The Truth About the Kanata Lakes Golf Course Development Proposal

Many of you probably see the opposition to replacing the Kanata Lakes golf course with housing as just a NIMBY response of a bunch of privileged entitled suburbanites living in their low density paradise. After all golf courses are not usually considered environmentally friendly and there is a real need for more housing, though whether we need more low density suburban housing is a different question.

However there is a much bigger backstory to this whole issue relating to larger issues of environmental protection and land developers' powers over communities and municipal governments.

All of Kanata Lakes (originally referred to as Marchwood-Lakeside in planning documents), including the golf course, was zoned as Environmental Protection before the developers flexed their muscle threatening to go to the Ontario Municipal Board to get them to overrule the environmental zoning unless the municipal authorities allowed them to develop the land. The result was the flawed 40% agreement applying to Kanata Lakes/South March Highlands.. This was supposedly to protect the most environmentally sensitive lands yet the municipal authorities allowed the developer to include a golf course in that 40% protected “greenspace”. Much of the rest of the 40% was lands the developer did not want to develop anyway. I suppose we should be thankful homeowners lawns were not also included in the 40%.

The fact is we only have the South March Highlands Conservation Forest because the municipality bought those lands as that was the only way to protect them as environmental zoning is almost meaningless in Ontario.

For example a portion of the South March Highlands Conservation Forest within the Trillium Woods was zoned Environmental Protection. When the municipality denied permission to develop it the developer went to the OMB and had the zoning overturned and the municipality was forced to buy the land to protect it from development.

The golf course represents a contractual agreement by the developer (passed on to it's successors) to protect 40% of the total Kanata Lakes/South March Highlands lands as “greenspace”. To allow that 40% protected “greenspace” to be reduced even further would be to admit that communities have absolutely no control over land development and that there are virtually no protections for environmentally important lands in Ontario. It would be to say to the land development industry - go ahead do whatever you want, we are not even going to try to give communities a say in local development decisions anymore.

The solution is not to just acquiesce because trading a golf course for housing might be a good idea but to use this as an opportunity to further strengthen the 40% agreement by swapping the protected golf course lands for more environmentally important lands in the South March Highlands. While most of the KNL (Urbandale/Richcraft) lands are probably too far along in the development stage to be protected there is an environmentally significant portion of lands north of the South March Highlands Conservation Forest including a significant block of land owned by Metcalfe Realty that is zoned Environmental Protection.

The 2008 Brunton report said this about these lands:

Even at 400 ha, the Conservation Forest is presently too small to fully represent South March Highlands natural features and functions. A substantial proportion of that deficiency, however, is represented in the area immediately east and north of Heron Pond. Were the contributions of that area included within those of the present Conservation Forest, total protected floristic representation would rise to 98%. Significant species representation would also increase considerably, rising to 85% of the South March Highlands total. Substantially better representation of Blanding’s Turtle breeding habitat would also be achieved. Conservation management of this adjacent landscape is clearly a desirable objective of impact mitigation for the Conservation Forest.

It is recommended that management planning consider mechanisms for incorporating and protecting the ecological contributions of adjacent lands, particularly those to the north, to minimize negative impacts of the unnatural shape of the Conservation Forest.

Natural environment assessment (existing conditions):

South March Highlands Conservation Forest, Kanata,Ottawa, Ontario, May 2008, Daniel F. Brunton, Brunton Consulting Services, Ottawa, Ontario)

My understanding is that the municipal government has been trying to purchase that land but the landowner wants to sell it as a price suitable for development lands and the municipality wants to buy it at it's value as land zoned Environmental Protection.

I would propose that the current owner of the Kanata Lakes golf course purchase that land and donate it to the city (for inclusion in the South March Highlands Conservation Forest) to replace the golf course lands within the 40% agreement and that the golf course lands then be zoned for housing.

This is not quite a win win situation as no doubt it will not satisfy most of the current neighbours of the golf course, but it will allow for new housing and protect more environmentally important lands while strengthening the spirit of the 40% agreement.

Note: the terms municipality and municipal authorities, etc. are used above because over the time period involved the municipal jurisdiction went through numerous reorganizations from City of Kanata to a regional government model to the current enlarged City of Ottawa. It should also be noted that the ownership of lands comprising Kanata Lakes have passed through several developers over the years.

