This is the email I sent to the Prime Mininster in August of 2010 explaining my displeasure about how he has handled the Veteran Affairs file. Since that email, there has been an increase in funding for veterns medical needs and long term benefits. That is a good start but not enough. I think he may still lose nearly all the veterans as a political base. At the end of this message I will be placing my email address in case anybody wants to email me. A note to spammers: the email address I will be leaving was specifically started for communication with different groups that may result in a lot of spam being thrown at the account.
pm@pm.gc.ca
To The Right Honourable Prime Minister Harper,
The Privy Council and Veteran's Affairs Minister
I am contacting you regarding the recent termination of the Veteran's Affairs Ombudsman. You appointed the guy. In the job description of this particular gentleman, he is to be independent and at arms length from the Government of Canada as well as the PMO. However, since you don't like what he says, you then decide not to renew his three year term. One is left with the distinct impression that this government, in particular the office of the PMO, cannot handle criticism of any type and will throw anyone who doesn't agree with his thinking under the bus, as you have done to other heads of independent bodies.
For a political party and government that loves to wrap itself in the flag and use the military as a photo op, firing the Veterans advocate is a good way to shoot yourself in the foot and quite possibly commit political suicide. Why do something this stupid. You know there will be a fresh supply of veterans due to the mission if Afghanistan and they will need help. When they don't get the services and benefits they deserve, that will be an outrage. Such an insult is going to make the census controversy look like a picnic.
In closing Mr. Harper, do you enjoy insulting people? If you do let me congratulate you on doing a bang-up job this summer. It appears your new job description is Prime Minister of insults and snafu's. You should schedule a trip to the front and walk the line. At the moment, the Governor General has been to Afghanistan meeting with the troops more than you have. You could have use that month-and-a-half media blackout to go visit the troops. Obviously you didn't because you don't have a suntan. Start respecting people and the opposition more Mr. Harper because if you appear too weak or stubborn you can be replaced sir.
I can be reached at: msdogfood@hotmail.com
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Sun TV no longer chasing must carry licence for Now.
OTTAWA — Quebecor Inc. says it is no longer seeking a controversial special licence that would give the new right-leaning Sun TV 24-hour news channel a three-year boost in seeking out viewers.
Chief executive Pierre Karl Peladeau told reporters in Ottawa on Tuesday that he would likely drop his request for a must-carry exemption on his Category II licence application.
Under such a exemption, carriers would have to make the channel available, likely either as a paid add-on service or as part of a speciality package in addition to basic cable
"I would say there's a possibility that we drop our condition and go simply to Cat. II," Peladeau said.
An official with Quebecor later said the decision had been already been made. A letter will be sent to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission within a few days withdrawing the request, which would have been the subject of a public hearing Nov. 19, the official said.
The change of tack likely removes all impediments for Quebecor to receive a licence to broadcast, and almost certainly means the public hearing will not be held.
The request was expected to be hotly contested, with rivals and many civic groups lining up to oppose the application. Last week, the advocacy group Avaaz dropped off 10 boxes to the CRTC containing more than 21,000 letters from Canadians opposed to the special licence.
This is the second time that Quebecor has lowered its sights on what licence it could obtain. Initially, it had wanted a mandatory carriage licence that meant Canadians would have had no choice but to receive the station on their basic cable package, as is currently the case with CBC Newsworld.
This summer, the company said failing to get the same treatment as CBC Newsworld would doom the upstart.
"This would be fatal to our business case ... and would likely result in the cancellation of the Sun TV News project," Quebecor wrote the CRTC.
The CRTC had earlier told Quebecor no such licences would be considered until after Sept. 1, 2011, and that in any case, starting then all cable news and sports shows must negotiate with carriers for inclusion in the lineup of shows offered.
That means Newsworld and CTV Newsnet will find themselves in the same place as Sun TV, competing for attention from the public and carriers.
Still, Peladeau complained that his company was being treated unfairly, since CBC and CTV had been given help in building up their subscriber base.
