Well, you are, on an ethnic level, but I’m under the impression that Matt’s entirely of British Isles descent.
-Governor Quinn, who’s at least 5% French, and could be 25% French-Canadian (complicated story)
(PS- To actually address the OP, I find it peculiar that the Canadian government would have a foreign-based company conduct their census, regardless of what the company sells)
What precisely does the above have to do with the op? Yes America needs to do a better job policing it’s borders. Yes, America needs to focus more of it’s military dollars on ways to fight asymetrical warfare. Yes, America needs to clean house in INS and immigration to keep the bad guys out (and do so in a rational way). Yes, America’s military expenditures (and size and wealth and influence) all serve to make it the biggest target in the world. What pray tell does any of this have to do with Canada outsourcing it’s census to an American company and Candians feeling paranoid about it’s ramifications? I’m not asking Canada to turn into a ‘belligerent military power’, I’m asking them to cough up the dough to have an AVERAGE sized military and police their borders. If they did this they might HAVE an indigenous industry to support instead of having to outsource to a capable American firm. In any case, whatever they do or don’t I’m asking them to stop whining about big bad America… it’s not like we demanded to do their friggin census with nefarious purposes in mind, THEY asked to save a buck.
You’re right; my post had very little to do with the OP. In fact, it has almost exactly as little to do with the OP as your post, to which it was a response. Your observations about the military and security had zip, nada, nothing to do with the reasons for the census outsourcing. In fact, the only part of your post relevant to the OP was your comment was the sentence directly related to outsourcing. The rest was gratuitous crapola.
Also, the main thrust of the criticism in this post has not been at “America” in general; it has been aimed specifically at a particular company and the military system of which it is a part. Also implicit in the OP, and in some of the other Canadian responses, is criticism of their own government for handing off the census to a private, American-owned company. In general, the thread has not been the gratuitous America-bashing that you seem so desperate to see. I guess the fact that you choose to identify “America” with military contractors is one indication of the sort of attitude that the Canadians might be worried about.
Well, you Canadians still look as if you can take Lockheed-Martin in a fair fight, if the economy of Canada is compared against Lockheed. Canada rates as number 9 on the list of largest global economies, while Lockheed-Martin comes in at a paltry 143 on the corporate list. (General Motors, #1 on the corporate list, looks like an even match for Dennmark for the #23 slot of largest economies.)
http://www.corpwatch.org/issues/PID.jsp?articleid=377
Of course, it might not be a fair fight. Ahem. Welcome to the People’s Democratic Republic of American-Affiliated Canada, Brought to You by Lockheed-Martin.
My response was to the post which stated “I. Do. Not. Trust. The. U.S. Government. And. Or. Military. Complex” and ended “Why is that so hard for some of you to understand?”. That post certainly didn’t limit itself to the Lockheed Martin corporation and never mentioned the Canadian government at all. Let’s see, here are a couple other statements sprinkled throughout this thread that lead me to believe there was a bit of America bashing taking place here.
“Considering this and the present climate in Washington it may not be a stretch to suspect census data is of interest to DC and may eventually find its way south of the border.”
“I would say it’s the Americanness, sorry, and I’m with matt on this one.”
It is not I that is not drawing the distinction between Lockheed Martin and the US government, it is Canadians and others who seem to think our government will of course help itself to any information gathered by this private company regardless of the ethics and laws involved. As for Lockheed Martin and the ‘military system they represent’, what exactly would that be? The capitalist system? You know the one where you have a person wanting a service performed (such as a census) and you have company A. with a division that bids cheaply to accomplish said service? OH! You must mean the diabolical “Military Industrial Complex” that had JFK shot and kicks puppies for fun, answering as they do to the regime du jour of the Cheney Oilocracy (I can never keep these shadowy pseudo governments straight). Look, all I say is that if your worried just because this happens to be an American company, get over it. Either increase your military spending to the point where you have indigenous companies similar to a Lockheed Martin to use and pay for your own census or continue your close security relationship with our country and benefit by using experienced American firms and products on the cheap. Don’t pinch pennies, utilize American companies then make US out to be the bad guys who can’t be trusted. If the comments had been limited to, “I prefer a Canadian company or governmental agency conduct our own census” “Buy Canadian” I probably would have agreed with the sentiment and never posted. It was the “I don’t trust America, It’s it’s americaness, call me paranoid” statements that got me. That’s all.
I don’t think not wanting a big-ass American company compiling very delicate information on individual citizens of another, sovereign country - one that happened to put its foot down in not supporting a pre-fab war, and one that won’t back down on its commitment to legalizing queer marriage just because the “sleeping elephant” down south doesn’t like it - is paranoid.