Further Background Information

Kanata Lakes 40% Plan, City of Ottawa

(click/double click on image to enlarge)

South Mach Highlands Zoning Map
 

(click/double click on image to enlarge)

 Zoning Codes Used on Map
RESIDENTIAL ZONES
Residential Third Density Zone R3
Residential Fifth Density Zone R5
OPEN SPACE AND LEISURE ZONES
Parks and Open Space Zone O1
ENVIRONMENTAL ZONE
Environmental Protection Zone EP
RURAL ZONES
Agricultural Zone AG
Rural Residential RR
Rural Countryside Zone RU
OTHER ZONES
Development Reserve Zone DR


Comprehensive Map of the South March Highlands

(click/double click on image to enlarge) 

THE FIFTH COLUMN: Saving the South March Highlands: Looking to the Future

THE FIFTH COLUMN: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About The South March Highlands

THE FIFTH COLUMN Everything I have written on The South March Highlands and The South March Highlands Management Plan

Federal Election 2019 Reflections

The big surprise of the election has to be the Bloc Québécois resurgence, although I am sure they probably saw it coming even if the rest of us didn't. This certainly makes leader Yves-François Blanchet's position secure.

The other surprise was the late campaign resurgence of the New Democratic Party under leader Jagmeet Singh. I am sure many New Democrats are thinking if only they had another week of the campaign as his popularity surge does not seem to have peaked yet. If before the election there was uncertainty over whether they had made the right choice he has proven himself and his leadership is certainly secure now.

The Green Party under Elizabeth May is a different matter altogether. This was the election they were supposed to make a breakthrough and it proved not to be. While Elizabeth May may be a saint to many Greens, others have questioned her “leadership style”, to put it politely. To many the Green Party is Elizabeth May and that may be a problem in itself. The question for the future of the party may be is there a Green Party beyond Elizabeth May.

As for the upstart People’s Party of Canada (aka the “Mad Max party” or the “I'll get you Andrew Scheer party”), it went down in flames with even leader Maxime Bernier losing the seat he won as a Conservative in the last election. There will be no leadership change here as you cannot have anyone else but Max Bernier lead the Max Bernier party. What we will likely see is brave statements about this being their first election and they will be better organized next time, followed by the party slowly fading away.

This was supposed to be the election the Conservative Party under Andrew Scheer formed government, considering Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau's recent SNC-Lavalin and brown face scandals, to name just two. But that was not to be, leaving Max Bernier with at least something to celebrate. The knives were already out for Andrew Scheer during the last week of the campaign as many Conservatives foresaw what was coming. But it is not only leadership the Conservatives have to change, they need to find a way to move beyond their social conservative base that just scares away other voters.

As for the apparent winner, Liberal Party leader, and Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, the big question is going to be did he win a minority or lose a majority. To many observers this is the election where more people voted against the Conservatives than voted against the Liberals. It may indeed have been an election where the Liberals won despite, not because of, Justin Trudeau. I see it as similar to the last election Kathleen Wynne's Liberals won in Ontario. Discontent with her leadership of the province was only going to grow and she did not see it was time to step down and let the Liberals re-brand under a new leader if they hoped to win the next election. Will Justin Trudeau see this, or more importantly, will the Liberal Party.

So how many party leadership campaigns will we be seeing in the next few years.

Postscript - What if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had kept his promise and this election was not held under the First Past The Post system but under a system where every vote counted.

On Inequality, Democracy and Taxing the Rich – A Modest Proposal

No doubt many raised in our capitalist society, where inequality rules and excessive incomes and wealth are seen as a right (and where even the NDP only proposes a measly 1% tax on excessive wealth), will consider this proposal to be radical but it is actually quite a modest proposal.

So what is excessive income and wealth. There are many ways to measure that, many statistical, but I propose a simpler definition – the amount of wealth and income where increases have no discernible effect on ones way of life or standard of living, where the increase is simply not noticeable in one's day to day life. Let's be generous to the wealthy in determining such levels. I propose an annual income of $1 million dollars and total assets of $100 million as the level that triggers “excessive income and wealth”. Above that no one notices without reading their financial statements.

