(Not edited for typos)

Hello,

I’m writing again today to express my extreme displeasure at Bell’s “attempt” to correct the situation outlined below.
After writing my original email, I received a call last night around 7:30 p.m. from a Bell representative claiming he had “good news” for me. His so called good news? Bell refuses to replace my BlackBerry Torch, but will give me any new smartphone I want as long as I’m prepared to pay for it and re-up my contract for another three years!

So let me get this straight… Bell has been jerking me around for close to six months now with repair after repair on a phone that is clearly faulty and the only way they’ll fix the situation they created by selling me a faulty phone and giving me terrible service is to force me not only to pay out of pocket, but also to EXTEND MY CONTRACT???

The sad part about all of this is that I’m not asking for an upgrade or some new-fangled toy. All it would take would be for Bell to say, “you know what – you’re right. Your business is important to us. We’ll send you a new Torch.” That would have solved the problem immediately. But to call me and tell me “Bell doesn’t have to guarantee the phones” (those were the guy’s words, not mine) and then try to fool me into paying for a new phone? What kind of moron does Bell take me for?

I would like to make this very clear – not only am I not extending my contract, I am contacting TELUS today via my company to move all of our services to TELUS. We already have a few phones on TELUS plans and the service has been excellent. My wife will also be leaving Bell as soon as it’s convenient for her to do so, and my in-laws have also decided to leave Bell based on my experience.

Bell has made it very clear to me that it does not value my business whatsoever, and frankly, I’m sure whoever will be reading this email will probably laugh at the fact that I’m leaving Bell. Bell doesn’t need me or want my business – I’m happy to oblige.

Thanks for absolutely nothing, Bell – your customer service has been embarrassingly horrific and I ashamed to have been foolish enough to sign with Bell in the first place. I’ll be leaving your company as soon as it’s convenient for me to do so.

(Typos not corrected since I wrote the email fast and angrily)

—

Will Bell do the right thing for me as their client or give me a big f**k you?

Hello,

I’m writing to you today as a last effort before I cancel my contract with Bell Mobility. I’m fully aware of the $500 fine to do so, but frankly, my experience with has been so unbelievably terrible that do extricate myself from this situation, I’m willing to pay it – unless whoever receives this now can correct it.

I signed a contract with Bell in February of 2011 for, I believe, a three-year term. I got a BlackBerry Torch and went about my business… During the summer, I started having problems with my Torch: weak signal, dropped calls, terrible lag, the phone would tell me the SIM card needed to be inserted even if it was, etc. Overall it was just not working properly.

This led to my first repair adventure, which I will detail below to the best of my memory (it should all be on file anyway):

I took my Torch back to the Bell store at Centre Rockland (Montreal) and was assisted by the staff that day… They took my Torch for repair and gave me a loaner BlackBerry. I’m not an especially picky person, and really, I just need the phone for calling and emailing, so I didn’t mind that the antiquated BlackBerry they gave me in return didn’t even have Web service on it. I also didn’t complain that it was slow and laggy, considering it was just supposed to be for a few days or so. I took the phone and went about my day, but it was in such bad shape that I couldn’t even make outgoing phone calls.

So I brought the loaner back to the store and they searched for another one in stock. The only other one they had was in such bad shape, it required Scotchtape to hold the backing on it. I said no thank you, and the staff promised to call me when a better quality loaner would be available.

Meanwhile, I left with my still-broken Torch and struggled with it for a few days while waiting.

The store called me back about a week later and told me they had a functioning BlackBerry loaner, so I went in, hooked it up, and tested it. The trackball didn’t work at all, so that one also was not going to do. I left, and returned again, but again, the only option they had required Scotchtape to make the backing stay on – I can’t imagine that’s within a company like Bell Canada’s acceptable parameters of customer service?

At that point, the woman who was helping me went way above and beyond and offered to purchase a BlackBerry case with her own money so that I would be satisfied. I said thank you but I thought that was unreasonable for her, so I declined. At the same time, however, another woman who worked there said she happened to have her own, personal, extra BlackBerry in her bag (she had just gotten a new one) and insisted on lending it to me while I had my Torch repaired.

