Prowse B.C.

Mandatory waste diversion in Ontario

2011-06-28T09:16:00.004-07:00

Did you know: Ontario has regulations pursuant to the Environmental Protection Act (which apply to businesses of a certain size) which require that the businesses:

Prepare a Waste Audit covering the waste generated at a facility (such as a shopping mall) (O. Reg 102/94)
Prepare a Waste Reduction Work Plan (O. Reg. 102/94)
Separate waste from recyclables at source (O. Reg 103/94)

The Ontario NDP government lives on.

Ontarian? British Columbian? Northwest Territorian?

2009-05-10T12:02:00.010-07:00

I did my taxes today. And in so doing decided that I am a Victorian.

Refund if I'm a BC Resident:
$379.29

Refund if I'm an Ontario Resident:
$304.29

And that doesn't even include the carbon tax credit.
Unless the NDP get rid of it.

Pro Logo Reason #301

2009-03-27T16:00:00.004-07:00

Food quality on highway 401 used to be inconsistent - at best. But most people who passed through weren't going to establish a long-term relationship of repeat business, so there were limited incentives for any particular company to increase quality given that because of their location they were all already quite profitable. This was remedied when the food concessions were transferred from purely local small business enterprises to brand name corporates like Tim Hortons, Wendy's, and the like.

Hat tip to the book on Contracts by Swan, Reiter, Bala

How the economic crisis is affecting my life

2009-03-05T14:04:00.004-08:00

The government of British Columbia has suspended its balanced budget law. It "plans on investing up to $14 billion dollars on construction of infrastructure projects over the next three years, in order to counteract the negative impact of the global recession." (News) But they're simultaneously trying to 'tighten their belts', trying to 'cut wasteful government bureaucracy'. Target #1? Student and Co-op positions. A significant number of provincial government departments that normally hire students just aren't.

In short, money is being taken away from students that are training to be knowledge workers and it is being channelled to the construction sector. So this province's young people will gain lots of experience in construction. Knowledge economy be damned.

The Last Time Unemployment Was This Low Canada Had a Liberal Government Supported by the NDP

2008-12-04T17:30:00.003-08:00

Statistics Canada has released the unemployment numbers for October. They show Canada's unemployment rate at a more than 30 year low. The last time unemployment was this low Canada had a Liberal government that was supported in the house by the NDP.

Thoughts from the Panelists at the UVic Law Community Forum on the Tent City Decision

2008-11-17T20:26:00.000-08:00

The INAC Web Site

2008-11-11T12:49:00.007-08:00

Step One: Google "Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples". Result:

Step Two: Click on the top link. Result:

At least it helpfully directs me to Google to find the Single Most Significant Report that has Ever been Associated with The Organization that is now called Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. I wonder what search terms I would be likely to put into Google? This is bad web site management,they should include a link to forward people to the correct page and not break their old links.

Does it really rain less in Victoria than Vancouver?

2008-11-07T18:33:00.007-08:00

Victorians may complain about the weather, but the one thing they'll consistently tell you is:

"At least we have less rain than those Vancouverites!"

I wondered: Is that true? Turns out that it is.

Data: http://clip2net.com/clip/m6907/1226112817-clip-14kb.png

It's been sunny almost every day since school started. But that's not going to last.

2008-11-05T23:07:00.002-08:00

Death of a President

2008-10-27T20:48:00.010-07:00

We've all seen this meme going around lately. I want to put it in historical perspective.

43	Number of presidents since George Washington
17	Number of assassination attempts on presidents during that time (wiki)
40	Percentage chance someone will try to kill you if you're president

We've forgotten about a lot of these. Here's a story of just one:

April 14, 1972: Milwaukee, Wisconsin native Arthur Bremer arrived in Ottawa, Ontario on April 10 and spent five days in Canada's national capital in an effort to shoot and kill President Nixon, who was visiting the country during this time. On April 14, Nixon made a public appearance in a limousine at Parliament Hill, which Bremer attended, carrying a loaded revolver in his pocket. The presence of Vietnam War protesters and Canadian nationalists, however, led to increased security surrounding the President, and Bremer had great difficulty getting within firing range of Nixon. He did manage finally to get close enough, but the President was traveling by in his limousine with the windows closed, and Bremer was unsure whether any bullets would go through the glass of Nixon's limo. As a result, he didn't open fire and the President sped past unharmed. The following month Bremer shot U.S. Democratic Presidential candidate George Wallace, lodging a bullet in his spine and leaving him paralyzed from the waist down for life. (source)