Asked why he was withdrawing his request if he considered the system "unfair," Peladeau responded: "It's not as simple as that. I think we need to be open-minded and this is the attitude we will (adopt) throughout the whole process."
Sun TV, often dubbed as "Fox News North" by critics, has courted controversy since Quebecor hired Prime Minister Stephen Harper's former communications director, Kory Teneycke, to run the news operations.
Teneycke resigned abruptly in mid-September at about the same time Avaaz called in the RCMP to investigate interference with its online petition drive against the station.
Peladeau gave every indication he believed the sometimes harsh media spotlight was unwelcome and at best distracting.
"There's a lot of noise taking place in the media about this. This is disturbing the real thing, which is providing more choice to Canadians," he said.
Earlier, in a speech to the Canadian Club, the Quebec-based media baron said some of the criticism of his proposed station slated to begin airing in the new year has been "shocking" and "off the wall."
Pointing to 60 years in the media, particularly in Quebec, he said there was never an instance of his outlets publishing or broadcasting hate propaganda, and said Sun TV has no connection with the right-wing Fox News in the U.S..
Nor has there been a "secret deal" with Prime Minister Harper to offer favourable coverage on Sun TV to the government in exchange for federal funding for a NHL-ready hockey arena in Quebec City, he said.
If Canadians want to know what Sun media will be like, he said, they need only look at the Toronto Sun and other newspapers in the chain, which he conceded are on "the right of the political spectrum."
"But it would be an oversimplification to say they are on the right, period," he added. "The Sun papers could also be described as populist, irreverent, sometimes provocative."
Chief executive Pierre Karl Peladeau told reporters in Ottawa on Tuesday that he would likely drop his request for a must-carry exemption on his Category II licence application.
Under such a exemption, carriers would have to make the channel available, likely either as a paid add-on service or as part of a speciality package in addition to basic cable
"I would say there's a possibility that we drop our condition and go simply to Cat. II," Peladeau said.
An official with Quebecor later said the decision had been already been made. A letter will be sent to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission within a few days withdrawing the request, which would have been the subject of a public hearing Nov. 19, the official said.
The change of tack likely removes all impediments for Quebecor to receive a licence to broadcast, and almost certainly means the public hearing will not be held.
The request was expected to be hotly contested, with rivals and many civic groups lining up to oppose the application. Last week, the advocacy group Avaaz dropped off 10 boxes to the CRTC containing more than 21,000 letters from Canadians opposed to the special licence.
This is the second time that Quebecor has lowered its sights on what licence it could obtain. Initially, it had wanted a mandatory carriage licence that meant Canadians would have had no choice but to receive the station on their basic cable package, as is currently the case with CBC Newsworld.
This summer, the company said failing to get the same treatment as CBC Newsworld would doom the upstart.
"This would be fatal to our business case ... and would likely result in the cancellation of the Sun TV News project," Quebecor wrote the CRTC.
The CRTC had earlier told Quebecor no such licences would be considered until after Sept. 1, 2011, and that in any case, starting then all cable news and sports shows must negotiate with carriers for inclusion in the lineup of shows offered.
That means Newsworld and CTV Newsnet will find themselves in the same place as Sun TV, competing for attention from the public and carriers.
Still, Peladeau complained that his company was being treated unfairly, since CBC and CTV had been given help in building up their subscriber base.
Asked why he was withdrawing his request if he considered the system "unfair," Peladeau responded: "It's not as simple as that. I think we need to be open-minded and this is the attitude we will (adopt) throughout the whole process."
Sun TV, often dubbed as "Fox News North" by critics, has courted controversy since Quebecor hired Prime Minister Stephen Harper's former communications director, Kory Teneycke, to run the news operations.
Teneycke resigned abruptly in mid-September at about the same time Avaaz called in the RCMP to investigate interference with its online petition drive against the station.
Peladeau gave every indication he believed the sometimes harsh media spotlight was unwelcome and at best distracting.
"There's a lot of noise taking place in the media about this. This is disturbing the real thing, which is providing more choice to Canadians," he said.
Earlier, in a speech to the Canadian Club, the Quebec-based media baron said some of the criticism of his proposed station slated to begin airing in the new year has been "shocking" and "off the wall."