I accepted and they took my Torch, repaired it as best as they could, and gave it back to me a week or so later and I returned the phone that was lent to me (this can all be corroborated by the store manager, Chantal Veilleux).

So that whole story was behind me by late-September and I my Torch was supposedly fixed… then later in the fall, it started acting up again. All the same issues including dropping calls, bad reception, lag, etc. I called Bell support at that point and was on with a fellow in support for probably close to 45 minutes as he walked me through some tips and tricks to make my BlackBerry work better including closing applications, etc., and so forth. I’ve followed all of the steps since, but the lag started again, etc., etc., etc.

At that point, I called in again and Bell advised me that they would send me a properly-functioning loaner BlackBerry and I could send them my Torch for repair again. I followed all of the steps, sent in my Torch, used the loaner for a couple of weeks, got my Torch back, followed the steps to get it working again, and started using it. That would have been early-November.

Then, starting just a few weeks later, the phone started acting up again – same problems … dropped calls, poor reception, lag, etc. At that point, I spoke with several people in both customer service and client retention, and they all told me the same thing: Send it in for repair.

Now, I’m a reasonable person with reasonable expectations, which is why I jumped through the hoops I jumped through on the first two repairs. I’m at the point now, however, where I simply refuse to accept that the burden should remain on me to go through the repair process over and over and over again. The Torch Bell sold me is obviously faulty and needs to be replaced. I’ve been given the story several times that Bell just sells the product but doesn’t warranty it, and so forth. I agree to a certain point that the burden should be on BlackBerry, but I am BELL’s customer – I signed a contract with BELL and it’s BELL that’s been making my life miserable. On top of all of this, I’ve had several billing problems (bills not sent to me, bills paid but not credited properly, I’ve been harassed by Bell collections even though I’m all paid up, etc).

I’m sending this email to make a very simple request: I believe that given my goodwill as a client to go for constant repairs and all the problems I’ve had, that Bell should take it upon themselves to REPLACE my phone at their cost. I’m not asking for an upgrade – I’ll gladly take a new Torch. I believe the phone I was sold is faulty and has to be replaced, not repaired. I’ll gladly take any kind of properly-working smartphone on which I have full email and Web access (this is a work phone, not a toy), and preferably a fixed keyboard (not a virtual keyboard). I don’t care if it’s a one-for-one swap with a new Torch or other comparable BlackBerry model, or an Android of comparable functionality. If it has to be a virtual keyboard, the only one I’ll take is an iPhone – but please do not be under the impression this whole thing is just a ploy for a free iPhone. I’m not insisting on that – I just want a proper smartphone that works.

I thank you for taking the time to read this email and I implore you to act in good faith and repair my trust in Bell.

I will not pay one red cent to replace my Torch. If the answer is anything other than “Mr. Sidel, we apologize and will replace your phone” then I am going to cancel my contract as soon as I see fit.

Thank you and have a nice day

While my inclination is to say winning should come before all else, I can make an argument from either side of the fence.

That said, I was thinking that for a team that’s – to paraphrase Gazette columnist Henry Aubin (and many others) – technically owned privately, but really belongs to the people, I find it interesting that in fact, it’s barely ever been owned by a francophone Quebecer – and hasn’t been so since 1957. (See list of owners, according to the Montreal Canadiens’ official history site, below)

I wonder why, in the over 100 years that the Blue-Blanc-Rouge has been owned exclusively by anglophones (including an American) for all but 37 of those years.

I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, I’m just illustrating the facts. I wonder why the no franco-Quebecer has stepped up to own the team since 1957…? I realize the Caisse owns part of the team today, but that was at the behest of Molson. Why hasn’t a francophone Quebecer stepped up and said “this is our team and we should own it?”