The thing about excessive wealth is that it makes minuscule difference to the recipients but could make all the world of difference to the poor and underprivileged and to society as a whole if used for the common good. I will not even attempt to list what all that excessive wealth could do if devoted to the common good of society .

But there is another side to excessive income and wealth – it is highly undemocratic. The rich do not cling to their excessive wealth because it makes a difference to their daily lives. They cling to it because it gives them economic and political power. It is not just a matter of economic inequality, is a matter of political inequality.

Democracy is based on equality, one person one vote. Economic power is political power. Excessive wealth skews political power so that the wealthy have more of it. Excessive wealth is inherently undemocratic.

So what do we do with this excessive wealth so that it benefits society. We tax it away so that it can be used for the common good.

This sounds radical at first. But what do the wealthy lose in this proposal. Their standard of living and quality of life does not change. They only thing they lose is their excessive economic and political power, power that undermines our democracy.

Postscript

In taxing away excessive wealth we cannot just require it's conversion to cash to be paid as taxes. That would obviously be very disruptive to the economic system. Society (through the government) will take ownership of these resources in kind and in many cases maintain them while applying revenues from them to the common good. In some cases they may need to change the policies of entities that are not acting in the public interest or divest ownership of entities where that serves the public interest.

Also this proposal does not address all the problems with our tax system. For it to be truly progressive we need to raise the income level that triggers the payment of taxes and increase the higher marginal tax rates, including adding marginal tax rates at higher income levels (between $200,000 and $1 million).

Guns – What Are They Good For

War

The Wikipedia section on the history of guns makes it clear that the history of guns and war are clearly intertwined, guns being developed primarily as a means to kill people in warfare.

Indeed even with the advent of weapons of mass destruction, the infamous WMDs, guns are still the weapon of choice in warfare. These guns are often being fired by the poor and disadvantaged against other poor and disadvantaged in wars started by the wealthy and advantaged.

Hunting

People have been hunting successfully without firearms for survival and sport since man started eating meat. Nonetheless the use of hunting rifles to kill game is a long established and accepted part of many societies. But, no one needs a military assault rifle to hunt for sport or survival. Spraying bullets at everything around hoping to hit something or mowing down a whole herd in one push of a trigger is not sport.

Sport Shooting

Shooting as a sport is also a thing, from biathlon in the Olympics to target shooting with handguns. No harm is done here as long as the guns are safely stored at the shooting range.

Criminals and Police

Criminals have discovered that guns can be a useful tool of their trade and the police have responded. In some countries the police responded cautiously with beat police and detectives remaining unarmed and special armed response units established. Other countries decided to start an arms race with the criminals, with ordinary police armed to the teeth and and special (SWAT) units armed like military assault units. We will leave it to your reading of current affairs to determine which response resulted in more or less gun violence and deaths.

Mass Murder

The easy availability of military style assault weapons has made mass murder a much easier undertaking than in the past. Internationally, the numbers of incidents of mass murders compared to the availability of such weapons speaks for itself.

Protection and Vigilantism

While some believe that they need guns to protect themselves and to deal with criminals, most civilized societies believe that should be the role of the police. There is a a belief, primarily in one country, that an armed populace is a safe populace and the more people with guns the safer a society is. Unfortunately the facts internationally indicate the opposite, particularly when it comes to gun violence and the deaths from it.

What Should We Do

So what should Canada do about guns and gun violence. Fortunately we are not saddled by a foolish Second Amendment but consider gun ownership to be a carefully regulated privilege as most civilized countries do.

While hunting rifles can be used in crimes, and no doubt are occasionally, they are not the main problem.

The big problem with gun violence lies with handguns and assault rifles which no ordinary citizens have a need for. This is one situation where there are simple and effective solutions. No one outside of the military and certain special police units need assault rifles. They should simply be prohibited. As for handguns, there is really no need for civilians to have them either but since they can be easily controlled for sport shooting purposes by restricting their use and storage to approved shooting ranges they should be allowed with those restrictions.

Government simply needs to ignore the imported ideas of the American right wing and provide the solutions the majority of Canadians agree with.

On Free Trade

Even among left wing parties and progressive politicians trade is worshipped as the saviour of the world, but perhaps we should ask ourselves Is Trade Evil ?