Hold on there lokij I wasn’t “America bashing” at all, but rather, just tossing in a randon thought on what may be on the minds of some. I can see where you may have thought so but that was not my intention.
Quite frankly, if there’s bad guys residing north of the border planning death and destruction and LM somehow sneaks said evidence out, and if it saved lives, I’m all for it! Hell it would probably save a canadian or two should a WTC like target be on the bad guys list.
I’m sure that if the boot was on the other foot – that is, if a CANADIAN company were to collect information about the names, addresses, racial background, religion, occupation and income of every AMERICAN citizen – then all the US posters to this thread would be remain equally blase.
You guys seem perfectly okay with your own dearly trusted government collecting information about your lives, so you should be thrilled by the involvement of a foreign-owned company.
Right?
I think part of the problem with the original post is something that is very common in Canada. Canadiens seem to have a very high opinion of themselves and are very paranoid about being seen as different and “against” the US.
In reality, no one in the US really cares who is in Canada, whether or not you’ve legalized gay marriage, or basically anything about your country. Not that most of you aren’t nice folks, I’m sure you are, but who cares? Legalize all the gay marriages you want, who cares.
Yes, what Lockheed Martin will do with the information is obvious. First it will cold call you asking if you want to buy F-15s. Then, when that doesn’t work, it will invade your country and kidnap you and use you as slave labor in its super secret (known only by Cheney and Bush) laboratories building the next generation of ultra-lethal bombers that the military industrial complex has created. Isn’t it obvious?
If a member of this evil American military-defence complex (albiet, a uniformed member) can jump in here…
I don’t see what the big fuss is about. Lockheed-Martin, while primarily dealing with military arms (specifically air and space vehicles and weapons delivery systems) has also done work in computer technology, communications, deep sea research (an offshoot of some of their contracting for the USN) and assisted in the compilation of American census statistics. Someone said it before, and its probably the correct situation, LM-C probably just offered the most competative contract to the Canadian government. The Canadian division of an American company just signed a deal with the Canadian government. Don’t you think that your parlamentarians (please correct me if that’s the wrong term) would have dictated the allowable use of these stats in the contract? And, seeing as that ‘foreign’ contract has to be approved by the US State department, the USA will never get the specifics on it anyway. We’ll read the stats on the web, just like everyone else.
I mean, sheesh, its not like it’s the PRC’s Ministry of Information is trying to get your info. Now THAT would be scary.
But it’s military and evil and shit.
Wow. It’s taking longer than we thought.
So many of you who have posted are just so incredibly off-base … you seem to have no idea why this kind of thing would concern Canadian citizens. Christ on a crouton. You’re doing nothing to dispel the stereotype of the dense American not knowing or caring about Canada. Case in point, the above quote.
And fuck, where is matt??
Meanwhile, U.S. intelligence agencies “forgot” to sneak out the information they had prior to 9-11.
And how exactly would “bad guys” be identified through the answers on a census form? Oh yeah, Muslim, Arab… brown. Whatever. Hell, let’s throw in the homos as well, because everyone knows what we can do with stiletto heels.
scott , I am not dismissing the concern expressed in your OP one bit. I am not even suggesting data finding it’s way south would be all-good, all-right or all-correct…but if it were to occur, and if bad guys were ID’d, and I stress, if it saved lives, the good would far outweigh the perceived harm.
If it makes you feel any better I am suddenly concerned about Muslin Homos in Stelitto heels. Perhaps your census form needs a second look.
I didn’t write the OP. You mean my first reply to the OP?
Sheesh. People still confuse me with matt_mcl. Just because we’re both 'mos who live in Montreal. You can tell us apart by our dicks. 
It’s OK. We all know where you live anyway.
Canada.
oops - call me new and confused !
Well, I think in reality, you probably don’t.
First of all, it’ll be a private company having access to the information, not the US government. Lockheed Martin has its own rules about confidential information, and wouldn’t willingly give the information to the US government. The US government’s powers to get the information from LM is going to be further reduced if the information is stored in Canada by LM-Canada
Secondly, they’ll just be storing the information, at one point during the census, and not involved in census gathering. I’d imagine the data they store will be in some way encoded by Statistics Canada.
Thirdly, Canada isn’t very high on the US government’s list of threats or intelligence priorities
Fourthly, with the rather pourous US/Canadian border, shared language and culture, and general good relationship between the two countries, the US already has access to a lot of intelligence about Canada
Fifthly, all the information collected in the census will be public in the aggragate, anyway, and the US government probably doesn’t need individual information…it doesn’t care that Joe Blow lives at 200 King Street Vancouver.
However, that being said, I can understand why you’re concerned. However, I don’t think you really need to worry that much.
{{adds Homebrew and SO to the wedding guest list}} 