Canadiens owners (francophone Quebecers in bold):
1909-1910: J. Ambrose O’Brien
1910-1921: George Kendall-Kennedy
1921-1935: Leo Dandurand Jos. Cattarinich and Louis A. Létourneau
1935-1957: Senator Donat Raymond (Canadian Arena Company)
1957-1971: Molson family
1971-1978: Bronfman family
1978-2001: Molson Breweries
2001-2009: George Gillett Jr.
2009-present: Molson family

While all four were sitting as independents after resigning from their respective parties at one point or another (Caire & Picard from the ADQ and Charette & Ratthé from the PQ), I believe that they have collectively acted in poor faith by crossing the floor to join the new CAQ. This is political opportunism at its worst, and they – and Legault – should all be ashamed of themselves.

In our political system, people vote for parties, not people. Most of the time it makes no difference who the representative is – Charette, for example, was elected because the people of his constituency wanted to vote for the Parti Québécois. Now, despite the voters’ choice, he has joined the CAQ and basically said “you know what? I don’t care what you want.” This is an abuse of our democracy and should not be allowed.

I definitely respect an MNA’s right to resign from his or her party if he/she doesn’t agree with the direction that party is going. While that kind of goes against what I said above about the choice of the people being honoured, another cornerstone of our democracy is not to force someone to be part of any group to which he/she does not wish to belong.

These MNAs made the decision to leave their parties and I can live with that. But before they are allowed to sit as members of another party – any other party, they should be made to resign their seats and stand for that new party in a by-election. That would show actual courage for their convictions.

Instead, they are choosing the weak, coward’s way that is typical of politicians. This is why people are so cynical.

Caire said “I didn’t renounce any of my convictions, on the contrary, I’m really proud to defend the coalition’s proposals,” to the Gazette. If you were really proud to “defend the coalition’s proposals,” Mr. Caire, then you’d resign your seat and stand for the CAQ in a by-election.

I don’t believe for a split second that any of these people have a desire to “defend the coalition’s proposals.” They have the desire to retain their seats and their cushy jobs in the Assemblée Nationale, and right now they can see the forest for Legault’s trees. The CAQ is hot right now and they’re jumping on the bandwagon.

Legault has also publicly declared that he’ll continue working on poaching MNAs from the PQ and PLQ to build his team and the CAQ’s presence in Quebec City. I’m certainly not naive enough to think that Liberal leader Jean Charest or PQ leader Pauline Marois wouldn’t do the same given the chance, but Charest already has my vote and Legault is trying to wrest it away. Well, I’m certainly not impressed with these shenanigans.

If this is the way Legault intends on building his party, then he can’t count on my vote.

Countless blogs and sites have come and gone from my feed, but one has remained far longer than all others and I feel like giving it a little bit of random praise this morning: The Montreal City Weblog is really the best local news aggregator and source for commentary around. I have no connection to the person who runs the site and I know nothing about her, except that I know she’s a she because her posts all say “By Kate” – so to be very clear, I’m not promoting a friend’s site or anything like that.

I just think her site is fantastic and I think if you’re at all interested in local news, be it politics, sports, city news, arts, whatever, that you need to subscribe to her site, or at least visit regularly.

I don’t know if “Kate” will ever see this post, but if she does… thanks, Kate – and please keep it up!

Happy holidays.

Noah

How to read the Montreal City Weblog:

Site: w5.montreal.com/mtlweblog/

RSS feed: http://w5.montreal.com/mtlweblog/?feed=rss2

Twitter: www.twitter.com/mtlcity

Facebook: Actually, she dropped Facebook a while back.

The Exiles ended up having very successful summer, making the playoffs, and growing into what Fitzgerald believes will be a permanent fixture in this community.

“Founding a rugby club from the grass roots up is a Herculean task. There were many [doubters] in Montreal’s rapidly growing rugby community with respect to our ability to take the field this season, but we made it happen – rugby in NDG is a reality and it’s here to stay,” Fitzgerald said.

The Exiles in action in 2011 (Pic courtesy Murdoch Fitzgerald/Montreal Exiles)

“We had a very successful inaugural season, finishing with a 6-4 winning record that placed the Exiles third in our division as well as making it to the league semi-final, only to be narrowly beaten in a nail-biter by the eventual league champs.”

Prop William Scott was thrilled with the participation of the local community.

