The Liberal: Late and short a few Flyers

Since moving into my new home in Richmond Hill, I've been receiving erratic and poor service of the local free newspaper, The Liberal.   The Liberal is scheduled to be delivered on Thursdays and Saturdays before 7:00 P.M. with all the flyers associated within the area that I live according the paper's distribution department management.  This seems simple enough, a community paper that has been around since 1878 should have delivering twice a week on the right dates by the deadline of 7:00 P.M. down to a science.

But no, the distribution dates of Thursday and Saturday are the first issue.  I looked up the paper's website "about us" section  that states the paper "is published on Thursday and Sunday."  So why then does the paper copy itself show dates of either Thursday or Saturday on the front page and on the top of each page inside the paper.  No wonder the carrier for my street has no idea of when to deliver the paper, the paper's management has no idea when it's supposed to have a paper to press, is it Thursday and Saturday or is it Thursday and Sunday. 

Then comes the issues with the flyers.  One week I will get the M&M Meatshops flyer and the next I will not.  I check the flyer listing printed in the paper to see if there is an M&M Meatshops flyer for that week and there is!  So where is it?  I have no idea.  The paper itself charges $0.05 per flyer to deliver it to a house.  So if a house doesn't get a flyer can the advertiser call and complain to get a refund for non delivery of a service?  No that is not the case.  According to The Liberal's advertising management they only guarentee 90% delivery of all flyers.  Yes, up to 1 in 9 prospective customers may not receive your flyer and yet The Liberal can still request payment for delivery to every single one as if they were 100% acurrate.

Since I moved in I've called the distribution department of The Liberal a couple of times and spoke with the area supervisor for my area about the late or no delivery of the paper.  She seems barely interested as she goes on and that they don't pay the carriers that well.  I never get the newspaper after calling in and speaking with the area supervisor after at least two occasions. 

Fast forward to February 2011 when I again called into the distribution department again to complain about missing newspapers, late deliveries and missing flyers.  The area distribution supervisor listened to the what I was missing, put me on hold and eventually hung up on me.  I called back and asked to speak to the "Distribution Manager" who then took my name and number and said an investigation would be opened to see what the circumstances were around the delivery of the newspaper to my home and my street's delivery route.  A few weeks passed and the Distribution Manager, I presume the area's supervisor's boss, had yet to call back. 

Then I finally had enough after a no delivery of the Saturday March 5th paper occurred.  I tried another tactic than merely calling the distribution department over the phone as phoning obviously was not working.  I visited The Liberal's website and found the "contact us" page and wrote an e-mail on Monday March 7th to the distribution manager listed on the page:

Mara Sepe  Circulation/Distribution Manager, Richmond Hill/Thornhill Liberal

In the e-mail to Mara I laid out the previous trials and tribulations of merely getting the paper delivered, getting the paper delivered by deadline and with the correct flyers inserted.   I finished the e-mail with the following:

I believe the above circumstances are unnecessary and not very condusive to your advertisers in getting the word out. In fact I have talked to the Franchisee at M&M Meat Shops at Yonge & Carrville about a the problems in receiving the flyers via The Liberal and he was not impressed. He said he would be following up with your paper and his head office about the issue as well as keeping track of the delivery issues of the M&M Meat shops flyer with his other customers.

Missing flyers, missing papers, late deliveries seem to plague this neighbourhood and do not provide a good image of The Liberal as being a true "Community Newspaper". A Community Newspaper cannot be called that unless it is delivered in a timely fashion and read by the local community.


If you could follow up again with your department and provide a written response as to the status of the delivery of the papers to [my street] it would be greatly appreciated.


Please feel free to contact myself if you have any questions. I have over ten years experience in delivering your sister paper when it was called "The Era-Banner" in south Aurora. Thus, I know quite well the difficulties your carriers may be experiencing. Nonetheless, I hope the experience I've been having with the Liberal since I moved to the neighbourhood in June 2010 can improve.

Sincerely,


Michael Suddard

Within 30 minutes of sending the above e-mail, I received a written response back from Mara Sepe.  She replied that she has forwarded my e-mail onto Carrie MacFarlane who is the Circulation Manager of The Liberal.  Mara signed her e-mail "Circulation Manager, Vaughan Citizen."  It turns out Mara is the Circulation manager for The Liberal's sister paper, the Vaughan Citizen.  

So not only does The Liberal not know which day they are supposed to deliver the paper on, they have no idea as to who is in charge of the distribution department of their paper.  Their website says Mara while the paper says Carrie.  I wonder if they know who the editor of the paper is? With these two errors I highly doubt it.
Another two hours went by on Monday March 7th and Carrie MacFarlane replied.  Carrie, in her e-mail to me said she would investigate what has occurred and find a solution for the future.  She also noted that the solution may involve removing the carrier.  She said she would follow up later in the week with the solution "to ensure proper delivery."
I responded to Carrie on Wednesday March 9th that I was eager to hear back on the possible solutions and would update her on what happens with the March 10th edition.

On March 11th I replied to Carrie what was ocurred and it wasn't good:

An update on the Liberal for the Thursday March 10th edition:



Thursday

8:30 P.M. - no paper delivered to anywhere on [my street].

Friday

7:00 A.M. - [my houses] paper delivered to front door a quick scan of the street shows I'm the only one to get front door delivery. The Liberal is bagged and on front steps in the rain. A little wet on the inside but a big improvement. I also receive the National Post to the front door. It was right at the front door taking advantage of the significant overhang to stay dry. I opened the paper and flipped through the flyers. I went through them twice and immediately noticed again there was no M&M Meats flyer. I normally receive this flyer and it is noted on page 7 of the Thursday March 10th edition that it was included in the paper this week for delivery. Also, there was no "Red Plum" coupon flyer either.

- [ny neighbours address] - delivered to rear driveway and was in same condition as 10 Ellesmere's (see above). No M&M Meats or "Red Plum" Coupon flyer either.


So here are the issues with this paper:


1. Late Delivery as per normal (after 7:00 P.M. of the date printed on the paper)


2. Missing flyers. - Please deliver an M&Ms and Red Plum flyer ASAP to [my address] - 1 copy each. Otherwise I will be visiting M&M Meats again on Saturday on a shopping trip and will let the franchisee know that again I haven't received his flyer and neither did [my neighbour's address].


A Delivery Suggestion: Most Townhouse units on [my street] and in this neighbhourhood have front door overhangs that keep front porchs dry year round. The Liberal, like the National Post, Toronto Star and several phone book companies (e.g. Yellow Pages, CanPages, etc.), could deliver to the front and have their product both kept dry and free of snow for the most part as well as better found and read by the locals as compared to the rear door. When delivered to the rear driveways in the winter they are either shoveled into the snow banks (i.e. the weekend paper because it is smaller) or get drenched as they are delivered so late and sit in the elements for so long (i.e. 8 hours).