After we do that we can consider the question of free trade and free trade agreements.

We need to seriously look at the so-called free trade agreements for what they are. They certainly do not guarantee free trade. What they guarantee are rights to corporations over sovereign countries with things like investor state dispute provisions that allow corporations to sue countries for passing legislation in the public interest that offends the multinational corporations rights to maximize their profits.

So what could real free trade look like. One option would be absolute free trade. Eliminate all tariffs and non-tariff barriers. Provide no artificial advantages to domestic products or corporations. Provide no, intentional or otherwise, advantages to foreign products or corporations.

Any goods could be sold in Canada, subject equally to any forms of taxation applied, regardless of country of origin, as long as the goods are produced subject to health and safety, environmental, and labour standards (minimum wages, collective bargaining and workers rights provisions, etc.) equivalent to those required of goods produced in Canada.

That would be true free trade.

Can We, Should We, Will We Live Forever Online

When typing for this blog I have often wished I could just think my thoughts at the computer and have them type out on the screen. This, no doubt, has much to do with the fact I am a one finger hunt and peck typist (having been streamed into drafting and electricity in grade nine rather than typing and home economics).

But this got me thinking bigger.

First some thoughts on what makes us human. I have heard it said that what separates us from the (other) animals is that we are aware of our existence. I think it is probably somewhat more than that, extending to the fact that we philosophize and question the meaning of life. Of course we do not know what (other) animals are thinking but clearly thinking and communicating are more important to us than simply the tasks necessary for our physical existence.

On to the idea of living forever. It seems the biggest obstacle to living forever is that our bodies wear out, particularly our hearts and lungs that keep oxygen and blood circulating. The other big factor is that the earth could not sustain everyone living forever unless we stopped reproducing.

But what if we did not need most of our physical body and all those resources we live off of. What if we only needed to keep our brains alive.

If the essence of being human is thinking and communication, what if we only needed our brains to do that.

What if we had a brain-computer interface that would let us think our thoughts to our computers and communicate with other humans, including living brains. What then.

How much space and resources would it take to just keep our brains alive after our bodies died,

And what if we did not even have to do that. What if we could transfer the essence of our brains, our intellectual being and memories onto computer chips that required virtually no storage space and only required a few millivolts of energy to be sustained forever.

The big question is would you want to live forever on the Internet watching mankind make the same mistakes over and over forever and ever.

Metric for Americans

American exceptionalism often means things like calling football soccer while the rest of the world calls it football . Yes, us northern neighbours do the same thing but it's still wrong.

My biggest peeve about American exceptionalism is the fact they cannot get their political colours correct. Every American election period I am puzzled by which states are red and which are blue till I remember that the land of Donkeys and Elephants has it backwards. In the rest of the world red represents the left and blue represents the right but America chooses to do it differently. BTW Wikipedia's explanation is here FWIW.

Perhaps the strangest example of American exceptionalism is that after fighting a bitter war of independence from the British Imperialists they choose to be (almost) the only country in the world still using the Imperial system of measurement and not using the Metric system.

So for those leery of change let's do a quick comparison.

We can see the multitude of complicated calculations necessary to use the Imperial System while the Metric system simply requires an ability to move the decimal point.

So what would that mean for Americans. Probably less than they fear. In Canada, in some sense, we have a hybrid system. For almost everything official Metric is used. The most noticeable changes for the common person are weather and driving and we have adapted to this easily. Most of us don't relate to the old Fahrenheit units anymore. The same can be said of distances and speed limits.

For the home handyman little has changed. Plywood (and particle board) is still sold in 4 foot by 8 foot sheets, though sometimes the thickness will be in millimetres rather than fractions of an inch. And two by fours are still the same standard 1½ X 3½ inch size. In Canada most measuring tapes are marked in both Metric and Imperial measurements. So build away using your existing tools.

As for cooking have no fear. There is no Metric Fire Department burning your old cookbooks and grandmother's recipes and no Metric Police seizing your Imperial measuring spoons and cups. Indeed, most measuring spoons and cups in Canada are marked in both measuring systems. You simply gain access to both Metric and Imperial recipes.

