just 70 per cent of the 185,000 support orders filed annually with the office are compliant, which the FRO defines as someone who pays at least 85 per cent of order. Marin found one instance where a prison inmate was deemed to be “compliant” because he was in no position to pay, and thus took the agency’s numbers “with a grain of salt.”
When confronted with specific problems, FRO offered “platitudinous excuses or outright evasions,” Marin said.“I can tell you for the last decade it has been the bane of existence for overseers in this province,” he said.“It has been a money pit for the government and it has been the source of immense frustration for those receiving child support payments.”“We need to fix this and put it to rest once and for all,” Marin said.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Alberta Mounties retain jobs despite criminal convictions, investigation finds
are there different standards for government organizations? PR
Alberta Mounties retain jobs despite criminal convictions, investigation finds: "Alberta Mounties retain jobs despite criminal convictions, investigation finds
* * * * Jason van Rassel, CanWest News Service; Calgary Herald
Published: Monday, August 07, 2006
CALGARY -- Assault and impaired driving convictions led to reprimands and pay deductions but no firings for Alberta RCMP members disciplined in the past 18 months.
The Calgary Herald used access-to-information legislation to obtain written decisions involving 10 Alberta RCMP members who have been disciplined since the beginning of 2005 four of whom were also criminally charged in connection with their conduct.
During the past 18 months, nine officers and one civilian employee appeared before a three-member RCMP panel that hears cases alleging serious breaches of the force's code of conduct."
Alberta Mounties retain jobs despite criminal convictions, investigation finds: "Alberta Mounties retain jobs despite criminal convictions, investigation finds
* * * * Jason van Rassel, CanWest News Service; Calgary Herald
Published: Monday, August 07, 2006
CALGARY -- Assault and impaired driving convictions led to reprimands and pay deductions but no firings for Alberta RCMP members disciplined in the past 18 months.
The Calgary Herald used access-to-information legislation to obtain written decisions involving 10 Alberta RCMP members who have been disciplined since the beginning of 2005 four of whom were also criminally charged in connection with their conduct.
During the past 18 months, nine officers and one civilian employee appeared before a three-member RCMP panel that hears cases alleging serious breaches of the force's code of conduct."
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Creative approaches to age discrimination
Job search techniques: Smashing the gray ceiling
Article By: Virginia Bola
For decades, women have chaffed at the invisible glass ceiling which prevents their moving into the high executive brackets that their competence, knowledge and skills have earned. The same amorphous barrier confronts older workers both in terms of advancement within a company and, most especially, when a job change is required. There is an adage in the military that if a rank above major has not been obtained within 20 years, it never will be. The ranks of early military retirees are sprinkled with majors who knew that 10 or 15 more years would never bring a Colonel's cluster.
How can such "unwritten rules" be fought? No lawsuit can prove that you were the best individual for the job. No employer is unintelligent enough to state that your age is the stumbling block. You sense the discrimination, you become aware of the sideways glances and the emotional response of an interviewer, but you feel powerless to change their perspective and their bias.
Sitting across an interviewing desk, often facing an individual the same age as your son, your esteem erodes and your confidence self-destructs. Impotent, humiliated, and angry, you accept that nothing you can say is going to change anything. You continue job hunting with a mounting sense of frustration and an indisputable anticipation of failure.
If you have nothing to lose, why not attack the problem head-on? Prejudice and discrimination survive only in the silence of unexamined judgments and, often unconscious, illogic. Confront the situation and at least you create the opportunity for the white light of reason to enter the fray.
Try these approaches to prompt more honest interaction and possibly more rational conclusions.
1. You need to be the one to put the age issue on the table. Offer it gently, as one area of needed exploration regarding why you fit the employer's needs. Bring it up objectively, as something that can be discussed unemotionally, without triggering lethal interviewer defensiveness.
2. Acknowledge your age as a basis for emphasizing the experience of a lifetime and the value that such experience can provide to any employer. Concentrate on describing how business has changed over the course of years and how deftly you have adapted to those changes and incorporated new ideas and technical advancements into your work performance.