If you could please follow up with the carrier to ensure I receive the flyers requested above and to ensure proper and, ON TIME, delivery again it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your assistance in this matter.


Michael Suddard

Carrie replied that afternoon stating the missing flyers would be delivered and my street's Liberal Carrier would be issued a final warning.
 
Well, as of 8:00 P.M. that night I still hadn't received promised flyers.  I wrote to Carrie saying I would be following up with the M&M Meatshops local franchisee that I hadn't received the flyer he paid to have delivered to me via The Liberal.
 
Carrie responded that she would check again with the office on Saturday March 12th as to if the replacemnt flyers had been delivered. Sure enough by noon on Saturday I had a whole new paper delivered to replace the Thursday edition's mistake.  But there was still yet another problem which I detailed in an e-mail back to Carrie:
 
On Saturday there was a copy of the Saturday Liberal on my front doorstep by 8:00 A.M.


My wife and I left for No Frills then and returned to find a Saturday THORNHILL Liberal on our doorstep around 9:30 A.M with the full set of flyers and some we had never seen before. I suppose the other flyers are normally delivered to other areas as these stores (i.e. Guardian and IDA) are not near us.


I hope things get better and I will be looking forward to Thursday and next Saturday for improved delivery.


Thank you for resolving the issues this past week and I will continue to enjoy reading the Liberal both for content and for the flyers that my wife and I shop from.


Thanks


Michael Suddard

Yes even when The Liberal distribution department is set out to deliver one newspaper to one address they cannot get even the newspaper edition right (i.e. I received the Thornhill version instead of the Richmond Hill version) and the flyers were incorrect as well. After all the history with incorrect and poor deliveries of the paper, one would think the brains of The Liberal's distribution department would have paid a little more attention to detail to ensure the correct flyers and the correct paper were delivered.  But apparently not.

Carrie replied to my Saturday e-mail stating that for next Thursday they would have a staff member doing visual checks to ensure proper delivery.  I still wonder if this same staff member redelivered to me the replacement Thursday paper with the M&Ms flyer and the Thornhill edition of the paper. 

Meanwhile also on March 11th I receive a seperate e-mail from Anne Beswick, the Advertising Manager of The Liberal.  She thanks me for my patience and e-mailing regarding my concerns about the delivery of the paper.  She also notes in her e-mail that The Liberal guarentees a 90% delivery rate to their advertisers and that the Thursday March 10th edition:

"We had some very serious interruptions in our business that barely enabled us to publish at all."


She also mentions that The Liberal team came together to resolve a lot of issues and get the paper out.   Anne finishes up her e-mail saying she would like to send me a small token of appreciation for bringing the delivery issues to The Liberal's attention.

From Anne's e-mail I thought Anne believed that this was a one time issue (i.e. just the Thursday March 10th edition being late) and that the flyers missing there as well.  I replied to Anne with:

Anne:
I wish to respond to your e-mail below as I know the newspaper and all business have "bumps in the road" where things don't go as they should.

I have over ten years of carrier experience in Aurora with The Liberal's sister paper, then called The Era-Banner. Thus, I have quite a bit of experience when it comes to delivering a free local newspaper on a route. I've seen the issues with receiving the paper and getting it out on time.


I've been dissapointed with the delivery of The Liberal since moving to Richmond Hill in June 2010 and I've called distribution on the phone and dealt with the regular supervisor. Things would improve for one delivery but soon fell off from there. Thus, I felt further action needed to be taken and do not believe the repeated issues are merely


Three weeks ago I was in the M&Ms at 16th Avenue & Yonge Street and was served by the franchisee who inquired if I would like next weeks flyer. I responded I would like both next weeks and this weeks as I only get the M&Ms flyer peridiodically. He took my address down then and said he would be following up with M&M Head Office as he is paying for the delivery of each flyer.


Following that occurrance, I called again and spoke to the delivery supervisor who put me on hold so she could investigate. I was on hold for over five minutes before she picked up and hung up on me. I called back asking for the delivery manager and not the supervisor. The recepitionist put me through and the manager said she would investigate and get back to me. Another two weeks went by and no call came back.


Last weekend the Saturday paper was never delivered. So I felt since phone calls were not working that an e-mail follow up was in order. Thus, I visited www.yorkregion.com for contact information. I found the "Contact Us" page (http://www.yorkregion.com/contactus) and scrolled down to The Liberal's listing and e-mailed "Mara Sepe Circulation/Distribution Manager, Richmond Hill/Thornhill Liberal" with the issues I've been through.

Mara e-mailed back, with a "Vaughan Citizen" in her signature, that Carrie looks after the issues in Richmond Hill. Carrie wrote back that she would be investigating the issues and to get back to me.


This past Thursday came and went with the issues of flyers noted. Two newspapers on our street did not have M&M Meatshops or the Red Plum flyer. Hence why I was going to follow up with the franchisee of M&M Meatshops again this week. Bottom line is the non-delivery of the M&M Meatshops flyer off and on can not merely be a "blip" in the system. The whole street didn't get it this time as evidenced by my research. Neither [my home] or  [my neighbours home] got it, thus the M&M Meatshops paid 10 cents for non delivery of two flyers and thus I believe should be asking for a refund on this for services not rendered.

Bottom line, I can appreciate when, as you noted:


"Any business we have our challenges and this week we were no exception. We had some very serious interruptions in our business that barely enabled us to publish at all."


But this has been an ongoing issue off and on since last June of late deliveries on Thursdays and Saturdays. In fact, I didn't even know until last October that the Liberal Saturday paper was issued on Saturdays. I thought, like the Era Banner, they published the weekend edition on Sunday. All the issues I have detailed to Carrie are not simply "one offs" but are constantly cropping up. Here is a brief list of what I've dealt with:

1. Late Delivery - I don't receive the paper until well after 9 P.M. of the date of the paper. Thus, the paper usually sits on my driveway all night.

2. Wet unreadable papers - with #1 in mind, the Saturday edition is normally not bagged. So the delivery person drops it off after 9 P.M. without a bag on it on my driveway. It may snow and/or rain overnight. Thus, I have to find the paper in snow the next morning and/or through it out as it is soggy and completly unreadable.

3. Missing Flyers - M&M Meatshops and Highland Farms I normally receive in the paper. But for weeks at a time it would be hit and miss whether I would get them or not.
 4. No delivery - Saturday edition some weekends I don't even receive. From what I can remember this has occurred three times and is evidence to me the original Delivery Supervisor I called didn't really follow up or supervise properly the delivery person after the first issue.