So have no fear America, embrace progress and leave Liberia and Myanmar to fend for themselves in a Metric world.

On Television

Definitions:

1 A system for converting visual images (with sound) into electrical signals, transmitting them by radio or other means, and displaying them electronically on a screen.

2 A device with a screen for receiving television signals.

Source: OED https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/television

Television (TV), sometimes shortened to tele or telly, is a telecommunication medium used for transmitting moving images in monochrome (black and white), or in color, and in two or three dimensions and sound. The term can refer to a television set, a television program ("TV show"), or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, entertainment and news.

Source: Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television

That is the classic and technical definition of television when it was first introduced, the technology to broadcast video in the way that radio was broadcast and the receiver (television set) to view the video on.

I was three years old in Sudbury when television was first available to the city.

CKSO Television History

The station was launched on October 25, 1953 by Sudbury businessmen George Miller, Jim Cooper and Bill Plaunt.[1] It was the first privately owned television station to launch in Canada, and only the fourth television station overall after CBC Television's owned and operated stations in Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa. Its original call sign was CKSO-TV. The station was a CBC affiliate, receiving programs by kinescope until a microwave relay system linked the station to Toronto in 1956. The station originally broadcast only from 7 to 11 p.m., but by the end of its first year in operation it was on the air from 3:30 p.m. to midnight.[2]

Source: Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CICI-TV (Redirected from CKSO-TV)

Although it was a few or several years before TV ownership became widespread enough that we had one I was old enough to remember first getting television. I guess one could call it our generation's “screen time” although we were not nearly as enamoured with it as people seem to be with “screens” these days. It was something that amused us when we were finished our homework and it was too dark to go out and play or early weekend mornings before we went to meet our friends. But overall we would much rather be out with our friends playing in the rocks along the creek or rail line near the slag dump, tossing rocks and watching the quicksand suck them up. Yes play at that time was not adult organized competitive activities but a time to use our imagination and learn to be independent.

At that time we had one channel which carried the CBC and eventually we got a CTV station. The next big thing was something called CATV or Community Antenna Television. This was the first iteration of cable television or Cable TV. A large antenna picked up the signals of the American networks that previously only southern Ontario could receive and they were distributed via coax cable to individual homes. This was the first version of Cable, no specialized or cable only channels just broadcast channels, from further distances and often a clearer signal than broadcast TV depending on where you lived.

At this point we essentially are still within the original definition of television which ties together the broadcast technology and the television set.

The next technological change started to change that. The introduction of the VCR meant one could watch content on a television set that did not originate with a TV broadcaster, mainly commercial movies and home movies shot on videotape. VCRs were later supplanted by DVD and Blu-ray players.

The cable companies that had been re-transmitting over-the-air (OTA) broadcast TV signals were beginning to receive these signals via microwave and satellite around the same time as competitors began transmitting TV packages similar to cable TV via satellite direct to the home.

This led to the next innovation and the elimination of the necessary link between TV broadcasters and television sets. Television sets no longer required an over-the-air signal to provide content to their owners as cable/satellite TV only channels started providing programming without any OTA broadcast facilities, their signals being delivered by cable/satellite TV providers.

Most TV watchers in urban centres now received their TV from cable (and in some cases satellite) TV providers without any outdoor antenna or infamous rabbit ears being used. Without the limitations of broadcast frequencies TV providers could provide unlimited numbers of cable only channels. These channels started out with higher quality content and without advertising to distinguish them from the free broadcast channels but soon they changed to channels full of reruns and cheaply produced “reality” TV with advertising. “Premium” channels without advertising and with higher quality content were then introduced at even higher prices. Of course, with control of the distribution of channels they could ensure subscribers paid for their channels that produced profits for them by including them in the packages people have to buy to get the channels they actually want.

At this point we have gone from free over-the-air television to fee for cable TV to cable TV with almost unlimited channels and unlimited price points for service and it appears unlimited room for customer dissatisfaction particularly in the United States and Canada.

The thing about paying more for a higher tier of cable television is that you are not actually paying to watch more television, just for more choice, most of which you are not interested in.

And then came “streaming”.