3. Acknowledge common misperceptions about the weaknesses of age: hard-to-break habits, lack of flexibility, technological ignorance, and distrust of authority, especially if young. Then use your sales ability to eliminate those misperceptions, probably already resonating in the interviewer's head.
Habits: Remind your host of the ability to adapt and reshape yourself which has kept your thinking young. Stress your relish for new challenges and innovative approaches. Cite some examples from your past about how smoothly you have been able to change to new workflows and procedures.
Flexibility: Discuss your dislike of unproductive routine and your preference for trying new methods of approaching tasks. Stress those times in the past when you were able to develop creative solutions to long-term problems and how your resourcefulness helped your previous employers.
Technology: Identify new technical advances within your field and address how you have internalized those changes. If you have successfully transitioned from dictating to a secretary to email and instant messaging, if you have moved from a manual adding machine to competent computer literacy, then small changes like learning new software or novel production systems should be a snap.
Authority issues: You have attained authority in the past and you have also worked under a variety of supervisors in your long career life. Clarify your relationship with power: the respect you extend to those who are knowledgeable, the loyalty and support you offer any leader of your team, the self-respect you enjoy which allows you to participate in group goals enthusiastically without feeling that you need to be in charge or command the top title.
4. Once you have demolished the myths of age, emphasize its strengths: reliability, mature judgment, lack of impulsivity, timeliness, a strong work ethic, and the ability to perform without outside distractions such as personal relationship problems, child commitments, and social responsibilities.
Undoubtedly, there are individuals out there who have their own issues with hiring someone who reminds them of their father or who have had problems in the past with an underperforming older worker who was difficult to terminate. There will always be those you cannot reach, no matter how convincing your logic and your presentation.
There are many more who are open-minded and seek not to make rash judgments. Address their semi-conscious fears face to face and the interview may end successfully - for both you and your lucky new employer.
Virginia Bola operated a rehabilitation company for 20 years, developing innovative job search techniques for disabled workers, while serving as a respected Vocational Expert in Administrative, Civil and Workers' Compensation Courts. Author of an interactive and emotionally supportive workbook, The Wolf at the Door: An Unemployment Survival Manual, and a monthly ezine, The Worker's Edge, she can be reached at http://www.virginiabola.com/
Article By: Virginia Bola
For decades, women have chaffed at the invisible glass ceiling which prevents their moving into the high executive brackets that their competence, knowledge and skills have earned. The same amorphous barrier confronts older workers both in terms of advancement within a company and, most especially, when a job change is required. There is an adage in the military that if a rank above major has not been obtained within 20 years, it never will be. The ranks of early military retirees are sprinkled with majors who knew that 10 or 15 more years would never bring a Colonel's cluster.
How can such "unwritten rules" be fought? No lawsuit can prove that you were the best individual for the job. No employer is unintelligent enough to state that your age is the stumbling block. You sense the discrimination, you become aware of the sideways glances and the emotional response of an interviewer, but you feel powerless to change their perspective and their bias.
Sitting across an interviewing desk, often facing an individual the same age as your son, your esteem erodes and your confidence self-destructs. Impotent, humiliated, and angry, you accept that nothing you can say is going to change anything. You continue job hunting with a mounting sense of frustration and an indisputable anticipation of failure.
If you have nothing to lose, why not attack the problem head-on? Prejudice and discrimination survive only in the silence of unexamined judgments and, often unconscious, illogic. Confront the situation and at least you create the opportunity for the white light of reason to enter the fray.
Try these approaches to prompt more honest interaction and possibly more rational conclusions.
1. You need to be the one to put the age issue on the table. Offer it gently, as one area of needed exploration regarding why you fit the employer's needs. Bring it up objectively, as something that can be discussed unemotionally, without triggering lethal interviewer defensiveness.
2. Acknowledge your age as a basis for emphasizing the experience of a lifetime and the value that such experience can provide to any employer. Concentrate on describing how business has changed over the course of years and how deftly you have adapted to those changes and incorporated new ideas and technical advancements into your work performance.