So I hope this gives you an indication what [my street] has been through in less than a year. The above issues also mean that your advertisers would have the product they paid for not properly read by the readers of The Liberal in a timely fashion.

My contact information, as requested, is:


[contact information included]
I hope the above and my past e-mails to Carrie provide some indication what experience the residents of [my street] have had on an off and on basis for almost the past year.


Thanks for assisting in resolving this issue.


Sincerely,


Michael Suddard

Anne replied to the above e-mail saying she wasn't aware of the past issues and would meet with Carrie about resolutions to the issues.  She also requested to be included on future e-mails about delivery issues.  I replied to Anne thanking her for the follow up and that I would gladly include her on the e-mails I was sending Carrie. 

I received an e-mail on March 14th from Anne stating that the street had been verified by phone and that all the houses received the M&M Meatshops flyer except for one who was unsure.   Anne also noted that if there were any other issues that the carrier would be replaced. 

There is obviously issues with phone verification of whether the a household received a flyer or not in the local paper.  This past Thursday's (April 14th) edition of The Liberal, for example, had over twenty flyers of all shapes and sizes in the paper.  So fast forward to a busy Saturday afternoon when the representative from The Liberal calls and inquires if a house received a paper on time and if a certain flyer was in it.  Not really caring the household will probably respond "Yes I got it and it had the M&M's flyer in it".  The response of the household obviously came from the idea of "that was Thursday, it seemed to be there on time I think it had the M&M's flyer but I'm not going to sort through my blue box for a simple phone call".  So if five households responded like this The Liberal would have considered the M&M's flyer to be delivered.  Perhaps a more sooner phone verification, like perhaps on Friday for Thursday edition delivery, would have been more accurate.  This is because by Saturday chances are the edition would have been duly filed away to recylingville.

To say the least after March 14th, things seem to have returned to what they should be.  I now receive the Saturday Liberal by noon and the Thursday edition filled with flyers. But late delivery past the 7:00 P.M. cut off seems to still be an issue.

Sad really that a local community newspaper who claims to have been around since the 1800's cannot for the life of them guarentee their advertisers duly paid flyers are inserted beyond 90% of the time and their customers a timely delivery of the news on the promised day.  Sad really, if Canada Post were a newspaper company they could actually due better.  Just ask my mailbox on a daily basis, guaranteed to have flyers!

Toronto Paper Comparison: A Reader's Perspective

Newspapers periodically release circulation numbers and various readership studies. The release of the numbers includes percentage increases, number of readers and comparisons to previous years. The papers obviously try to portray the numbers in a positive light towards their readership that basically says "hey we are number one!". So many numbers and bragging it makes a reader's head spin.

This past October my wife found on Redflagdeals.com a free subscription for the Saturday Toronto Star and Monday to Saturday delivery of the National Post and the Globe & Mail.  So each Saturday until next weekend we will receive three newspapers on your doorstep.  I've found this to be a great opportunity to investigate which newspaper I prefer to read based on various aspects that I, as a reader, look for in a paper. I explore these various aspects below for the deliveries of the Toronto Star, Globe & Mail and National Post.

Delivery: The first and most obvious is delivery of the newspaper itself.  For each of the papers I requested front door delivery and all promised delivery before 6:00 A.M.  Thus, every morning of delivery I should have a copy of the paper at my front door at 6:00 A.M.  Here is how the papers ranked:

1. National Post - Only had one missing paper the first Saturday.  After that, I've never had an issue with the paper not being there.   The paper has always come dry and on my front porch.

2. Toronto Star - The carrier on our route delivers the paper closer to 7:00 A.M. on a Saturday since subscription started.  On weekends this may not be such a big issue.  However, for some this may be an issue if they leave for work early before 7 and hope to take the morning paper with them on their commute (e.g. subway, bus, etc.) or to work. Otherwise the paper has been properly delivered. 

3. Globe & Mail - Over the past two weeks the paper has failed to show up on first attempt and sometimes many after that:

a) The first time my wife called circulation.  Circulation had an automatic recording saying there would be no delivery for the Globe & Mail that day and two copies would be delivered on the next day.  Well we waited for the paper to show up the next day and there was only one edition.  

b) The second time it didn't show up I called at 6:50 A.M. and was promised delivery within 90 minutes.  Nothing showed up after 120 minutes (i.e. 2 hours).  So I called again. I was promised again delivery.  Nothing.  The third call, the Customer Service Representative said I was basically out of luck and the next day I should have the regular paper. 

c) Then third time this past week I called and the Globe & Mail Circulation had an automatic recording saying there was an emergency situation at their place and they couldn't pick up the phone.  I called back 30 minutes later and there was a recorded message saying delivery of the paper was delayed until at least 11:00 A.M.  By 10:00 A.M. we had the paper delivered.

If we were paid Globe & Mail subscribers, we obviously wouldn't be pleased.  But as a free trial, the Globe & Mail fails miserably on delivery.

Customer Service:  We've had to call all three Customer Service Centres for the papers. Each paper was ranked based on, how annoying their automated systems were, how long after we dialed in we had to wait to speak to a live person and were the Customer Service Reps able to assist us in resolving our issues.

1. National Post - Called once about a missed delivery.  The Customer Service agent picked up within 30 seconds and had a new paper delivered within an hour. 

2. Toronto Star - Called to cancel our trial subscription.  The Customer Service agent was more interested in figuring out why we were cancelling and then offering us another paid trial offer.  Bottom line, if we were interested in continuing we would inquire about another offer to further our subscription.  

3. Globe & Mail - Called around five times to have the paper delivered in the first place.  An automated voice recognotition system picks up and asks you a bunch of questions in appearance of trying to help.  One time I called and told the automated systemd "missed delivery".  The system responded if I would like to add the Sunday New York Times to my subscription. I responded "no" and then it kept asking me what I was calling.  After repeating the "missed delivery" fiasco above two more times I hung up and retried.  Bottom line, every time I called in with questions on my account (i.e. to cancel the trial subscription or a missed delivery) I end up at a live person anyway.  Is it really hard to train a live customer service person to answer simple questions like: 1. "How much longer do I have on my subscription?" 2. "The paper didn't come today, can I have a redelivery?" After all the Globe & Mail has been around for over a hundred years, newspaper delivery on specified days to subscribers homes on time shouldn't be rocket science anymore.   To make matters worse, I can't remember ever waiting less than 5 minutes to talk to a live person,  but again I kept being reassured that "your call was important to us" and that there were "higher call volume".

Ottawa Bureau Coverage (Parliament Hill):  Newspapers that provided in depth coverage of the House of Commons and other goings on at Parliament Hill tended to rank better.  This coverage included the day to day goings on by the reporters to analysis and opinion by columnists.  