Pointing to 60 years in the media, particularly in Quebec, he said there was never an instance of his outlets publishing or broadcasting hate propaganda, and said Sun TV has no connection with the right-wing Fox News in the U.S..
Nor has there been a "secret deal" with Prime Minister Harper to offer favourable coverage on Sun TV to the government in exchange for federal funding for a NHL-ready hockey arena in Quebec City, he said.
If Canadians want to know what Sun media will be like, he said, they need only look at the Toronto Sun and other newspapers in the chain, which he conceded are on "the right of the political spectrum."
"But it would be an oversimplification to say they are on the right, period," he added. "The Sun papers could also be described as populist, irreverent, sometimes provocative."
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
An Industry Canada employee questioned Conservative MP Maxime Bernier's claims
Industry Canada queried Bernier census claims
An Industry Canada employee questioned Conservative MP Maxime Bernier's claims in July that as minister he received about 1,000 complaints a day about the mandatory long-form census, internal documents obtained by CBC News show.
Maxime Bernier said in July his office received about 1,000 complaints a day about the mandatory long-form census when he oversaw it in 2006 as industry minister. (Tom Hanson/Canadian Press)The former industry minister, now a Conservative backbencher, said in July of this year that he was blitzed by complaints when he oversaw the 2006 census as minister.
However, in a July 18 email found among documents obtained by CBC News through an access-to-information request, ministry employee Paul Halucha asked a high-ranking official at Statistics Canada whether the agency had any numbers to back up Bernier's statement.
Industry Canada's "internal survey of correspondence did not show anything close to a thousand a day," he wrote to Statistics Canada's Connie Graziadei, adding in brackets "we got a standard 25-30 a year."
The documents suggest officials inside the ministry responsible for the census were themselves caught flat-footed by Bernier's contention that the government had been inundated with complaints over the 2006 survey.
According to the documents, Graziadei replied with a breakdown of the 882 complaints Statistics Canada received for the 2006 short- and long-form census, which included 332 complaints about a contract the agency awarded to Lockheed-Martin for census data collection.
In her email, she said Statistics Canada received 22 complaints about the "intrusiveness of the questions." There were also 116 about the "subject matter" of the questions.
Industry Minister Tony Clement, who will oversee the 2011 census next spring, has said the government received too many complaints from citizens who said the mandatory long-form census is intrusive and they don't want to feel forced to file.
Clement told the industry committee in July that a census-taker told him about how people "were in tears, absolutely terrified of being deported" if they didn't fill out the long-form census.
But nowhere in the documents does Statistics Canada list anyone complaining about the long-form census being mandatory, despite numerous Conservative MPs saying they've heard an earful from constituents about having to fill out the 40-page form.
No evidence of complaints: opposition
Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett, who has introduced a private member's bill calling for the government to reinstate the mandatory long-form census, said the documents show the government made the decision on a "totally ideological basis," while NDP MP Brian Masse said the Conservatives are "just making it up."
"There's no evidence," Bennett said Monday during a panel discussion on CBC's Power & Politics with Evan Solomon. "I think as members of Parliament, we haven't had any complaints to our offices, and that's the easiest place for somebody to complain."
Conservative MP Mike Lake said he couldn't speak to the specific access-to-information request, but noted Statistics Canada's own enumerator's manual for non-response follow-up lists contingencies for "frequently asked questions," including a section dealing with "invasion of privacy."
"I assume when people are going to bring up a concern they would bring it up specifically with the person working on the census," Lake told Solomon.
He said his own experience as an enumerator for the 1991 census showed him people had specific problems with the mandatory long-form census. However, Masse said, enumerators are specifically trained to respond to such concerns.
"That’s why they actually have a low level of complaints," Masse said.
When asked by CBC News on Monday whether MPs are either required to send or normally report complaints about the census to Statistics Canada, a spokesman for the agency replied: “Whenever Statistics Canada is contacted by an MP's office on the census, we conduct research and act upon findings to address the respondent's concern.”