Streaming television (streaming TV or internet television) is the digital distribution of television content, such as TV shows, as streaming video delivered over the Internet. Streaming TV stands in contrast to dedicated terrestrial television delivered by over-the-air aerial systems, cable television, and/or satellite television systems.

Source: Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_television

With the Internet, companies and individuals could provide content to anyone with Internet access without having to build their own distribution network. You no longer needed to be a huge corporation with mega-millions of dollars of infrastructure to be in the TV business. Even individuals could distribute content via websites and later via YouTube and other similar online video platforms, and then came Netflix followed by a series of other streaming services and everything started to change

But first let's step away from talking about television distribution technology and look at the other half of the technology equation, what we used to call “television sets” now more often just called screens.

The first TV I personally owned was a 17” black and white portable TV I brought with me to Ottawa when I started working for the Library of Parliament. I spent more time listening to CBC radio than I did watching TV at that time. I believe about 50% of what I learned about the world in those days I learned from CBC Radio.

In the early days a 20 inch TV was a large screen TV. The largest conventional analog cathode-ray tube (CRT) TV we owned before making the big jump to a flat screen liquid-crystal display/LED-backlit LCD TV was a 36 inch huge and heavy television set.

Nowadays such TVs have gone the way of the dinosaurs. There are only two acceptable ways to watch TV, either on a 60 inch plus wide screen TV or on a two to three inch smartphone screen.

Your big screen TV is no longer just a television set but part of a home theatre system often with surround sound and of course comfy chairs.

We do have to admit we noticed a huge difference in picture quality when moving from analog TV on a CRT to high-definition digital TV on an LED/LCD TV. However we do not notice a large difference between different levels of HD, and when downloading content we often download the lower HD file because of size and time considerations. We also notice a large improvement in picture quality on old SD content compared to our old CRT screen TV. I personally do not understand the need for ultra-high-definition television, except to get people to upgrade to new 4K (or 8K) sets.

This all comes as part of a trend of people spending much more of their time at home for entertainment rather than going to concerts, theatre or movies, often called cocooning.

And part of this, of course, is the dominance of television as it has become in the “million channel universe”. So we return to our discussion of how television programs as we know them are distributed.

The problem with the proliferation of choice from the conventional providers' multiple tiers of cable television with increasing prices per tier, coupled with the addition of multiple streaming sources all with their own price points, is that you are not actually paying to watch more television, just for more choice, most of which you are not interested in.

Indeed we found ourselves in that situation. After upgrading to a higher tier to get a channel we wanted that was only available in that tier we decided we were paying for too many channels we did not watch. We cut back to the lowest tier available and to CRTC-mandated Skinny Basic Cable TV as soon as it was available. We later supplemented that with some carefully chosen theme packs that included they types of programming we wanted, primarily scripted drama as well as history and science programming. While many people criticized the CRTC's skinny basic cable requirement it certainly improved the value for money we were able to get from our cable TV provider.

We also had Netflix and we later added Crave/HBO Canada to our Cable package. We supplement that with free sources of programming available online. We are paying a total of about $100 for television programming, a considerable increase from the $00 for free over-the-air TV when it was first introduced.

However some people are going a different route, using traditional torrents to get programming at no cost or unauthorized free streaming sites often along with the use of VPNs.

Free TV' Android boxes finding their way into many Canadian households, study says

The devices come pre-loaded with software that makes it easy to pirate movies and shows, says expert

Forget illegal downloading; many Canadians are getting hooked on unauthorized streaming, according to a new study. This emerging type of piracy often involves a simple box running an Android operating system that's loaded with special software.

Connect it to your TV, and you can easily stream a vast selection of pirated movies and TV shows —even live television, including sports.

Dealers sell the boxes for a one-time fee, typically around $100, with the promise of "free TV."

Source: CBC News

 

People do this often in reaction to what they consider to be a broken system where watching everything they want requires subscribing to multiple channels or services just to get the shows they want while paying for access to shows they do not want to watch. But of course this alternative is unsustainable for everyone as nobody would be paying for the production of content.

Where do we go from here. We have to acknowledge the system is broken to a large degree because the major players in content production and distribution have huge investments in what is now essentially obsolete technology – the broadcast and cable distribution system, at least as far as most of what people want to watch.