1. Toronto Star: The Star excels at covering Parliament Hill with in depth articles written by veteran newspaper reporters who know the workings of Canadian politics.  From the day to day coverage by Bruce Campion-Smith and Allan Woods  to the columns by Chantel Hebert and James Travers and in depth coverage by senior writers Susan Delacourt and Linda Diebel, it is hard to beat this coverage. 

2. Globe & Mail:  Not to be outdone, the Globe & Mail has a decent set of writers as well (e.g. Gloria Galloway, Jane Taber, John Ibbitson).  They are close to what the Toronto Star has in terms of quality.  However, being a "national focused" newspaper instead of a "Toronto focused" the coverage doesn't really tell me how the parliamentary decisions really affect those that live in and around Toronto.

3. National Post: The Post has gobbs of commentary by John Ivision (not to be confused with John Ibbitson of the Globe & Mail) but the straight news isn't really lacking.   There really is no memorable writers from the National Post that seem to be able to bring the straight goods from Parliament Hill without some sort of "analysis" or "comment" label being associted with their name.   However, the commentary by John Ivison and the odd feature article from the National Post's writers or associated writers from the Post's sister papers do provide some interesting reading.  But overall, the National Post needs to either grab a writer from somewhere else or grow a Parliamentary Bureau reporter that can dig into the goings on at Parliament and give the readers the straight goods without the bias that a columnist would present. 

Greater Toronto Area (GTA) News: Like the Ottawa Bureau Coverage, the GTA should have both reports of what is going on at City Hall (i.e. Toronto City Hall) and analysis provided by columnists. 

1. Toronto Star:  Obviously a Toronto based paper like the Toronto Star would have better coverage of the Toronto area than the other two national papers like the Post and the Globe.  The Star even has better local GTA coverage than it's main Toronto area coverage competitor, the Toronto Sun, as well.  The Star has the lead stories on the front page, letter to the editor on the comment page and a full "GTA" section everyday except on Sundays included in the paper.  The coverage is quite complete from Royson James and Christopher Hume providing their commentary of items both at City Hall and in the community to Jack Lakey taking on City Hall in one of my favourite columns "The Fixer" and of course the usual staff writers investigating the day to day goings on at Toronto City Hall.

2. National Post: On most days the Post has two pages and one or two letters to the editor on Toronto issues.  The Post really only ranks higher than the Globe & Mail as I've found a new columnist, Chris Selley, who I enjoy reading.  Otherwise, the coverage is focused on city hall and matches the same coverage provided by the Globe & Mail.

3. Globe & Mail: The Globe only provids two page on Toronto goings on and some letters as well like the National Post.  However, like the National Post, most readers want the national news instead of the local.  But for myself, Toronto and national coverage together better. 

Comics: The papers were ranked based on the number of comic strips in the paper (i.e. space taken up), are the comics humourous most days and were there comic strips that provided "reliable" (i.e. almost guaranteed to provide at least a smile on a daily basis).

1. Toronto Star:  The Star beats the others hands down.  The Star has really invested in being the number one spot for newspaper comics by having such reliables as "For Better or for Worse, " "Sherman's Lagoon" and others on a daily basis.  But the Star also expanded their Saturday paper's three pages of comics content by picking up  "Garfield" and "Baby Blues" from the Toronto Sun. Also, the newer strips like "Retail" have been a hit as well.

2. Globe & Mail: Beats the National Post because they have six strips and the Post has none. Although these strips are nothing to write home about.

3. National Post: Comics?  None.  Hence last place finish.

Overall: What do the papers bring to me overall that I appreciate.

1. Toronto Star: The Star has great local coverage of the Toronto area and compliments it's local sister paper, The Liberal, with local Toronto area coverage.  A full page of comics is a great asset to this paper that it probably doesn't get the recognition it deserves.  Specialty columnists like Jack "The Fixer" Lakey going after simple day to day problems around town and Consumer Columnist (and blogger!) Ellen Roseman provide good tips and provide an interesting read.

2. National Post: Reliable delivery!  I've never wondered where the paper was after the first phone call.  Every time the front door is opened int he morning there the National Post is guarenteed dry and ready to be opened and explored.  I've also enjoyed the City Hall Musings of Chris Selley as well and may look him up more often after our free trial subscription ends.

3. Globe & Mail: Poor delivery performance  and Customer Service issues seem to be major problems at this publication. After one hundred years in existance in the Toronto area, one would figure that delivering a paper to subscribers reliably wouldn't be an issue.   Otherwise the paper is a decent read for both it's National politicial coverage and business news.

Finally, the main question, will I subscribe to one of the above papers?  No it's not worth having a paper land on my doorstep every morning to read.  Not at a cost of over one hundred dollars a year for a subscription.  Besides for commuting the Richmond Hill area is well served by the freebies of Metro and 24 Hours that easily help to pass the time on the bus.  For news and information in the evenings and weekends I can usually turn to the newspaper and television websites for nothing more than the cost of an internet connection.

Toronto Star: "National Gallery...in a Garage"

The Toronto Star is notoriously a Liberal paper in its reporting and editorializing. So it is not surprising to find the Star’s Peter Goddard lambasting the federal Conservatives over the National Portrait Gallery not being funded for completion in his column in today’s paper.

In the column, Goddard tells the tail of woe of the National Portrait Gallery having to be hosted in a garage located off a back alley in downtown Toronto. Goddard, in the column calls this fact the gallery is hosted in such awful conditions a travesty which is true.

Goddard only mentions, in passing, the idea of former Liberal Heritage Minister Sheila Copps idea of a opening the portrait gallery in the old US Embassy building being launched in 2001. Then, for some reason, he lays the entire issue at the feet of today’s Conservative government. Goddard is right to blame the Stephen Harper government for cutting the $44 million in order to launch the national portrait gallery. But he believes this to be “more Tory political payback”. But really, is it all Conservative party problem?

Sheila Copps launched the idea for a National Portrait gallery in 2001 and nothing happened except the old US flag came down and a new Canadian flag went up. Since then nothing much has happened to the building. So why didn’t the Liberals get the museum up and running? Was it because of lack of money? Not likely since Paul Martin stressed it was the Liberals who slayed the deficit and now were running significant surpluses. Surely some of the money from the surpluses could have been invested in the museum to get it up and running. But perhaps with the problems the health care system was seeing, funding a new museum was not politically palatable at the time. So hence the Liberals kept putting it off and putting it off.

Fast forward to today, and it seems, according to Goddard, the Conservatives are to blame for not funding this new museum. Goddard unfairly believes the entire problem is with the Conservatives. But why shouldn’t the Liberals, who were in power the majority of the time between 2001 and today (2007) also share the blame?

