Canadian Economy Simplified

[$alvador]

What... the fuck does any of that have to do with the Canadian economy?

 

[TinanaBoa]

Did you not read the 1.2 billion part of it?
That's just the estimated cost of the project, who knows what the actual cost of this thing is really going to be in the end.

 

[Ghett0]

What... the fuck does any of that have to do with the Canadian economy?

This is the public service. We PAY for all this stuff. This is our tax dollars going to waste. Money that COULD be spent on investment which will increase our productivity and have a tangible return on GDP and thus, the health of the economy.

What I get a kick out of is that they are making a big stink out of the Nortel site that they wanted DND to move to costing too much money, and THAT is a story for anyone interested in what really happens behind the scenes.

Coles Notes:

In... 2011 I think it was, report comes out that "Some foreign Super Power" coughcoughChinacoughcough has hacked into various institutions and corporations in the most blatant act of widespread industrial cyber-espionage ever reported. Included in the list of Canadian companies affected was an "unnamed industrial giant" coughcoughNortelcoughcough. Granted, Nortel is bleeding to death, HAS BEEN bleeding to death for 12 years, everyone and their dog knows it, but it takes a Blue whale an awful long time to bleed to death when the hole is small.

However, Nortel was, as part of their attempts to stay alive as long as possible, due to sell off a bunch of their patents. As part of their own cost-savings, they started out-sourcing a lot of their work to external contractors who were cheaper than their in-house people. In the process, it was revealed when they super-complex on Moodie drive was sold and purchased by Public Works in the hopes of moving most of National Defense there to consolidate their 40+ buildings that they work out of in Ottawa down to a maximum of 7 locations, they had to do a screening of what was there. What they found is that nearly EVERY PART of this monstrous complex of buildings is riddled with spy devices installed by the Chinese to discover exactly what was in these patents that went up for auction to determine whether it was worth bidding on, and if so, what price they would be worth.

Now, the biggest joke in all of Ottawa is the fact that everyone who works at National Defense knows this, but the Ottawa Citiizen, the local non-tabloid newspaper, and a bunch of watch dogs and advocacy groups kept on asking "How come the move to Moodie Drive is taking so long?"

Answer: Because it's a bit more expensive due to unforeseen circumstances

"WHY! HOW! WE HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW!"
Response: "We have no comment at this time"

At one point, I actually TOLD THEM WHY in a comment on their facebook page regarding an article on this very same topic, which kept popping up every couple of months, which I found hilarious because they are the ones who published the story in the first place about the "unnamed industrial giant" who was hacked by an "Unnamed Foreign power" and implied that it was "Generally accepted" that those two parties were Nortel and China, respectively.

So finally, months and months later, the Citizen finally publishes a story that states "Moodie Drive moves costs far greater than expected due to Security retro-fitting cost estimates in making the site ready for National Defense."

This is, to me, hilarious. You get these highly uninformed lobbyist groups who demand a more responsible government and austerity measures (Usually who don't know what the fuck they are talking about and are just making a lot of noise because they have this idea that there is something wrong with the government so they want to look smart by yelling at them all the time) who were, basically, trying to force the government hand into moving our National Defense department into a building that is riddled with security risk and spyware devices.

Because that's a great way to save a buck. Put all your most sensitive data, amounting the the BILLIONS and BILLIONS of dollars of book value into the least secure location in the entire Capital Region. And EVERYONE knew that this site was not properly secured, from Nortel employees to DND employees to Public Works to people who read THEIR OWN NEWSPAPER, but the people at the Citizen just couldn't figure out the big mystery in 1 + 1 = ?

I can only assume that no one who was credible enough of a source wanted to go on record so they can write this story, because NO ONE can be that stupid.

The rub? The cost on retro-fitting Moodie and moving DND there was estimated at about $800 million, up from I think $500 to buy the spot and move everyone there.

And yet, $1.2 billion site to house a Spy Agency that no one really knows about who are, essentially, spying on all of us..... no one knows, no one cares, no one says a thing.

And people wonder why the people in the know laugh at and/or ignore advocacy groups and lobbyists with their bleeding hearts who are always bitching and moaning about the government's decisions. Generally, when they open their mouths, they reveal how naive and ignorant they really are, and why tell them the truth and give them an opportunity to actually say something intelligent in their arguments against you when instead, you can remain silent and let them make themselves look ridiculous every time they speak?

 

[$alvador]

This is the public service. We PAY for all this stuff. This is our tax dollars going to waste. Money that COULD be spent on investment which will increase our productivity and have a tangible return on GDP and thus, the health of the economy.

and that's a drop in the bucket next to the deficit the current government has already racked up so far. i don't understand what the purpose of ranting about this is. the NDP is the only party with a chance right now to oppose shit like this, and they did pretty well in the last election. that aside entirely, who is to say this new CSEC building is a bad idea? we live in an age where information is everything, and we don't have a choice but to trust our democratically-elected government to do things with our money that benefit the citizens of Canada. chances are, an agency like CSEC is one of the few that can act in our best interests outside the influence of corporate lobbying.

Personally I think the issue has been way overblown. First off, if you use Google you're willingly providing loads of your information to a publicly-owned corporation. Generally speaking, it's kind of silly to bitch about the granularity of privacy settings when you've already crossed that line. Secondly, nothing we do on the internet has ever been private. It's public domain by nature, so I can't imagine why anyone would find it unsettling that a government agency specifically created to sort through data is perusing what data requests people are making. At the end of the day, I'd rather CSEC be sorting my URL requests into their big pile of "irrelevant traffic data to be purged" than Google, which collects information from people's smartphones for the purpose of advertising to them.

 

[Ghett0]

I don't use Google. I didn't fall for this "Gmail is so superior to hotmail" nonsense. It's an email account, How fancy can it get?

The bottom line is, metadata is the new way to collect information, whether you like it or not. Why would a company spend all kinds of bling to get some joint to use call centers to hold these dickless surveys that everyone hates and deal with DERPS getting paid minimum wage to fuck them up and end up with skewed data? Instead, you make some lame ass Facebook game and get a bunch of idiots to provide all the information they want VOLUNTARILY, signing it all away in their EUA because they want to feel like their opinion means something (or play some dumb ass game)

Oh, and just an observation, but a vote for the NDP is a vote for a larger Deficit. They are a "SPEND SPEND SPEND" party and that money comes from a larger deficit. If you watch the video, you will notice that the Harper government has actually reduced the deficit. I don't vote for the Harper government, but I'm not going to deprive them of the laurels they have earned.

The Liberals are also traditionally a "Spend first" government, and though they might drift to the center as all governments tend to do if they get a few terms under their belt, JT seems to be the "Spend my way into being popular" type of guy as opposed to a "Make tough decisions for the good of the people" kind of leader.

That's not how I would LIKE to see things, but that is how it is. I voted NDP because the NDP rep in my constituency represents me and my interests best; Paul Dewar is one hell of an MP. Having an NDP government, however, would be a fuckin disaster now that Jack Layton is dead. The head of the snake has been cut off, and it will writhe and thrash until a new head is grown. John Mulclair is a fuckin tool, and though he has the teeth to be a good leader of the opposition, he's too much of a numpty to be in charge of anything other than a Micky D's, IMO.