When formulating an assault on reality it is best to have the most expensive cell phone plan available. As a habitual public servant harasser, I have noticed the ever growing wait time to speak to even the lowliest of the peasantry that do the public's bidding. Recently I called my local Member of Parliament to request more information on Canada's recently relaxed Atlantic coast, off-shore drilling regulations.
The call started off as all do, with a morning shot of gin and a contraband cigarette. I then pushed the appropriate digits on my cancer causing cell phone to connect to one of my many minions, tactically placed within all levels of our government. After a few moments I had a human on the line asking me the nature of my comment. And this is where the story begins.
This human question re-director after hearing that I wanted some clarification and back-ground info on this new, yet poorly timed bill. This bill would allow foreign corporations to use the minimum safety measures required, plus they would not need to have plans for a back-up well or any spill aftermath protocols. Now, I am no expert, but when a major natural disaster occurs near by (re. Gulf of Mexico), one would assume that the neighboring country's (us!) policies would take this negative factor into account and move forward more progressively.
Now, I would love to tell you I have gotten to the bottom of this issue by being a responsible supporter of the democratic process, through calls to my local elected officials and emails to those in a position to respond to my concern. Nope! Instead I waited on hold for over 56 minutes between two completely uninvolved Federal branches of government, only to find out that the first office I had called infact, misdirected me.
If I calculate the contact number research, the hold time plus the talk time, just to get some clarification pertaining to federal legislation it works out to an amazing 122 minutes! Thats over 2 hours of my life and a major chunk of my cell phone's monthly "Daytime" minutes. It seems to me that using a mobile phone to contact our employees, or politicians... is overly expensive and in general is doing a disservice to the democratic process in Canada. I can only imagine that this issue arises all over the world, and to which I say: "Free Calls To Gov't Jerks!"