Goddard also mentions a further tidbit of information, $44 million. It takes forty four million dollars to get this museum up and running? Lets figure out what the forty-four million might be used for:

1. Purchasing land and a building? Nope, the Canadian government already became owner of the former US embassy in 2001.

2. Renovations of the building? I would suggest the building already meets fire code for an office building. Perhaps only some minor renovations would be required for space and accessibility purposes but that should cost more than two million dollars tops. Two million is also probably on the very high side.

3. Purchasing portraits and art work? The Montrose Portrait Gallery of Canada, on their website, notes “The National Portrait Gallery of Canada has thousands of lovely portraits and millions of lovely photos” already. So why spend more money to acquire even more portraits if thousands of portraits and millions of these photos are currently collecting dust?

4. All portraits need picture frame hooks. So perhaps a good portion of the forty-four million dollars is to go towards the picture frame hooks and the hammers needed to mount them on the wall. No doubt there will be highly paid union jobs needed to put these portraits up on the wall. The portraits placings, of course being a government operation, would require hours of special committee meetings and bureaucrats to fuss over. This doesn’t even include the time to discuss what paint colours to use for the walls itself!

So in order to save everyone time and money, I hereby volunteer to do my part for the National Portrait Gallery of Canada and volunteer my time and my hammer in order to get these portraits on the wall of the old US Embassy. I figure a team of 5 to 10 of us could each take a room and hang the probably already framed portraits on the walls of the old embassy building.

But of course the Portrait Gallery of Canada being a Liberal idea and a government operation, my suggestion will never see the light of day. But of course the spending of forty four million dollars down the toilet will never be the fault of the Liberals. The Liberals will only blame the Conservatives of course, once the Conservatives come to power that is. Otherwise, just like Goddard and the Toronto Star, while the Liberals form government, its all HUSH! HUSH!

Ipperwash Inquiry: A Journalistic Inquiry

On Thursday the findings of the Government of Ontario‘s official Inquiry into the events of the native occupation at Ipperwash Provincial Park during 1995 were released.

Ipperwash Provincial Park is located in southwestern Ontario on the shores of Lake Huron just south of the community of Grand Bend, Ontario. Back in the summer of 1995 tensions were brewing between the Stoney Point Natives and the federal government over a military base. The federal government had been promising to return the military base to native control once the Second World War had ended. However, around fifty years later the Stoney Point Natives were getting antsy. A group of the natives moved into the military base and occupied it. The military, sensing tensions were growing, had smartly moved out of the base smartly beforehand. However, the natives grew even more restless and began eyeing the next door Ipperwash Provincial Park. Labour Day weekend saw the natives move into and occupy the provincial park claiming there were native buriel grounds.

Friday morning the Toronto media published both the usual stories reporting on the inquiry’s findings as well as presenting analysis by their columnists. The Toronto Star‘s Queen’s Park Columnist, Ian Urquhart, blames the Ipperwash Affair almost entirely on then Ontario Premier Mike Harris. Urquhart’s main thesis that: “…[the] pressure from Harris to resolve the matter quickly contributed to the eventual outcome” of the Ipperwash clash. Urquhart goes onto point at that the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), because of Harris’ pressure to resolve the native occupation of Ipperwash Provincial Park quickly, were thus forced to storm the park and remove the occupying group of natives. This prevented the police from negotiating with the native occupiers like the current provincial Liberal government is doing with the native occupation of Caledonia Ontario.

Ian Urquhart even points out that the Ipperwash Inquiry’s main stinging criticism of Mike Harris by writing: “For good measure, Linden also chooses not to believe Harris’s denial that he ever said, “I want the f—ing Indians out of the park.” Good Measure? Seems Urquhart only adds this little tidbit of information just to throw in some more anti-Mike Harris rhetoric to his column. Basically Urquhart uses this column to rail against the Conservative “law and order approach

On Friday the Toronto Star‘s Friday Editorial is not as scathing as their own columnist Ian Urquhart. The Star’s editorial attempts to answer the question of ‘what went wrong at Ipperwash? The editorial points to the three things as being the reason the whole Ipperwash Provincial Park occupation ended up in a very negative affair:

“…the impatience of former Ontario premier Mike Harris, cultural insensitivity in the Ontario Provincial Police and federal foot-dragging on aboriginal land issues.”

The editorial goes onto outline how each played its part and how the inquiry’s findings can lead to better actions by government in response to similar occupations like the Ipperwash affair. Why is the Star editorial correct?  Usually in explosive situations like the native occupation of Ipperwash Provincial Park there are several factors that lead to confrontation and not just one, as the Editorial outlines.

The first factor was that the newly elected Conservative government of Mike Harris wanted to solve the situation quickly. So the OPP felt the pressure from the provincial government to solve problem.
However, the pressure posed another problem, the commanders at the Ontario Provincial Police didn't have experience or knowledge of the history and cultural background of the native protesters. This pressure meant the police were being called upon to act quickly and, thus, were unable to bring in native historians and other experts to do some background research in order to establish how to best handle the situation. The OPP forced by haste were unable to even negotiate with the native occupiers of the provincial park and really had no other option but to storm the park. Add into the mix rumours of possible firearm possession by the native occupiers, a perfect storm had begun to brew.

But how did the whole situation become so bad? As the the Toronto Star notes the slowness of the federal government in resolving native land claims is the main problem. Had the federal government set up a process of negotiating the land claims of this particular area of the province, perhaps the natives would have seen some form of progress and an occupation would have been unnecessary. Had the federal government kept their word and vacated the military base voluntarily, perhaps the provincial park may never have been occupied. However, because the federal government failed to both set up land claim negotiations and failed to vacate the military base in a timely fashion, the natives of this area of the province became restless.

Over at the Toronto Sun, Queen’s Park Columnist Christina Blizzard believes the OPP are more to blame. Right off the top of her column she points out the Ipperwash Inquiry dismisses any involvement of the Mike Harris government in ending the dispute. Blizzard believes the lack of communication by the OPP and the cultural insensitivity of the whole Ontario Provincial Police were the main reasons for the Ipperwash occupation ending the way it did.

Is Blizzard right? Perhaps there was no pressure from the Harris government felt by those within the OPP who were in charge of the situation at Ipperwash. Perhaps the Commissioner of the OPP felt the pressure and didn't let the political pressure filter down to those in charge of policing the occupation at Ipperwash Provincial Park. On this basis the real factor in the Ipperwash situation were the officers in charge of the policing situation rushed to solve the problem at Ipperwash. The rush to solve the problem meant they decided to solve the problem instead of taking their time to investigate options into how best solve the situation. This ultimately meant the idea of negotiation was never considered.

