2011 was a rough year, and I’ve not really recovered yet. But here are the numbers, such as they are.
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 13,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 5 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Life’s been twisted and turned upside down over the last few weeks and I’ve lost the will to blog.
Maybe I’ll be back again soon. Maybe I won’t.
The opposition parties started complaining yesterday after it was discovered that studies are showing that Smart Meters have caused most households to spend more on electricity, rather than less. NDP leader Andrea Horwath ranted:
”Here we have a system that’s costing us $1 billion and people aren’t getting the benefit in cost savings and they’re not getting the benefit in conservation. It’s a complete failure.”
And apparently Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak “literally laughed out loud” at the idea that Smart Meters were saving people money. He’s even promised that, if elected, his party would end the program.
But here’s the thing… Smart Meters were never intended to save everyone money. In fact, they literally cannot save everybody money.
Don’t believe me? Lets consider:
Smart meters allow the system to keep a record of when electricity is being used, in addition to how much. So you can see that you used x amount of electricity between 7am and 12pm, for example. Because of that, the utility company can reliably set up a tiered system that charges you more for electricity during peak times, and less during off-peak times. And your bill can be broken down to show exactly what you used, and when. It’s an incentive-based program; the incentive being the high price associated with peak periods.
The idea is that when you see how much it costs to use electricity during peak times, you will make the effort to change your own habits, so that you use less when it is more expensive and more when it is less expensive.
The key here is that it is up to the consumers to make sure that they change their own habits. If you don’t change your usage to take advantage of the system, then not only will you not save money, you will likely spend even more money.
So all the people who saw a rise in costs associated with the Smart Meter program simply did not use it to their own advantage – they didn’t change their habits. They might believe that they have all sorts of good reasons for not changing their habits, but the bottom line is that the choice was theirs to make – and they chose convenience over cost.
But this isn’t unexpected. The government knew well ahead of time that this would be the case. In fact, the Smart Meter system relies on the presumption that most people will not change their habits.
Think about it: the system assigns costs based on so-called peak and off-peak periods. Lets say for simplicity that early in the morning and late at night are the off-peak period, and the middle of the day is the peak period. The program was designed to give an incentive for people to use more during the early morning or late at night.
But if everyone actually switched their habits, then the morning and night would become the new peak period. It doesn’t cost the utility more to create electricity during the day, it simply charges you more during times when there is the highest demand. So if everyone started demanding more during what was originally labeled an off-peak period, it wouldn’t be an off-peak period anymore, would it?
The system presumes that there will always be more people willing to accept the cost as a matter of convenience, and rewards people who make an effort to change their habits.
It is disappointing that our politicians are not able to, or not willing to, understand this.
You may recall last week’s post about the CRTC’s decision to deny Shaw the right to air National Geographic Wild in Canada. The CRTC argued that there are already two other Canadian wild-life channels available which might lose viewership to the American National Geographic channel.
Okay, that’s lame, but whatever – that’s how the CRTC rolls.
Fast-foward to this week and we see that The Canadian Press is announcing that Swiss Chalet will be launching a 24-hour roasted chicken channel on Monday. The channel will be nothing more than 2 rows of chickens roasting on an open flame – much like those fireplace recordings that play at Christmas – and it will run for 13 weeks.
Really.
Now lets consider this for a second… a third wild-life channel is disallowed because it lacks enough Canadian content. But a channel with nothing but roasting chickens is completely fine?
I guess the chickens are were all Canadians?
But hypocracy aside, what really scares me is that a new channel is being created for the purpose of airing nothing more than a single commercial. Really, that’s all this is. Swiss Chalet is literally buying 13 weeks of 24 hour airtime on a dedicated channel, just to air a single, chicken-based commercial. With no actual entertainment value at all.
A few weeks back I sent the CRTC a message telling them what I think of their ruling to allow Bell Canada to force Usage-based Billing on the customers of its competition. Not long after that Tony Clement came out and told the CRTC just what he thought about it too – and they “agreed” to a review.