When you don't have the power of eminent domain

2008-10-26T10:23:00.003-07:00

The Chinese Nail House:

(Wa)let it be

2008-08-18T04:55:00.002-07:00

After much derision, and in a momentous ceremony, I retired my wallet to the garbage today and picked up another, sleeker, less hole-y one. End of an era. Whenever I looked in the last one I'd see the stickers that I'd gotten - in Katimavik and as a thank you at a Xerxes debating tournament. Now I see barren leather.

2008-07-28T20:05:00.002-07:00

Visited the Feature Factory in Toronto today. Took the Go Train to Oakville. Visited Asian grocery store in Missisauga. Went to Chinese restaurant with Jerry. Didn't finish the pig's ears.

A York-Area High School That Should Be Talked About

2008-07-21T14:06:00.005-07:00

I had lunch today with a friend who teaches at a high school in York. In fact, it's in the the poorest area of the Greater Toronto Area. She told me about how she didn't have a classroom. She taught all of her classes in the library. But she wasn't the only one in that position - there were two classes in the school's teensie library. With only a few feet of space to divide them. And students who were unable to concentrate because of the other class's noise. This simply wouldn't happen in Rosedale; the school board is failing those kids because they are poor and their parents didn't go to the media about it.

Bell Canada>Ottawa Public Library

2008-07-14T10:42:00.003-07:00

I was at the Ottawa Public Library this morning. Using their WiFi internet. I decided that I wanted to download the CBC's show Canada's Next Great Prime Minister. And I couldn't. It wasn't that bittorrent was slowed down. It wasn't that the library used traffic shaping. It wasn't that there were bandwidth caps. It was that the library outright blocked bittorrent.

So I left the realm of the public sector and went to a Bridgehead cafe. And then it worked.

Dear Greyhound,

2008-07-06T16:36:00.002-07:00

Dear Greyhound,

Today I was planning on taking the Greyhound bus from Edmonton to Calgary. I looked on the Greyhound web site this morning and saw that there was a bus which left at 5:30pm and arrived in Calgary at 8:50pm. I decided to take that bus. I arrived at the bus station this evening only to be told by the clerk at the counter that
a) the bus at that time has been cancelled and no longer operates
b) the greyhound web site has not been updated to reflect this change
c) the replacement bus at 6:00pm takes an hour longer than the one that I was planning to take

I find it frustrating that you would have such outdated information on your web site and would make no effort to correct or update it.

Yours truly,

Joshua Prowse

(un)spoken word

2008-05-27T23:10:00.004-07:00

Drove the group down to Parksville for a spoken word coffee shop event. They watched a Shane Koyczan video. Performed. I read from Alice in Wonderland. Elle J read from Howl. I did a version of John Cage's 4:33. The participants got to see the Parksville Katimavik house for the first time.

Hitchhiking on Saltspring Island

2008-05-12T14:02:00.002-07:00

I've never seen hitchhiking like on Salt Spring Island. Any time of the day and night. Short trips and long. And as a driver, I must say that it was a real service to me - it was like having a personal tourguide whenever I wanted one. I love this place.

Saltspring Island on Mother's Day

2008-05-11T15:34:00.005-07:00

I'm on Saltspring Island with my mother today - Mother's Day. And I'm reading the wikipedia entry for Mother's Day which mentions that it was originally a day conceived to promote peace and was later repudiated by its founders when it quickly metastasized into its 'Hallmark Holiday' form (and thinking that interesting parallels can be drawn between that and yesterday's Pangea Day).

Munching on an anise cookie. Hiking in the provincial parks here. And thinking "damn, I can see how this Gulf Island is a desirable place to raise a family ... if you have an extra few million dollars lying around."