For months, opposition parties have been pushing the government to reverse its decision and reinstate the mandatory long-form census, citing an outcry from statisticians, various social, language and religious groups, as well as some provinces and municipalities that the quality of data from a voluntary survey will be lowered.
The Conservatives have said the move to a voluntary long-form survey is a "balanced" approach that weighs the need for data with the concerns of Canadians who feel they shouldn't be threatened with fines or jail time to divulge personal information to representatives of the state.
Bernier resigned from the cabinet in 2008 after he admitted to having left NATO briefing documents at his ex-girlfriend's home.
(Industry Canada, Sept. 27, 2010) Release of Docs Re Long-Form Census From Canadians_A-2010-190
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2010/10/04/census-bernier-complaints-documents.html#socialcomments#ixzz11SBPcLwY
An Industry Canada employee questioned Conservative MP Maxime Bernier's claims in July that as minister he received about 1,000 complaints a day about the mandatory long-form census, internal documents obtained by CBC News show.
Maxime Bernier said in July his office received about 1,000 complaints a day about the mandatory long-form census when he oversaw it in 2006 as industry minister. (Tom Hanson/Canadian Press)The former industry minister, now a Conservative backbencher, said in July of this year that he was blitzed by complaints when he oversaw the 2006 census as minister.
However, in a July 18 email found among documents obtained by CBC News through an access-to-information request, ministry employee Paul Halucha asked a high-ranking official at Statistics Canada whether the agency had any numbers to back up Bernier's statement.
Industry Canada's "internal survey of correspondence did not show anything close to a thousand a day," he wrote to Statistics Canada's Connie Graziadei, adding in brackets "we got a standard 25-30 a year."
The documents suggest officials inside the ministry responsible for the census were themselves caught flat-footed by Bernier's contention that the government had been inundated with complaints over the 2006 survey.
According to the documents, Graziadei replied with a breakdown of the 882 complaints Statistics Canada received for the 2006 short- and long-form census, which included 332 complaints about a contract the agency awarded to Lockheed-Martin for census data collection.
In her email, she said Statistics Canada received 22 complaints about the "intrusiveness of the questions." There were also 116 about the "subject matter" of the questions.
Industry Minister Tony Clement, who will oversee the 2011 census next spring, has said the government received too many complaints from citizens who said the mandatory long-form census is intrusive and they don't want to feel forced to file.
Clement told the industry committee in July that a census-taker told him about how people "were in tears, absolutely terrified of being deported" if they didn't fill out the long-form census.
But nowhere in the documents does Statistics Canada list anyone complaining about the long-form census being mandatory, despite numerous Conservative MPs saying they've heard an earful from constituents about having to fill out the 40-page form.
No evidence of complaints: opposition
Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett, who has introduced a private member's bill calling for the government to reinstate the mandatory long-form census, said the documents show the government made the decision on a "totally ideological basis," while NDP MP Brian Masse said the Conservatives are "just making it up."
"There's no evidence," Bennett said Monday during a panel discussion on CBC's Power & Politics with Evan Solomon. "I think as members of Parliament, we haven't had any complaints to our offices, and that's the easiest place for somebody to complain."
Conservative MP Mike Lake said he couldn't speak to the specific access-to-information request, but noted Statistics Canada's own enumerator's manual for non-response follow-up lists contingencies for "frequently asked questions," including a section dealing with "invasion of privacy."
"I assume when people are going to bring up a concern they would bring it up specifically with the person working on the census," Lake told Solomon.
He said his own experience as an enumerator for the 1991 census showed him people had specific problems with the mandatory long-form census. However, Masse said, enumerators are specifically trained to respond to such concerns.
"That’s why they actually have a low level of complaints," Masse said.
When asked by CBC News on Monday whether MPs are either required to send or normally report complaints about the census to Statistics Canada, a spokesman for the agency replied: “Whenever Statistics Canada is contacted by an MP's office on the census, we conduct research and act upon findings to address the respondent's concern.”