“One of the great things this club has brought to NDG and its members are the new friendships that have been formed,” Scott said.

“Rugby is a club sport and therefore everyone is welcome, no matter what skill level. The club is open to anyone that wants to contribute their time in whatever capacity they can. Secondly the fan support has been outstanding and the response of NDGers has been great.”

Fitzgerald agreed.

“We were really surprised with the influence and reception that we’ve had in the local community. Several new recruits joined the Exiles mid-season, some of which had no previous rugby experience. It’s still very much an emerging sport, but no doubt that our presence will hopefully inspire others to either come out and play, or be part of our club.”

Facilities are often a problem for local clubs of all kinds. The Exiles, however, were more than happy with the field provided to them by the CDN-NDG borough.

“Having a home field strategically positioned in the centre of NDG has been critical to our success. The field at Confederation Park is quality and every guest team that played us there gave positive feedback.

We’re extremely thankful to the city for providing such a solid facility. In addition, the proximity of the field for players and fans is very convenient for travel and there is lots of space for kids to run around,” Fitzgerald said.

With all their accomplishments in 2010 and big plans to expand to more age and skill levels in 2011, it looks like Fitzgerald et al indeed have a success story on their hands.

For more on the Montreal Exiles, visit: www.montrealexiles.com

You can always reach me at noahsidel@gmail.com. 

The team is in permanent 6th-to-8th place mode, getting mediocre draft picks, and really going nowhere. They’re boring as hell to watch, and frankly, he’s just uninspiring. He’s doing no better and no worse in my opinion than Michel Therrien, Bob Gainey or Guy Carbonneau did. His “system” is basically the same as Therrien and Carbo had: Allow as many shots against as possible and rely on your goalie to be a superstar while doing the bare minimum offensively. Martin’s dream of a big win in 1-0 or 2-1.

I’m a fan of great goaltending and low-scoring games – but not when it’s the result of next-to-zero offensive pressure. The best example of Martin’s ineptitude is PK Subban… the kid is a friggin’ superstar-in-the-making, but the only way he’s going to see the ice as long as Martin is his coach is if he plays to Martin’s style. The coaching is stifling a great talent – Subban should be carrying the puck, taking risks, and having fun. Instead, he’s being muzzled. It can’t be fun for him, and it’s certainly no fun to watch.

Football players are drafted into systems – generally a player will be selected or traded for who fits the system. Same for baseball – you trade for a position you need to fill. Hockey players can’t be chosen to fit a system, rather, the system has to be developed around the players’ abilities.

Martin is more interested in shoehorning guys like Scott Gomez and Mathieu Darche into the powerplay than having guys like Mike Cammalleri and Subban actually take some risks and create offence.

It’s time for change and if Pierre Gauthier can’t see that, then he’s got to go to.

I’d like to see Pierre McGuire in the GM chair at the Bell Centre asap. As for the coach? There aren’t a ton of options due to the language issue (like it or not, it’s not going away, so let’s deal with it)… Frankly, could Patrick Roy be worse than Martin? Bob Hartley and Marc Crawford are not the answer – they are old-school NHL coaches who haven’t had success in over a decade, and every time they leave a team that team gets better.

I just hope the hunt is already on.

That’s not to say I have or haven’t been happy with the choice; in fact, I rather like Jean Charest and his leadership. That said, now that there appears to be two legitimate non-separatist parties (1 federalist, 1 who won’t take sides), the next vote won’t just be a knee-jerk-vote-for-the-PLQ situation. Rather, I’m going to make an educated decision based on what the PLQ and CAQ have to say over the next year-and-a-half or so.

I will track my feelings on the parties on this page throughout.

A few observations:

- The ADQ is just a merger waiting to happen. Either they link up with the CAQ or disappear forever. They were always doomed to fail because they were less about ideas than they were a cult of personality built around Mario Dumont. When they got close to power, they totally flubbed it and basically got crushed. They now have a few MNAs, however, with experience and the CAQ could be a good place for those MNAs to go.

