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As part of my recent process of renewing the registration on my car I encountered a major flaw in the Ontario Drive Clean program. This issue is a common but mostly overlooked problem encountered by anyone with an older car with the high possibility of failing the emissions test.
When I investigated what the options were for keeping the car on the road I was astounded at the blatant conflict of interest in the system. The concept of freedom of religion is fundamental to a free society’s acceptance of religious pluralism. The idea that citizens can practice and express their faith of any and all religions is an empowering aspect of modern society. This advancement in society has created a situation where different peoples are able to coexist.
However, true religious freedom also includes the freedom from religion. This means that as well as a persons right to choose from any established religion, or anything they make up themselves and choose to call a religion, they also have the right to practice no religion at all. Every modern democratic society strives to achieve equality across every measurable ethnic, gender, or socio-economic demographic.
Equality breaks down when different interested parties misunderstand what societal equality actually means. Issues arise related to a misunderstanding as to the extent that equality can be regulated.
Equality can be approached from either a legal or experiential standpoint.
Equality from an experiential standpoint looks at the outcome individuals experience within society. This perspective takes that experience and attempts to change the legal and regulatory climate to produce an environment where any two individuals will see the same outcome from a set activity. Canadian DSL customers are living with the illusion of choice when it comes to their ability to choose the modem they use to connect them to the internet. Bell currently offers exclusively the Bell Home Hub 1000 and 2000 modem/router devices as options for their customers. Similarly, the Bell re-seller Teksavvy offers a selection of Bell approved modems/router combo devices with much the same functionality.
These modem/router combos provide users with everything they would need to connect to the internet, and share that connection to devices throughout their house. It was once noted that a true free trade agreement should only be a couple of pages long. This is just enough space for a title page, the definitions, and then codifying that all trade is tariff-free. Unfortunately free trade agreements in practice never turn out to be quite that simple. The North American free trade agreement is close to 400 pages long, and still manages to make reference to other documents which outline further restrictions.