Desjardin has called for a whole revamping of the coin lineup and change department.

G & M Article / Desjardin Statements

I agree with much of what they say. Some of their recommendations may not be worth it, as I think for logistics, the quarter and looney will need to be kept the same size due to older vending machines, pool tables and pay phone systems.

I have questions about whether eliminating a 5c piece would be logistically practical only because rounding to the nearest 10 cent piece may be problematic. However, the nickle should be shrunk, perhaps to the size of a dime. Eliminate the dime altogether as a 5c and a 25c are adequate. Shrink the $2 piece to half its size (even smaller than a quarter) and just get rid of the $5 bills. No new coins please!

This was in regards to someone who mistakenly thought that NN advocates wanted to see everyone have unlimited internet usage (regardless of whether the bandwidth was there). And that these decisions were business right.

The problem is not regarding usage. Bell and Rogers have a right to charge more for high bandwidth users, or for those who go over their set limit on usage. That is not the problem. The problem is that telecommunications companies have determined that certain types of traffic do not belong on their service. The comparison with flash is dead on, or picture your company's VPN traffic being slowed. They are using advanced network routers to say that traffic using a certain port or protocol deserves to be blocked or slowed. This isn't the first time this has happened, telephone companies offering DSL service have tried blocking startup VOIP companies by limiting their traffic. Do you use SKYPE? All it takes is Shaw to change a setting and your SKYPE account becomes unusable while their digital phone service works clear as day.

Twice in a week, NDP MPs have touched on issues that I support. Earlier, Charlie Angus spoke about Network Neutrality and now Pat Martin is pushing to ban the penny.

While this is not nearly as important as saving the planet and removing poverty, it is something I fully agree with and I hope passes. Not only is the penny a waste of materials and costs tax payers about $35 million dollars a year to administer, but frankly what good is a penny.

I've rejected the penny for years when I could, but still probably have a bag of penny's around and usually find pile of the worthless coins by laundry machines or desks. They are useless for bus fare or parking meters, and as a guy who doesn't carry a change pouch or purse, I have never had a desire to touch a penny more than once. The last time I had use for a penny was at one of those Penny squishing machines at a carnival, and even then it took quarters to get the press running.

I'm not a Bell customer nor ever have, so I'm unable to spearhead this, but hopefully someone will file a much publicized competition bureau complaint against their clear violation of Canadian laws respecting competition (restricting network signals from 3rd parties is a clear violation). See story.

I've blogged on my support of Neutrality before, but imagine if Canada Post decided to delay envelopes from certain customers because they were frequent writers. I fully appreciate that their needs to be limits on usage due to technological limitations, but networks who have been allowed to form monopolies on distribution, must not be allowed to be the judge and jury of what crosses their lines. If they insist on restricting service, then perhaps its time to look at returning transmission lines and end user distribution points to communities.

Okay, so I get to be a little disgruntled once in awhile.

Throughout the recent campaign, I was thinking of a million different questions I would have asked on my first day in Parliament.

Would I ask about the economics of adding a carbon tax? Would I question the government on the sorry state of animal cruelty legislation and the ongoing seal hunt? Would I talk about the Conservatives censoring Canadian media? Would I scold the Tories for running an expensive anti-drug campaign focussing on educating parents that green=cannabis? (see here for propaganda)