Quebec unions at work

You may have come here by googling “why are unions bad?”

If a private company was contracted for snow removal, they certainly wouldn’t be wasting labour costs like this (and any city would be foolish to pay for snow removal via a private company when there’s no snow!)

Why are they bound by the public sector union like this? “Work” seems to be a “right” even when there’s no work to do!

According to the YouTube uploader, this video was taken at the Villeray neighbourhood, close to St-Michel and Jean-Talon in Montreal.

LPC blogger issue unresolved

Late last week, I wrote about an email received by Dr. Roy regarding his interest in covering the upcoming Liberal convention as a blogger. He received a response from the Liberal Party stating that,

In other words, freelancers and bloggers must be “sponsored” by the MSM. After republishing his email, with his permission, I took to twitter to raise awareness of how this was an unprecedented move on behalf of any modern mainstream North American political party.

[quotetweet tweetid=147715650163449858]

The issue caused quite a stir on twitter, with Liberal partisans, MSM journalists, and others criticizing the Liberal Party for their policy. But then, in the midst of the stir, seeking to perhaps clarify, the Liberals issued this tweet,

[quotetweet tweetid=147741960642363392]

I took this as a positive sign, yet still questioned whether or not a policy change had been enacted by the Liberals. So, I emailed their media address with the following,

Here is the response I received today,

There it is. No policy change.

For reference, here are some of the tweets from all walks condemning this move,

[quotetweet tweetid=147728279850323970]

[quotetweet tweetid=147732751024533504]

[quotetweet tweetid=147729922192982016]

This tweet, which I used to raise awareness of the issue was retweeted 78 times,

[quotetweet tweetid=147731138385948674]

UPDATE: For a matter of comparison, here was the CPC policy for bloggers during their last convention,

Deadline for Blogger Registration May 27, 2011

Conservative Party of Canada recognizes the growing importance of bloggers in sending our vision to Canadians. As a result, for the 2011 Conservative Party of Canada’s National Policy Convention we will be formally accrediting bloggers.

The accreditation of bloggers will be based on, but not limited to: interest; space availability at the convention; the readership and influence of a blog; and the amount of original content the blog typically generates.

Bloggers who would like to register for accreditation must submit a request by email to Fred DeLorey, Director of Communications for the Conservative Party of Canada at freddelorey@conservative.ca

UPDATE: Jeff Jedras writes a great post on this

UPDATE: LPC Presidential candidate Mike Crawley weighs in,

[quotetweet tweetid=149238593959890944]

LPC won’t accredit bloggers at convention

I’ve learned the news today that the Liberal Party of Canada will host the first modern political convention that doesn’t accredit bloggers. Our friend Dr. Roy received a letter from the party rejecting his request for accreditation. I’ve shared it with his permission below,

I don’t think this is the right thing to do. I was invited by the Liberal Party in 2006 to blog about their leadership convention and I had a blast doing it. The Blogging Tories produced a lot of video and blogs regarding the convention.

The Liberal Party is rebuilding. It needs to engage with new media and those that have influence on the various platforms with respect to Canadian politics.

I suspect that the Liberal decision is related to delegate fees; Liberal bloggers will likely pay the delegate fee anyway. Other bloggers are faced with paying an >$1000 observer fee.

I took to twitter this morning to express disappointment with the Liberal Party decision.

UPDATE: Success? The Liberal Party looks to have reversed its decision regarding bloggers and will may now allow them to register for media credentials. However, do they mean that bloggers and freelancers need not be sponsored by a mainstream media news outlet? I will try to register as media for this convention and report back the results.

@liberal_party: Bloggers welcome at #LPC convention! through media accred or observer status. Contact media@liberal.ca