For months, opposition parties have been pushing the government to reverse its decision and reinstate the mandatory long-form census, citing an outcry from statisticians, various social, language and religious groups, as well as some provinces and municipalities that the quality of data from a voluntary survey will be lowered.
The Conservatives have said the move to a voluntary long-form survey is a "balanced" approach that weighs the need for data with the concerns of Canadians who feel they shouldn't be threatened with fines or jail time to divulge personal information to representatives of the state.
Bernier resigned from the cabinet in 2008 after he admitted to having left NATO briefing documents at his ex-girlfriend's home.
(Industry Canada, Sept. 27, 2010) Release of Docs Re Long-Form Census From Canadians_A-2010-190
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2010/10/04/census-bernier-complaints-documents.html#socialcomments#ixzz11SBPcLwY
SCC Case Information 33203 Summary Vernon Joseph Smith v. Alliance Pipeline Ltd.
Scheduled Hearing 2010-10-05
SCC Case Information
Summary
33203
Vernon Joseph Smith v. Alliance Pipeline Ltd.
(Federal Court) (Civil) (By Leave)
Keywords
Administrative Law.
Summary
Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch) for information purposes only.
Administrative law - Boards and tribunals - Standard of review - Arbitration - Civil procedure - Costs - Federal Court of Appeal determining that the Appellant was not entitled to compensation for the unrecovered portion of his legal costs incurred in defending the injunctive action and was not entitled to be compensated for the costs of the arbitration proceedings commenced before the first panel - Cost orders in the context of energy-related projects such as pipelines that adversely and directly affect farmland - Whether the Federal Court of Appeal erred in straying from the proper role of a secondary level of appellate review when it failed to limit its decision to an assessment of the Federal Court`s selection and application of the correct standard of review - Whether the Federal Court of Appeal erred in applying the standard of correctness in analyzing the second Pipeline Arbitration Committee’s interpretation of Part V of the National Energy Board Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. N-7.
In 1999, the Respondent, Alliance, constructed a pipeline across a portion of Mr. Smith’s farmland located in Alberta. Despite a series of agreements between the parties with respect to the construction of the pipeline, a dispute arose regarding the reclamation of a portion of the land used for the pipeline. Mr. Smith began the reclamation work and sought compensation. The matter proceeded to arbitration. The first arbitration committee lost its quorum. Mr. Smith was largely successful in the second arbitration. Alliance appealed under s. 101 of the National Energy Board Act, claiming that the second panel had exceeded its jurisdiction and that it had erred in law by awarding Mr. Smith his costs incurred in the Alberta Queen’s Bench litigation and in those proceedings commenced before the first panel. The appeal was dismissed. The appeal was allowed by the Federal Court of Appeal.
SCC Case Information
Summary
33203
Vernon Joseph Smith v. Alliance Pipeline Ltd.
(Federal Court) (Civil) (By Leave)
Keywords
Administrative Law.
Summary
Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch) for information purposes only.
Administrative law - Boards and tribunals - Standard of review - Arbitration - Civil procedure - Costs - Federal Court of Appeal determining that the Appellant was not entitled to compensation for the unrecovered portion of his legal costs incurred in defending the injunctive action and was not entitled to be compensated for the costs of the arbitration proceedings commenced before the first panel - Cost orders in the context of energy-related projects such as pipelines that adversely and directly affect farmland - Whether the Federal Court of Appeal erred in straying from the proper role of a secondary level of appellate review when it failed to limit its decision to an assessment of the Federal Court`s selection and application of the correct standard of review - Whether the Federal Court of Appeal erred in applying the standard of correctness in analyzing the second Pipeline Arbitration Committee’s interpretation of Part V of the National Energy Board Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. N-7.
In 1999, the Respondent, Alliance, constructed a pipeline across a portion of Mr. Smith’s farmland located in Alberta. Despite a series of agreements between the parties with respect to the construction of the pipeline, a dispute arose regarding the reclamation of a portion of the land used for the pipeline. Mr. Smith began the reclamation work and sought compensation. The matter proceeded to arbitration. The first arbitration committee lost its quorum. Mr. Smith was largely successful in the second arbitration. Alliance appealed under s. 101 of the National Energy Board Act, claiming that the second panel had exceeded its jurisdiction and that it had erred in law by awarding Mr. Smith his costs incurred in the Alberta Queen’s Bench litigation and in those proceedings commenced before the first panel. The appeal was dismissed. The appeal was allowed by the Federal Court of Appeal.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Facebook how Not to manage infrastructure!