- The PLQ has been plagued by scandals lately, but anyone who thinks they’re any different from any long-standing government has to have their head examined. The PQ, the federal Liberals, Union Montreal, whatever, whenever – all governments are guilty of graft. favouritism, and so on after time. I’m not saying that’s OK, but I am saying that it’s not a reason to pick one party over the other. Eventually we’ll see the same things coming out of the federal Conservative government, and any other party that is in governance at any level over time.

- I’ve always liked Jean Charest, and I will continue to like him. I especially appreciated the Quebec’s recent laws weakening the construction unions, but I didn’t love how long it took him to call a proper public inquiry into the construction sector. I tend to agree that it should be the police dealing with it instead of a costly public investigation, but sometimes principles have to be put aside in order to give the public what it wants. That’s Democracy 101. It took Charest a while, but he eventually did the right thing.

The parties at a glance:

- PLQ:
Likes: They’ve done a pretty good job over the last near-decade of governance in terms of keeping Quebec financially viable; Charest has been pretty vocal about the need to weaken the influence of unions in Quebec society; The Liberals are the only firmly-declared Federalist party in Quebec.

Dislikes: I still think they butchered the de-merger situation, but there’s nothing we can do about it now; I’d like to see them be a little more interested in the Anglophone community instead of taking us for granted as guaranteed votes (which I anticipate happening now that the CAQ is trying to snag some of the Anglo vote); They have fallen too often into the PQ’s xenophobia trap – exhibit A: Not allowing religious Sikhs into the National Assembly because they had ceremonial daggers on their persons, despite having invited those very Sikhs to the Assembly for a discussion on reasonable accommodations) – someone should be courageous enough to stand up to the racists in the PQ and declare Quebec to be a place of tolerance and acceptance , and I believe that someone should be our governing party; Their logo is terrible.

- PQ:
Likes: Yeah, not a chance.

Dislikes: This is a party of failed ideas, small minds, and racist tendencies. This is a part of hatred based on the principle of destroying the very country that allows them to flourish. This is a party full of bigots and fear-mongers who can’t and won’t tolerate Quebec moving full steam ahead into the Global Village. For the record, I believe in most of Bill 101 (French face, etc), but this party does not exist to promote French – it exists to hate English and any other language or culture it believes stands in the way of a white, French, pur-laine society. This is the part of lazy, selfish unions. This is the party that represents all of the worst parts of our society.

CAQ:
Likes: I very much like that this part seems to be reaching out to everyone who just no longer wants to have Quebec society revolve around the threat of separation; The CAQ appears to be a fiscally-conservative, but socially open party that wishes to govern from the centre; The CAQ has both federalists and separatists in its midst and seems poised to truly deliver the promise of closing the constitutional debate for the duration of its mandate, should it win an election.

Dislikes: Is Francois Legault a separatist sheep in wolf’s clothing?

While the Saskatchewan Roughriders, back-to-back Western Division Champions and winners of the 2007 Grey Cup, struggled their way out of a playoff spot during the regular season, it took the back-to-back Grey Cup Champion Alouettes an extra week and a first-round playoff loss to Hamilton for the sun to set on their run as well.

The Stampeders were also eliminated last week, meaning that all CFL champions from 2007-2010 are out of the running.

Now it’s up to the 2006 champion Lions, 2005 winners, the Eskimos, and the Ticats and Bombers – neither of whom have won the league title in quite some time – to settle the 2011 season.

Hamilton @ Winnipeg

Pic courtesy CFL.ca

“Epic” and “classic” are two of the most overused terms on the planet, but last week’s 52-44 Hamilton win at Montreal was truly one of the most epic and classic games in Canadian Football League history.

The most notable performance came from Alouette quarterback Anthony Calvillo, who put up 513 yards and three touchdowns in a losing cause.

His Hamilton counterpart, Kevin Glenn, had a good game of his own – going 23-of-32 for 275 yards and one touchdown, with backup pivot Quinton Porter contributing 34 yards and one TD pass while Glenn sat out a couple of plays after getting his bell rung.

Hamilton running back Avon Cobourne contributed 97 yards and a touchdown, while Montreal’s Brandon Whitaker had 79 yards and a rushing TD of his own.