The hypothesis that the Conservative government didn't interfere in the Ipperwash fiasco is the basis of the Toronto Sun’s Friday Editorial/Point of View. The editorial tries to ensure the all reasons the Ipperwash Inquiry found for the provincial Conservative government under Mike Harris was not blame are laid out. The attempt to show Mike Harris was not pressuring the OPP in the Ipperwash situation by the editorial is in quite the contrast to the Toronto Star’s Ian Urquhart column mentioned above. Urquhart basically only quotes a very minute section of the report on the involvement of Mike Harris. This is in contrast to the Toronto Sun Editorial that provides a whole paragraph excerpt from the inquiry’s report:

“Although Premier Harris was critical of the police, I do not find he interfered with or gave inappropriate directions to the police at Ipperwash … the premier did not inappropriately direct the OPP on its operations … or enter the law enforcement domain of the police. Although one may disagree with his view, it was legitimate for the Premier to take the position that the First Nations people were illegally occupying the park, and that he wanted them out of Ipperwash as soon as possible. He did not give direction on the manner in which the OPP should enforce the law; how, when and what arrests should be made; tactical decisions; or other actions the police should take to end the occupation … it was not inappropriate for the Premier to direct the Ontario government to seek an injunction (against the occupation) as soon as possible.”

With all these conflicting points of view from journalists and editorialists of two Toronto dailies, who is right?

The real answer lies with which source do you believe is correct. Personally, the Ipperwash Incident unraveled in a chronological sequence of events:

1. The federal government, who under the Canadian Constitution, looks after native issues failed in peacefully negotiating a land claim swap with the Stoney Point natives for this area of the province since the early 1900s. Lands seem to change hands between both public and private interests quite a bit in this area without input from the natives of the area

2. The federal government failed to close the Ipperwash Military base and return to the land to the Stoney Point natives following the Second World War. The natives were quite patient for over fifty years. However, near the end of the fifty years the native grew restless and saw no end in sight to the military occupying the military base.

3. The natives moved into occupy the military base. The Canadian military, hearing rumours of a possible confrontation over the military base, smartly moved out of the military base weeks before the occupation.

4. A group of the natives occupying the military base started eyeing the adjacent Ipperwash Provincial Park as another piece of land ripe for a native occupation. After all the Ipperwash Provincial Park had always been considered a site of a former native burial ground. With the occupation of the military base next door, the natives could occupy both the military base and provincial park all at once.

5. The OPP wanted to ensure the situation was quickly brought under control. When the natives had moved into the military base it was one thing. But now the natives had moved into Ipperwash Provincial Park, the optics of the situation showed that the provincial police had lost control of the situation. So the OPP wanted to swiftly move into and at least remove the natives from the provincial park portion of the occupation and leave the federal government to deal with the occupation of the military base.

6. There was some pressure felt from the provincial Conservative government. However, this pressure only came in the form of, as the Toronto Sun Editorial quoted from the Inquiry’s report,”…it was legitimate for the Premier to take the position that the First Nations people were illegally occupying the park, and that he wanted them out of Ipperwash as soon as possible.” Thus, the OPP knew the provincial government was moving towards having the occupation declared illegal anyway and action would need to be taken sooner rather than later. Was the pressure coming from the Premier’s Office ordering the OPP to move in right away? No, the Premier, as the inquiry and Sun columnist Christina Blizzard point out, no direct order was given. But there appears to be some indirect pressure from the provincial government for the OPP to solve the situation.

7. The OPP moved in quickly to quell the situation at the Ipperwash Provincial Park. Rumours of the native occupiers with guns meant that heavily armed OPP officers were used. As the OPP moved into Ipperwash Provincial Park one night, a firearm was thought to be observed. This led to the killing of Stoney Point native Dudley George.

8. The Conservative government denied any responsibility in the killing of Dudley George.

9. The Liberal government is elected in 2003 and starts an official public inquiry into the shooting of Dudley George and the occupation at Ipperwash Provincial Park.

This chain of events seems to meet both the Toronto Star‘s editorial beliefs of more than one factor leading to the situation blowing up at Ipperwash Provincial Park, Ian Urquhart’s belief that then Premier Mike Harris had some involvement, the Toronto Sun’s Editorial of little involvement of Mike Harris and Christina Blizzard’s belief that the OPP were the main bunglers of the whole situation. I have used the two Toronto dailies’ analysis of the situation to inform my own opinion on what happened in the fiasco at Ipperwash Provincial Park that ultimately lead to the death of Dudley George.

If one were to only read one publication and not the other, the reader would not see the conflicting analysis of the other publication as to what might have happened. So, sometimes, it pays to read the analysis of one major daily. This is especially the case on major political issues like the Ipperwash Inquiry where partisan sides tend to come out.

The governments of the future need to learn as much from the situation that erupted at Ipperwash, that future land claim disputes are not handled this way. Then possibly the if a situations like the ones that presented themselves at the Ipperwash are not repeated. This would also prevent another report having to be issued that is very similar to the one issued on Thursday.

'Shoefiti' Star?

Yorkregion.com - News - 'Shoefiti' leaving footprint on telephone, hydro lines

So apparently a local newspaper reporter visited my blog entry on "Shoefiti" and then writes an article based on my blog entry.

Here's where the hillarity starts:

1. I read an article in the Toronto Star about Shoefiti and start making connections between the article and my life in New York City and Aurora. I provide some random thoughts and presto I get quoted by a local newspaper reporter.

2. The newspaper reporter, trying to get an interview with me, calls my parent's house looking for an interview. I don't return the call because I can't believe that the reporter, Joan Ransberry, hasn't noticed all I'm doing is making connections between the Toronto Star article and Aurora. It's really not the far fetched. In fact, it must have been a slow newsday for her just to quote my article as evidence shoefiti is alive and well in Aurora.

3.Now here's the fun part. The Toronto Star is owned by Torstar. Torstar owns Metroland which prints local community newspapers. Metroland publishes the Era-Banner and other newspapers appearing at yorkregion.com. What a small world.

For now I will take the compliment that someone in the field of journalism actually thinks I'm an expert on this subject. This is despite that all I know on the culture of shoefiti I learned about by reading the Toronto Star article and speculating a bit via a few random thoughts that I came up with while writing the blog entry.

Perhaps this might lead to a disclaimer having to be posted on the blog..."Mike is not an expert in anything but random thoughts..."

UPDATE!: Further coverage of my original blog entry is quoted at Shoefiti.com and the post can be found here. I wonder if this is how Joan Ransberry of the Era-Banner found my blog entry? Apparently I'm a Shoefiti star after all even though I was providing only random thoughts? Go figure....

Caught Red Handed!

The York University student newspaper The Excalibur broke the story in this weeks newspaper that at least two student union presidents sucessfully attended a press conference by posing as journalists.

Chris Bently, the Minister for Training, Colleges & Universities, was holding a press conference about financial aid and scholarships for university and college students. But before he approached the podium to begin his speech, he was interupted by student government members from accross the province. Bently was forced to cancel the press conference.