The Facebook Data Center
With more than 500 million active users, Facebook is the busiest site on the Internet and has built an extensive infrastructure to support this rapid growth. The social networking site was launched in February 2004, initially out of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s dorm room at Harvard University and using a single server. The company’s web servers and storage units are now housed in data centers around the country.
Each data center houses thousands of computer servers, which are networked together and linked to the outside world through fiber optic cables. Every time you share information on Facebook, the servers in these data centers receive the information and distribute it to your network of friends.
We’ve written a lot about Facebook’s infrastructure, and have compiled this information into a series of Frequently Asked Questions. Here’s the Facebook Data Center FAQ (or “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Facebook’s Data Centers”).
How Big is Facebook’s Internet Infrastructure?
Facebook is currently the world’s most popular web site, with more than 690 billion page views each month, according to metrics from Google’s DoubleClick service. Facebook currently accounts for about 9.5 percent of all Internet traffic, slightly more than Google, according to HitWise.
Facebook requires massive storage infrastructure to house its enormous stockpile of photos, which grows steadily as users add 100 million new photos every day. People share more than 30 billion pieces of content on Facebook each month. In addition, the company’s infrastructure must support platform services for more than 1 million web sites and 550,000 applications using the Facebook Connect platform.
To support that huge activity, Facebook operates at least nine data centers on both coasts of the United States, and is in the process of building its first company-built data center in Oregon. Although more than 70 percent of Facebook’s audience is in other countries, none of the company’s data centers are located outside the United States.
For most of its history, Facebook has managed its infrastructure by leasing “wholesale” data center space from third-party landlords. Wholesale providers build the data center, including the raised-floor technical space and the power and cooling infrastructure, and then lease the completed facility. In the wholesale model, users can occupy their data center space in about five months, rather than the 12 months needed to build a major data center. This has allowed Facebook to scale rapidly to keep pace with the growth of its audience.
In January 2010 Facebook announced plans to build its own data centers, beginning with a facility in Prineville, Oregon. This typically requires a larger up-front investment in construction and equipment, but allows greater customization of power and cooling infrastructure.
Where are Facebook’s Data Centers Located?
Facebook currently leases space in about six different data centers in Silicon Valley, located in Santa Clara and San Jose, and at least one in San Francisco. The company has also leased space in three wholesale data center facilities in Ashburn, Virginia. Both Santa Clara and Ashburn are key data center hubs, where hundreds of fiber networks meet and connect, making them ideal for companies whose content is widely distributed.
Facebook’s first company-built data center is nearing completion in Prineville, Oregon. If Facebook’s growth continues at the current rate, it will likely require a larger network of company-built data centers, as seen with Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and eBay.
How Big Are Facebook’s Server Farms?
A rendering of an aerial view of the Facebook data center in Prineville, Oregon.
As Facebook grows, its data center requirements are growing along with it. The new data center Oregon is a reflection of this trend.
In the data centers where it currently operates, Facebook typically leases between 2.25 megawatts and 6 megawatts of power capacity, or between 10,000 and 35,000 square feet of space. Due to the importance of power for data centers, most landlords now price deals using power as a yardstick, with megawatts replacing square feet as the primary benchmark for real estate deals.
Facebook’s new data center in Oregon will be much, much larger. The facility was announced as being 147,000 square feet. But as construction got rolling, the company announced plans to add a second phase to the project, which will add another 160,000 square feet. That brings the total size of the Prineville facility to 307,000 square feet of space – larger than two Wal-Mart stores.
How Many Servers Does Facebook Have?
This chart provides a dramatic visualization of Facebook’s infrastructure growth. It documents the number of servers used to power Facebook’s operations.