What still dominates the television system (perhaps not for long) is scheduled programming on set channels pushed at the consumers rather than programming consumers watch when they want to. And because for some reason these channels must broadcast 24 hours a day the majority of programming is repeats or multiple variations on shows about flipping houses, visiting pawn shops, how to do home projects you are not working on at the moment, housewives of every city on the planet, etc. etc.. Of course every channel has a few worthwhile programs and even some very good ones, but never enough for 24 hours a week, 7 days a week and certainly not possible to have the programs on when it is convenient for everyone that wants to watch them to do so.

Television providers try to get around this failing of push technology by providing DVRs/PVRs or On Demand services but that is just a work around for a failed concept.

Consumers have the Internet . When they are looking for information they are used to going to the Internet and finding what they want when they want it. They are now expecting to be able to access their entertainment as easily and simply as they access information.

But let us take a step sideways and consider whether there is still a role for traditional scheduled TV that you have to watch when the distributor makes it available, and the answer is yes.

Originally TV was broadcast live and some things are still best when watched live. I am thinking of sports and breaking news in particular but live broadcasts of cultural events such as concerts and theatre would fall in that category as well. Nobody wants to watch old news so there will always be a place for cable news channels (although the might be broadcast via the Internet) and most people prefer to watch sporting events as they happen since knowing the result beforehand compromises (to put it lightly) the experience.

But for scripted drama programs, movies and documentaries people prefer to be able to watch when they have time. Even reality TV, for those fans of pawn shops, real estate flipping, watching other people cook or yell at aspiring restaurateurs, and overly dramatized dating shows, is more conveniently watched at the viewers choice of time.

For television series, in the old days of only network broadcast TV, you watched them when they were on. If you heard about a show from someone you had to start watching it mid season. Today's viewers want to watch series from the beginning of the series and even Cable TV On Demand services rarely allow for that, having only the current season available at most.

Streaming services are best suited to provide television to viewers in the manner they wish to consume it. But consumers, who are leaving traditional TV because they have to subscribe to TV packages and channels that include mostly programming they do not want to watch to get what they want, are faced with the same dilemma with streaming services, having to subscribe to multiple services to get all the programs they want and pay for access to programs they do not want.

So is there a solution. We have the technology. Having the will to make it happen is the issue.

The first thing I would like to see happen, in the Internet age of international access to information, is getting rid of regional distribution rights, in fact get rid of exclusive distribution rights altogether.

We have the technology for streaming services to know how many times an individual has streamed a particular episode or film, in effect how many products they have sold to each customer. Just like manufacturers do not restrict the sale of their products to exclusive retailers (perhaps with some exceptions) neither should content producers.

All streaming services should be able to provide all content to all customers with regulations in place to prevent price gouging of both the streaming service by the content producer and the viewing customer by the streaming service.

Streaming services would then compete by their interface, how customer friendly it is, and their pricing structure. Customers should be able to just purchase individual movies or TV series at a reasonable price and have access to whatever type of packages the streaming companies wish to offer in competition with each other.

The answer is simple but realistically, without a complete rejection of the system with everyone abandoning paid TV service for piracy, the powers to be are likely to settle for small incremental changes with eventually multiple streaming services replacing Cable TV as the dominant source of programming.

As incremental changes go, one thing I would like to see happen is a co-operative established among public broadcasters to share their productions internationally.

The role of public broadcasters is to tell their peoples' stories as well as to inform their people about the world. But it is not only their own people they should want to reach but the rest of the world as well. One way they can do that is by making content freely available on the Internet and the other is by making it available, as part of o co-operative effort with other public broadcasters to share programming with their viewers. That one effort by itself would make large amounts of high quality content available freely to viewers.

And what does The Fifth Column watch.

We are certainly not part of the cult of folks who seem to hate everything Canadian, particularly Canadian music, movies and television. It seems to be a matter of pride for them to hate all things Canadian. Many of these are the people Trump would welcome into his country with open arms and since they seem to worship the USA I am uncertain why they are still here.

Probably about half of what we watch is Canadian, primarily CBC, followed by British, particularly BBC, and other foreign shows, including some very good Americana cable network shows. We find most American broadcast network shows to be formulaic and uninteresting, but there are some notable exceptions.