The student union president York University, Corrie Sakaluk, and the University of Toronto's Vice-President External, Emily Shelton were allowed into the press conference because they claimed they were journalists from either the University of Toronto's The Varsity and York University's The Excalibur.

However, neither of these student politicians were even affiliated with the newspapers. In Sakaluk's case, she is not allowed to be a journalist for The Excalibur because under the newspapers' constitution this would create a conflict of interest between the newspaper and the student union in terms of press coverage.

Of course the optics of this look very bad on these student leaders. But what is worse is Corrie Sakalak refuses to admit she did anything wrong by telling The Excalibur:

"...I don't feel like I did anything wrong. I think that I made a strategic decision, and I think that it was an important way of ensuring that the voice that the students I represent come to the people and receive the media coverage that they deserve to receive..."-- found in this article.

Sakuluk apparently has no problem committing fraud by passing herself off as something she is obviously not, a journalist. Even worse she was caught by the organization who she claimed to be a member of, The Excalibur. The question in this case is: will Excalibur take Sakaluk to court over this?

An even bigger question is what is Sakaluk, as president of York's student union, is: can she be trusted with the spending of the thousands of dollars in student union money? Obviously if she cannot express regret in lying to a provincial official, Chris Bently, then why should the students of York trust her with one red cent of their money?

Further, if Sakaluk is going to get into politics in the future at either the municipal, provincial, federal or international level, how can she be trusted? Sakaluk has been caught red handed in this case and should immediately resign her position as President of the York Federation of Students. Failure of her resignation to occur, the council of the Federation of Students should remover her in office (which it can legally due under section 5.5 of the York Federation of Students' Bylaws). It would be a great disservice to both the interest of democracy and the students of York University if either of these options of removing Sakaluk doesn't occur.

What is even more disturbing is that Corrie Sakaluk isn't the only one caught red handed in the case of this press conference. This is disturbing because if the student leaders are going onto run in future elections in government, how are the voters supposed to trust these guys with their hard earned taxpayer's dollar? If this is the future of Canadian politics, Canada is in deep trouble.

Icy roads treacherous

Toronto Star Headline: Icy roads treacherous

One question: Who would've thunk it?

Random Thoughts & Musings

This is a random thoughts entry (idea stolen from Jack) about things I have pondered over the past week that I have gathered either from personal observation or through reading various newspapers. I do have a long time to read newspapers as I take mass transit in Toronto (which can be quite painful sometimes as you will soon see). Now on with the random thoughts:

1. Why do drivers slow down in the rain? It took me an hour and half to take the bus from Downsview Subway station to York University and then onto Richmond Hill Centre. I ended up missing another bus and was forced to wait a half hour in northern Richmond Hill before I got home to my birthday dinner. ARGH!

2. Gary Dunford on his blog brings up a very big problem of a friend of his. Apparently, his friend was laid off a year ago due to downsizing at his former company. However, apparently the reason the company downsized was not for financial reasons as Dunf's friend is still receiving his regular pay cheque! Even better is the cheque is not electronically generated as there are two executives sign the cheque. Apparently even the executives don't knmow what is going on!

3. All is not well in the New York City Department of Education. (For regular readers of my blog, you already know that considering my recent past). There are actually two horrifying stories of the Department of Education screwing up that have been in the media (I am sure there are probably thousands more not seeing the light of day because there isn't a newspaper big enough or enough reporters to tell all the horror stories of mispent money and mistreatment of people at the Department of Education). However, this story caught my attention while I was wandering the internet this past week. The city pours a lot of money into the education system in the belief that things will improve, yet maintenance seems to be the bottom of the list. I have been in many New York City schools to see air conditioners not working, dust galore around the door frames, spit balls on the ceiling and much more.

Then a true "New York Irony." In other words, cruel irony, when this story appeared. Apparently, the New York City Department of Education didn't have the money to properly outfit their teachers up to health department standards and one teacher has possibly gotten infected on top of it. On top of that the Department of Education is now paying fines on a monthly basis because it is in contradiction of a health code. But, in true NYC Department of Education fashion, there is complete denial on the Department of Ed's fault in this case. In my experience, the Department of Education barely knows how to co-operate with its teachers (2 years without a contract between the Department and the teachers union would prove that), so how would it know what the health code is in this case? An even more in depth look at the problems of the New York City Department of Education teacher can also be found here. Perhaps an investigation by the State of New York Department of Education needs to be done on the City's Department of Education, because for too long has the City's education system smelled so badly from cronyism and corruption. And we Canadians thought the federal Liberals were bad enough!

4. On a lighter note, Antonia "I hope you spelled my last name right" Zerbisias provides us with an example of what Canadians are truly thinking during this time of ponderance over who we might vote for in a possible upcoming election. I believe this post can stand on its own with out any comment to be effective? Non?

5. From York University's newspaper, The Excalibur, the univerisities are complaining again about the MacLean's magazine yearly survey of univerisities. It seems that any time any university does well in the MacLean's rankings, the university administrations pat themsleves on their backs. However, when the university does poorly, the administrations and student unions blame the methodology of the survey. What the universities should be doing in response to each publication's survey is to look at the area of deficiencies noted and work to fix them. Each media outlet, just like the university's student body, looks at the insititution from various angles. It is the succesful universities that look good from various angles of analysis. Universities in Ontario seem to have forgotten that. Perhaps it is the "ivory tower" concept that some university administrations have fallen prey too.

6. To finish with a laugh....

The Era-Banner

Yorkregion.com - The Era Banner

This is an update to a previous post about the Era-Banner newspaper. Today we just received, moments ago, a copy of the Thursday edition of the newspaper. There is still no sign of last Sundays or Tuesday's editions of this said newspaper.

I wonder if the advertisers of the Era-Banner know that some of their customers are not seeing their advertisements. I wonder if the newspaper is forced to keep track of its distribution numbers in terms of what areas are not being served with timely distribution of the papers. This might effect advertisement rates.

Man has distrubition of this local paper gone downhill since I left for New York City!

Aurora Media has gone mad!

Since I was last home in December (in Aurora that is), the media that serves Aurora has gone mad.

First up, The Era-Banner newspaper which was normally delivered Tuesday, Thursday and Sundays to my home has now apparently stopped being delivered on Sundays. Sundays were my favourite time to read the local paper. Why? Because the Toronto Star Saturday edition I would have plowed through or needed a break from. So I usually turned to the local paper. Also, the Sunday Star usually is a bit boring and magazinish in nature. For some reason I never liked the Star's Sunday edition. But without the Era-Banner it just seems missing. The weird thing is that the online edition of the Era-Banner is updated every weekend, yet no paper copy is being delivered. Weird, maybe they stopped printing a weekend edition and decided to go online. Or may there is a problem with the distribution system. I would suggest the latter since the Sunday edition usually had sufficient advertising to support the paper for years. But who knows.
The old CKVR station (or the New VR) is virtually no more. Now we have the "A-Channel" serving us. This is basically the New VR with a paint job. Basically everything in the editorial department is the same including the reporters and news anchors. I haven't watched this channel in ages so I cannot comment on if the show line up has changed for the better or worse.