“When Facebook first began with a small group of people using it and no photos or videos to display, the entire service could run on a single server,” said Jonathan Heiliger, Facebook’s vice president of technical operations.
Not so anymore. Technical presentations by Facebook staff suggest that as of June 2010 the company was running at least 60,000 servers in its data centers, up from 30,000 in 2009 and 10,000 back in April 2008.
There are companies with more servers (see Who Has the Most Web Servers? for details). But the growth curve shown on the chart doesn’t even include any of the servers that will populate the Oregon data center – which may be the first of multiple data centers Facebook builds to support its growth.
What kind of servers does Facebook use?
Facebook doesn’t often discuss which server vendors it uses. In 2007 it was buying a lot of servers from Rackable (now SGI), and is also known to have purchased servers from Dell, which customizes servers for its largest cloud computing customers.
Facebook VP of Technical Operations Jonathan Heiliger has sometimes been critical of major server vendors’ ability to adapt their products to the needs of huge infrastructures like those at Facebook, which don’t need many of the features designed for complex enterprise computing requirements. “Internet scale” companies can achieve better economics with bare bones servers that are customized for specific workloads.
In a conference earlier this year, Heiliger identified multi-core server vendors Tilera and SeaMicro as “companies to watch” for their potential to provide increased computing horsepower in a compact energy footprint.
But reports that Facebook planned to begin using low-power processors from ARM - which power the iPhone and many other mobile devices - proved to be untrue. “Facebook continuously evaluates and helps develop new technologies we believe will improve the performance, efficiency or reliability of our infrastructure,” Heiliger said. “However, we have no plans to deploy ARM servers in our Prineville, Oregon data center.”
A look at the fully-packed server racks inside a Facebook data center facility.
What kind of software does Facebook Use?
Facebook was developed from the ground up using open source software. The site is written primarily in the PHP programming language and uses a MySQL database infrastructure. To accelerate the site, the Facebook Engineering team developed a program called HipHop to transform PHP source code into C++ and gain performance benefits.
Facebook has one of the largest MySQL database clusters anywhere, and is the world’s largest users of memcached, an open source caching system. Memcached was an important enough part of Facebook’s infrastructure that CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave a tech talk on its usage in 2009.
Facebook has built a framework that uses RPC (remote procedure calls) to tie together infrastructure services written in any language, running on any platform. Services used in Facebook’s infrastructure include Apache Hadoop, Apache Cassandra, Apache Hive, FlashCache, Scribe, Tornado, Cfengine and Varnish.
How much Does Facebook Spend on Its Data Centers?
An analysis of Facebook’s spending with data center developers indicates that the company is now paying about $50 million a year to lease data center space, compared to about $20 million when we first analyzed its leases in May 2009.
The $50 million a year includes spending is for leases, and doesn’t include the cost of the Prineville project, which has been estimated at between $180 million and $215 million. It also doesn’t include Facebook’s investments in server and storage hardware, which is substantial.
Facebook currently leases most of its data center space from four companies: Digital Realty Trust, DuPont Fabros Technology, Fortune Data Centers and CoreSite Realty.
Here’s what we know about Facebook’s spending on its major data center commitments:
•Facebook is paying $18.1 million a year for 135,000 square feet of space in data center space it leases from Digital Realty Trust (DLR) in Silicon Valley and Virginia, according to data from the landlord’s June 30 quarterly report to investors.
•The social network is also leasing data center space in Ashburn, Virginia from DuPont Fabros Technology(DFT). Although the landlord has not published the details of Facebook’s leases, data on the company’s largest tenants reveals that Facebook represents about 15 percent of DFT’s annualized base rent, which works out to about $21.8 million per year.
•Facebook has reportedly leased 5 megawatts of critical load – about 25,000 square feet of raised-floor space – at a Fortune Data Centers facility in San Jose.
•In March, Facebook agreed to lease an entire 50,000 square foot data center that was recently completed by CoreSite Realty in Santa Clara.