Primitive vs Civilized Societies

As someone born in 1950 and raised and educated in a Eurocentric culture I learned early that civilized societies are intellectually, socially, and technologically superior to primitive societies. This despite the fact that the indigenous peoples of this land I was born on have for centuries had their own distinct languages, long tradition of passing down oral history, sophisticated social structures, and technologies well suited to the land they live on.

Reflection on actual facts indicates the reality is that the real difference between civilized and primitive societies is that one is based on trying to conquer nature while the other is based on living in harmony with it and only one by it's very existence threatens the future of the human species.

On Gender Identity

I was born in 1950 at a time when spouses were specifically excluded from rape laws and homosexuality was illegal. Homosexuality was only whispered about in “polite company” and people with a gender identity or gender expression that differed from their assigned sex did not exist, and by that I mean their existence was not acknowledged by “mainstream society”. In the early 1950s only 25% of women were in the work force and most of those were doing women's work, in female dominated occupations.

Things have changed a lot since then as far as women's work roles and the acceptance of gay people as fully accepted members of society, even the terminology has changed with “homosexual” going the way of “negro”.

Society as a whole seems to have a harder time understanding and accepting transgender individuals. I can understand how it can be hard, especially for members of a certain generation (mine), to wrap your head around what is essentially a very complex concept that is foreign to a generation born when males mere males and females were females and the roles were very strictly defined.

That in a way was the most difficult thing for me to get my head around. I spent most of my life belonging to movements that opposed the concept of sex role stereotyping, such as the idea that there was men's work and women's work, that women belonged in the caring occupations like nursing and teaching while only men were suited for heavy industry or the police or military. We essentially argued that the way you acted, or who you were, was separate from your sex. We did not consider the concept or gender identity as we would describe it today.

However when one thinks about it more deeply one realizes that people are individuals and the idea of separating sex and gender from identity as a way of defining sexual equality may be the wrong way of looking at it.

For some women being able to work in a non-traditional job may be what they need to be fulfilled. For some men it may simply be not being required to act in society as a stereotypical macho male.

But for other people there is a much bigger disconnect between their assigned sex at birth and who they are as human beings. For them being their authentic self requires them to live life as a different gender than the sex assigned to them at birth, in some cases requiring surgery to align their outer bodies with their inner selves.

What the rest of us need to understand and accept is that people live more fulfilling lives when they can be their authentic selves, while miserable lives, possibly leading to suicide, is a real possibility if people are not allowed to be their authentic selves.

The rest of us have a choice. We can play word and definition games telling people they are wrong about themselves and that we know them better than they do, or we can be decent human beings and affirm their existence as who they are.

Definitions

Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender.[1] Gender identity can correlate with assigned sex at birth, or can differ from it.[2] All societies have a set of gender categories that can serve as the basis of the formation of a person's social identity in relation to other members of society.[3] In most societies, there is a basic division between gender attributes assigned to males and females,[4] a gender binary to which most people adhere and which includes expectations of masculinity and femininity in all aspects of sex and gender: biological sex, gender identity, and gender expression.[5] Some people do not identify with some, or all, of the aspects of gender assigned to their biological sex;[6] some of those people are transgender, genderqueer or non-binary. There are some societies that have third gender categories. Source: Wikipedia

Transgender people have a gender identity or gender expression that differs from their assigned sex.[1][2][3] Transgender people are sometimes called transsexual if they desire medical assistance to transition from one sex to another. Transgender is also an umbrella term: in addition to including people whose gender identity is the opposite of their assigned sex (trans men and trans women), it may include people who are not exclusively masculine or feminine (people who are genderqueer or non-binary, including bigender, pangender, genderfluid, or agender).[2][4][5] Other definitions of transgender also include people who belong to a third gender, or else conceptualize transgender people as a third gender.[6][7] Infrequently, the term transgender is defined very broadly to include cross-dressers,[8] regardless of their gender identity. Source: Wikipedia

Cisgender (often abbreviated to simply cis) is a term for people whose gender identity matches the sex that they were assigned at birth. Cisgender may also be defined as those who have "a gender identity or perform a gender role society considers appropriate for one's sex".[1] It is the opposite of the term transgender.[2][3] Source: Wikipedia