However, the biggest dissapointment is that the web camera for downtown Aurora is no longer found on A-Channel's website like it was on CKVR. There used to be a feed from the corner of Wellington & Yonge Streets in downtown Aurora. I used to cruise by the webcam images when I missed Aurora. An example of what the New VR used to provide on their website can be found on an old blog posting here. Hopefully the A-Channel will provide the images online again in the near future.

TheStar.com - NHL star declares war on P.E.I. newspaper

TheStar.com - NHL star declares war on P.E.I. newspaper

This article takes the cake for stupidity in journalism. Brad Richards, of the Tampa Bay Lightening, brings the Stanley Cup, Lady Byng and Conn Smythe Tropies to a parade in Summerside, Prince Edward Island. The parade is attended by over 10,000 people. The Summerside Journal-Pioneer runs an editorial that day lambasting Richards and the parade's organizing committee for not allowing Richards to sign autographs. Gee wizz, have you tried signing 1,000 autographs, let alone 10,000 autographs.

Even worse, the editorial itself says you can ride the subway in Toronto for $1.50. Last time I checked the fare was $2.25 if you paid by cash, $1.90 to $2.00 for tokens. So how can you ride for a $1.50 if your not over the age of 65? HELLO!

Shame on the paper.

Advertising on the Internet: Make it Stop!

The internet is supposed to be a convenient way to get information quickly, send written messages quicker and also be more profitable for businesses. When the internet first started out, this was the case. Newspapers, magazines, companies and so forth placed their information online. Newspapers like the Toronto Star and the Ottawa Sun placed their entire daily editions in online formats. Companies were merely happy to put their products on their own websites in order to make it easier for their customers to order. Then came the advent of the “banner add”. Websites found it quite expensive to place all this free content on the internet. Thus, when the banner ad was invented websites quickly gravitated to this type of advertising. Banner ads then started appearing at the top of webpages in various cases including before newspaper articles and personal essays on free website hosting firms (e.g. netfirms.com). Website visitors got used to the banner add and quickly got used to ignoring these type of advertisements. By ignoring these ads, website visitors were not clicking on these ads which caused revenues to decline. The problem was that banner adds were contracted to pay, in most cases, on a “per click”. For example, an overture.com banner ad pays about $0.02 per click to the website displaying the ad. Therefore, with visitors ignoring these ads and, thus, not clicking on them, website producers were not making any money off these advertisements.

Facing declining revenues and increasing internet costs to host website content and, in the newspaper industry, declining revenues from newspaper sales, the relationship between advertisers and the internet content producers had to change. Newspapers owned by the Canwest Global Communications (later Postmedia)  started restricting the number of stories carried on their respective newspaper websites (i.e. Ottawa Citizen) so that visitors were forced to purchase the product from the local newsstand instead of reading the whole daily newspaper online. Free website hosting companies were also hit as well. Geocities.com started restricting services to their website hosting customers unless they upgraded to one of Geocities’ paid packages. In other words, in some cases both the newspapers and the free website hosting companies started to move toward having the visitors pay for their products they were using and moving away from free content while still collecting revenue from the banner add.

The “pop up add” started to gain in popularity with websites. Banner and other sized advertisements could be popped up on the visitor’s computer screen while the consumer surfed the website. These new “pop up” advertisements were a hit with the website companies because the visitor was forced to see the advertisement because the visitors were now forced to close the window with the advertisement in it. Internet companies specializing in programs that could be installed on a visitor’s computer without the person even knowing where the program came from also began to start up. Internet surfers quickly became disgruntled over this new type of advertising as the number of these advertisements clogged up their toolbars, screens and, in some cases, even forced computers to run out of memory and crash.

Website visitors and web browser companies (i.e. Microsoft Internet Explorer) struck back at the dirty tactics of the advertising firms and their tactics of forcing unwanted banner ads on website visitor’s screens. The companies wanting to install programs that force pop up advertisements and track your interests by tracking the websites visited were the first to be targeted. With the advent of Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0, website visitors could set the security settings to notify them when a internet program was about to be downloaded. Within this screen is a lot of important information including the program’s name and the name of the company who produced the program. Also, an option to either accept the downloading and installation of the program or not. Thus, a quick click on the “no” button wouldn’t allow the dirty underhanded fiends of advertisers to install their programs without the knowledge of the user. I use this feature of Internet Explorer to screw over companies like Gain Publishing (formally known as Gator.com or “Gator”) who sells the information they receive to marketing companies. Also, by installing programs like Gain Publishing’s, web surfers are sending important information to Gain Publishing on their interests. This is done be recording where people surf to on the internet and who doesn’t search their interests on the internet? Gain Publishing and other similar companies can now sell the information to other companies or use it themselves in order to target marketing information to you through pop up add programs and sending advertisements to your e-mail address (SPAM). However, by not allowing these programs to be downloaded onto their computers, companies like Gain Publishing cannot get this information for free. Besides, consumers should be paid for doing providing their personal information including their interests. So be sure to look into this feature of Microsoft Internet Explorer by looking at: “Tools”, “Internet Options”, “Privacy” tab and moving the bar up to the “medium level”. This will restrict the programs from being downloaded without your consent. However, Internet Explorer does not prevent pop up adds to be launched by websites that have code embedded in their page code (i.e. language used to tell computer what the page should look like) to be launched.

Pop up stoppers have become popular with web surfers. I currently use the pop up stopping button on the Google toolbar (see Google.com to download) which doesn’t allow pop up windows to appear without your permission. Some of these pop up stopper programs they encourage you to pay for it. However, the Google bar is free to download. I have found this program to be very effective in eliminating unwanted pop up windows. Also, if this program is programmed correctly by the user, the program will allow pop up windows that are launched when the user clicks on a link but still eliminates the ensuing pop up advertisements.

Screwing over website hosting companies by employing anti-downloading techniques such as pop up stoppers and not downloading programs will only send the message that pop up advertisements and tricking us into giving them and other personal information without appropriate compensation will not be tolerated! Therefore, when you see a website host only using banner ads for revenue (e.g. canoe.ca, google.com, thestar.com, etc.), be sure to patronize their sites more and more. By encouraging other web hosts to not have annoying styles of advertising web viewers can show the marketing companies their true preferences, that the advertising that annoys will not be tolerated!