My name is Joshua and I use a payday lending service

2008-05-02T14:47:00.009-07:00

I pay each of my participants $21 a week for their allowance. In cash. I needed to get their money today. But it was 8pm and even though I use Toronto-we-have-the-longest-hours-anywhere-Dominion for my bank, they were closed. So I went to the ATM, withdrew twenty-dollar-bills, and then walked down the street to the Money Mart and had them give me change for a twenty so that I had the loonies I needed.

These cheque cashing services are rightly slagged for exploiting poor people. And they do (our local Money Mart has conveniently placed a Western Union advertising sign right in front of the 'code of conduct' that they're required to have posted on their wall). But I wonder whether NDP legislation to 'crack down' on payday lending services will ultimately prevent me from getting my loonies at 8pm?

When I was in Cyprus a couple years ago, I followed my couchsurfing host around on her daily routine: paying her electric bill at the company's office in cash, waiting at the welfare office to get her cheque in person, looking through the cash that she kept in her apartment. I asked her "wouldn't it be faster to do all this online?" "Yes," she replied, "but then the tax authorities would be able to track my income". People have a lot of reasons for using non-traditional banking services.

Subsiding Craving

2008-04-30T22:41:00.002-07:00

Growing up, I assumed that everyone ate like my family. Sure, when my grade-one-era friend Darius completed his supper chez nous by proceeding to the playground and puking up his veggie dog, I knew that tofu wasn't adored universally. But just as I've only come to love and understand Canada by seeing other countries, I've only come to realize that my family's cuisine was unique by missing it here in Katimavik, the first time in my life when I haven't had an opportunity to cook my own meals. So, it was with great pleasure that I fried up some platanos tonight and savoured their zesty sweetness. That soy milk last week was pure sustenance. And now I'm dreaming of some ayran and a little bit of halva on the side ...

WikiCoffee

2008-04-29T14:05:00.002-07:00

Just like every word in our language, 'zocalo' has creeped into our tongue by way of another. In this case, from a Spanish word that refers to a central town square or plaza; a gathering place. The eponymous coffee shop is one of my favourite in Courtenay, not least for the comfortable seats and free WiFi. And as I was sizing up my macchiato today, I browsed wikipedia's coffee section, to better differentiate between, say, a traditional and a latte macchiato, or between a cortado and an Americano (the difference: the extent to which the espresso is cut - Americano being a term of derision for Americans who can't stomach a good espresso and need it really watered down).But then I spent fifteen minutes figuring out the different ways of linking to wiktionary from wikipedia articles; if wikipedia is going to be the zocalo for our knowledge in the 21st century it's going to need to become easier to use.

Meeting You at 'The Conference'

2008-04-25T22:28:00.001-07:00

Through a circuitous series of events, I pulled into the Courtenay Best Western today to meet up with an acquaintance. I had promised to show him around town a bit, introduce him to Courtenay. But he wasn't waiting at the door. So I walked on up into the conference room to see if he was there. And that's when I realized it. I was at the annual meeting of Pro Life BC, which just happened to be hosted here in the Comox Valley. I furtively darted my eyes about the room to make sure there wasn't anyone there I knew, lest they judge me (and I judge them). And then I took a minute to listen. The topic? Suppression of free speech on University campuses. It was surreal to hear names like "Shelly Melanson" and "York Debating Society" being bandied about. I thought I had left that way behind in Ontario. So that's when I walked out.

The Otehsa Milieu

2008-04-23T13:38:00.002-07:00

In Victoria I'm staying with John who did the Sunshine Coast Otesha tour last summer. And it's wonderful to be back in this milieu. Like I never left. Case in point: Today we had a wonderfully in-depth conversation about peanut butter and John proceeded to spend two hours bicycling out to For Good Measure, the bulk food store which roasts their own peanuts and grinds it up on site. The peanut butter was still warm when he brought it back! The peanuts had just been roasted! Now that's a connoisseur ...

Ani Difranco Brains

2008-04-22T12:00:00.000-07:00

Watched Ani Difranco's concert at UVic and then played the board game "The Great Brain Robbery" - a Zombie-based train game that was quite well thought out.