In terms of offence vs offence, it was a battle for the ages.

It’s on defence, however, that the Tiger-Cats will have to shore up if they expect to make it through Winnipeg and all the way to Vancouver for the 2011 Grey Cup.

As evidenced by Calvillo and Whitaker, the Montreal offence shredded the Hamilton defence. And while Hamilton was able to do the same to Montreal’s defence en route to a win, the Ticats can’t expect to run over Winnipeg’s Swaggerville D this Sunday.

The Blue Bombers were dominant on the defensive side of the ball for nearly all of the 2011 regular season, with the league’s third-best points-allowed total, which was a big reason they finished first in their division.

Winnipeg allowed just 432 points against, while BC had the league’s top defence at 385 points allowed and Edmonton finished second with 401.

The Bombers allowed an average of 25.4 points per home game, but that includes a surprising mid-season 45-23 thrashing at the hands of the Roughriders. Take out that one sub-par game, and the Bombers averaged 23 points allowed at home.

Considering that Tiger-Cats had allowed the most points of any playoff team, 478, this season, and Montreal put up 44 last week, the matchup is clear: The Eastern Division Final will come down to Buck Pierce and the Winnipeg offence against the Hamilton defence.

But hope should not be lost in Tiger Town.

While Hamilton’s defence hasn’t exactly been the best in the CFL, neither has been the Bomber offence.
Winnipeg finished with the lowest-scoring offence of any playoff team at 432 points for, and has relied heavily on its defence to carry it.

It’s also worth noting that Sunday’s game will officially mark the close Canad Inns Stadium (nee Winnipeg Stadium) forever, as the Bombers move to new digs next year.

Edmonton @ BC

Pic courtesy CFL.ca

While Winnipeg was the surprise of the East, winning their division after a 4-14 2010 season, the Eskimos might have been the surprise of the whole CFL this year.

Winnipeg was a different story than Edmonton. After losing over half their games last year by five points or less, it was clear the Blue Bombers had all the pieces in place to make a run – which they made good on this year.

The Eskimos, on the other hand, just seemed like a mess.

They ended the year 7-11, with the second-worse offence in the league and the worst defence by very, very far.

To put it into perspective, the 2010 Eskimos allowed 545 points; no team allowed 500 points in 2011, and while four teams allowed over 500 in 2009, not one was over 506. In fact, you’d have to go back to 2008 to find any comparable to how bad Edmonton’s defence was last year.

That’s what makes this year’s Eskimos so special – they turned their defence around by 144 points and finished second in the CFL.

Then, there’s the story of the Lions.

BC entered the season as favourites, went 1-6 to start the year, then reeled off eight-straight wins and ended up 11-7 and atop the Western Division.

Quarterback Travis Lulay proved the Lions right in deciding to ride his arm into the future, as he finished behind only Anthony Calvillo in most quarterback categories.

In his first full season as BC’s full-time starter, Lulay put up 4,815 yards and 32 touchdowns against just 11 interceptions and completed nearly 60 per cent of his passes. He is the Western nominee for league MOP and will be playing in front of a packed-to-the-rafters BC Place full of rabid Lion fans on Sunday.
As impressive as Lulay has been, however, it was the team’s defence that really turned the Lions’ season around.

After stumbling out of the gates and allowing over 30 points against in each of their first four games, it seemed like no matter how many points Lulay et al would put up, the defence couldn’t make the stops it needed to win.

Four months later, the Lions finished with the CFL’s No. 1 defence, finishing in the top two of 16 of the league’s 25 defence stat categories, while allowing just 21.4 points against per game.

Chalk that up against Edmonton’s second-best 22.3 allowed per game and you have the league’s top two defences lining up against two of the league’s most aggressive offences.

Let’s hope the new roof is open at BC Place on Sunday, because there are going to be some fireworks going on.

At least the NYC movement was organic – the protests in Montreal, Toronto, and anywhere else in Canada are so contrived, it’s beyond absurd. We live in a country with free health care, regulated banking, and a strong social program. You are just being lazy!

Grow up and get a job. McDonald’s is always hiring.