3. Acknowledge common misperceptions about the weaknesses of age: hard-to-break habits, lack of flexibility, technological ignorance, and distrust of authority, especially if young. Then use your sales ability to eliminate those misperceptions, probably already resonating in the interviewer's head.
Habits: Remind your host of the ability to adapt and reshape yourself which has kept your thinking young. Stress your relish for new challenges and innovative approaches. Cite some examples from your past about how smoothly you have been able to change to new workflows and procedures.
Flexibility: Discuss your dislike of unproductive routine and your preference for trying new methods of approaching tasks. Stress those times in the past when you were able to develop creative solutions to long-term problems and how your resourcefulness helped your previous employers.
Technology: Identify new technical advances within your field and address how you have internalized those changes. If you have successfully transitioned from dictating to a secretary to email and instant messaging, if you have moved from a manual adding machine to competent computer literacy, then small changes like learning new software or novel production systems should be a snap.
Authority issues: You have attained authority in the past and you have also worked under a variety of supervisors in your long career life. Clarify your relationship with power: the respect you extend to those who are knowledgeable, the loyalty and support you offer any leader of your team, the self-respect you enjoy which allows you to participate in group goals enthusiastically without feeling that you need to be in charge or command the top title.
4. Once you have demolished the myths of age, emphasize its strengths: reliability, mature judgment, lack of impulsivity, timeliness, a strong work ethic, and the ability to perform without outside distractions such as personal relationship problems, child commitments, and social responsibilities.
Undoubtedly, there are individuals out there who have their own issues with hiring someone who reminds them of their father or who have had problems in the past with an underperforming older worker who was difficult to terminate. There will always be those you cannot reach, no matter how convincing your logic and your presentation.
There are many more who are open-minded and seek not to make rash judgments. Address their semi-conscious fears face to face and the interview may end successfully - for both you and your lucky new employer.
Virginia Bola operated a rehabilitation company for 20 years, developing innovative job search techniques for disabled workers, while serving as a respected Vocational Expert in Administrative, Civil and Workers' Compensation Courts. Author of an interactive and emotionally supportive workbook, The Wolf at the Door: An Unemployment Survival Manual, and a monthly ezine, The Worker's Edge, she can be reached at http://www.virginiabola.com/
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
The Epoch Times | Worse Than Any Nightmare�Journalist Quits China to Expose Concentration Camp Horrors and Bird Flu Coverup
There is true evil in the world. Conentration camps flourish and prisoners organs are harvested for profit. Be aware , tell others of the horror and try to stop it PR
The Epoch Times Worse Than Any Nightmare�Journalist Quits China to Expose Concentration Camp Horrors and Bird Flu Coverup: "Worse Than Any Nightmare�Journalist Quits China to Expose Concentration Camp Horrors and Bird Flu Coverup
Over 6,000 Falun Gong Practitioners Detained in Secret Concentration Camp in China; 425 Bird Flu Patients in Two Facilities
Epoch Times StaffMar 10, 2006
A reporter from China who worked for a Japanese television news agency and specialized in Chinese news recently escaped to the United States after being wanted in China for reporting on controversial issues. (The Epoch Times)
[High-resolution image ] A long-time reporter who worked for a Japanese television news agency and specialized in news on China told The Epoch Times that some little-known and very frightening things are happening in China today. To protect his identity, The Epoch Times will refer to him as Mr. R."
The Epoch Times Worse Than Any Nightmare�Journalist Quits China to Expose Concentration Camp Horrors and Bird Flu Coverup: "Worse Than Any Nightmare�Journalist Quits China to Expose Concentration Camp Horrors and Bird Flu Coverup
Over 6,000 Falun Gong Practitioners Detained in Secret Concentration Camp in China; 425 Bird Flu Patients in Two Facilities
Epoch Times StaffMar 10, 2006
A reporter from China who worked for a Japanese television news agency and specialized in Chinese news recently escaped to the United States after being wanted in China for reporting on controversial issues. (The Epoch Times)
[High-resolution image ] A long-time reporter who worked for a Japanese television news agency and specialized in news on China told The Epoch Times that some little-known and very frightening things are happening in China today. To protect his identity, The Epoch Times will refer to him as Mr. R."
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