Well, that review is now. Just yesterday I recieved this email:
Hello
Thank you for taking the time to contact the CRTC to express your concerns regarding the billing practices of wholesale Internet services. In light of the concerns expressed by Canadians regarding this issue, the Commission has decided to review its own decision.
We therefore invite you to participate in the review by submitting your comments at https://services.crtc.gc.ca/pub/Intervention/Submission-Soumission.aspx?lang=e&EventNo=2011-77&EventType=Notice#Step0. Comments must be received prior to April 29, 2011. Note that all information you provide as part of this public process, including any personal information, becomes part of a publicly accessible file and will be posted on the Commission’s website. We also include links to the CRTC news release http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/com100/2011/r110208.htm as well as Telecom Notice of Consultation CRTC 2011-77 http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2011/2011-77.htm for your information.
Yours truly,
Suzanne Papineau
CRTC Client Services1-877-249-2782 /télécopieur/facsimile 819-994-0218
Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des télécommunications canadiennes / Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0N2
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission / Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0N2
Gouvernement du Canada / Government of Canada
On the surface this seems good – the CRTC appears to be willing to hear what regular Canadians think about the issue.
But wait a minute… didn’t I already tell them what I think? That is, after all, the whole reason they sent me the email in the first place.
I guess all the complaints that were sent in weeks ago don’t count now, because they were sent before the review processes was started.
So… send in your complaints again! Don’t let the CRTC ignore your voice just because you were willing to speak up early. And if you didn’t complain before, make sure you do now! Before 29 April!
Seems like in Ottawa the only people who get Family Day off are the bus drivers…
I know exactly one person who doesn’t have to work today. And on my way to work this morning, all the regular people were about waiting for the bus.
Yet, somehow OC Transpo gets away with having limited service?
There has been a lot of talk lately about the CRTC and it’s decisions – most notably ones concerning the operation of Wind Mobile in Canada and the allowance of Usage-based Bill by Internet Service Providers.
Most of the discussion has focused on the idea that more competition in Canadian industries is better than less competition. And of course, every high school economic text-book says exactly that. More competition means that companies will have to provide as much value to the consumer as possible, otherwise consumers will just look somewhere else.
Fine. But here is the problem. The CRTC was not created to foster competition. Really.
Want proof? Okay! On Tuesday (16 Feb) the CRTC denied a request by Shaw Communications to add National Geographic Wild to its list of offerings for satellite services in Canada. Unfortunately, that particular channel is considered foreign content. According to Public Notice 2000-173, the CRTC will not allow any non-Canadian content to be distributed if it will compete with pre-existing Canadian content.
That’s right – the CRTC openly denies competition if it appears to come from outside the country.
So what does that mean for Canadians? It means that we have to watch Animal Planet or Oasis HD, because they are not associated with National Geographic. Nevermind the fact that National Geographic has become the defacto standard for reporting on wildlife and the greater world around us – reporting that focuses 90% of its effort on content from outside North America.
In the beginning, the reasoning for creating a body to protect Canadian content seemed like a good idea. People were afraid that we would become too engrossed in American newspaper, magazine, television and radio industries. Unfortunately, a major consequence was overlooked: stifling competition from the strongest competitor means that our own industry can relax. And that is not good for Canadians.
So what is the answer? We definitely don’t want our own industries to fail. Afterall, they keep a lot of us working. But clearly denying Canadians from viewing American content is becoming more and more difficult. I personally gave up television proper many years ago and have since found all of my content online, where it is CRTC free. That doesn’t mean that I don’t get Canadian content – not at all – it just means that I only get the Canadian content that is up to the standards that I expect.
And this is where the world is going. I think that – regardless of content rule – the television industry is going to have some hard times ahead as online content becomes easier to find. We need to stop concerning ourselves with where content comes from, and focus on attracting consumers to cable and satellite providers generally. They’ve already lost me and most of my friends. If the trend continues, we’ll soon have an awful lot of people looking to switch industries.
… because she has long forgotten the “thought” that counted at Christmas.
Antisocial Thoughts 
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