•Facebook also hosts equipment in a Santa Clara, Calif. data center operated by Terremark Worldwide (TMRK), a Palo Alto, Calif. facilityoperated by Equinix (EQIX) and at least one European data center operated by Telecity Group. These are believed to be substantially smaller footprints than the company’s leases with Digital Realty and DuPont Fabros.
That adds up to an estimated $40 million for the leases with the Digital Realty and DuPont Fabros, When you add in the cost of space for housing equipment at Fortune, CoreSite, Terremark, Switch and Data, Telecity and other peering arrangements to distribute content, we arrive at an estimate of at least $50 million in annual data center costs for Facebook.
Facebook’s costs remain substantially less than what some other large cloud builders are paying for their data center infrastructure. Google spent $2.3 billion on its custom data center infrastructure in 2008, while Microsoft invests $500 million in each of its new data centers. Those numbers include the facilities and servers.
How Many People Are Needed to Run Facebook’s Data Centers?
As is the case with most large-scale data centers, Facebook’s facilities are highly automated and can be operated with a modest staff, usually no more than 20 to 50 employees on site. Facebook has historically maintained a ratio of 1 engineer for every 1 million users, although recent efficiencies have boosted that ratio to 1 engineer for every 1.2 million users.
Facebook’s construction project in Prineville is expected to create more than 200 jobs during its 12-month construction phase, and the facility will employ at least 35 full-time workers and dozens more part-time and contract employees.
With more than 500 million active users, Facebook is the busiest site on the Internet and has built an extensive infrastructure to support this rapid growth. The social networking site was launched in February 2004, initially out of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s dorm room at Harvard University and using a single server. The company’s web servers and storage units are now housed in data centers around the country.
Each data center houses thousands of computer servers, which are networked together and linked to the outside world through fiber optic cables. Every time you share information on Facebook, the servers in these data centers receive the information and distribute it to your network of friends.
We’ve written a lot about Facebook’s infrastructure, and have compiled this information into a series of Frequently Asked Questions. Here’s the Facebook Data Center FAQ (or “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Facebook’s Data Centers”).
How Big is Facebook’s Internet Infrastructure?
Facebook is currently the world’s most popular web site, with more than 690 billion page views each month, according to metrics from Google’s DoubleClick service. Facebook currently accounts for about 9.5 percent of all Internet traffic, slightly more than Google, according to HitWise.
Facebook requires massive storage infrastructure to house its enormous stockpile of photos, which grows steadily as users add 100 million new photos every day. People share more than 30 billion pieces of content on Facebook each month. In addition, the company’s infrastructure must support platform services for more than 1 million web sites and 550,000 applications using the Facebook Connect platform.
To support that huge activity, Facebook operates at least nine data centers on both coasts of the United States, and is in the process of building its first company-built data center in Oregon. Although more than 70 percent of Facebook’s audience is in other countries, none of the company’s data centers are located outside the United States.
For most of its history, Facebook has managed its infrastructure by leasing “wholesale” data center space from third-party landlords. Wholesale providers build the data center, including the raised-floor technical space and the power and cooling infrastructure, and then lease the completed facility. In the wholesale model, users can occupy their data center space in about five months, rather than the 12 months needed to build a major data center. This has allowed Facebook to scale rapidly to keep pace with the growth of its audience.
In January 2010 Facebook announced plans to build its own data centers, beginning with a facility in Prineville, Oregon. This typically requires a larger up-front investment in construction and equipment, but allows greater customization of power and cooling infrastructure.
Where are Facebook’s Data Centers Located?
Facebook currently leases space in about six different data centers in Silicon Valley, located in Santa Clara and San Jose, and at least one in San Francisco. The company has also leased space in three wholesale data center facilities in Ashburn, Virginia. Both Santa Clara and Ashburn are key data center hubs, where hundreds of fiber networks meet and connect, making them ideal for companies whose content is widely distributed.
Facebook’s first company-built data center is nearing completion in Prineville, Oregon. If Facebook’s growth continues at the current rate, it will likely require a larger network of company-built data centers, as seen with Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and eBay.
How Big Are Facebook’s Server Farms?
A rendering of an aerial view of the Facebook data center in Prineville, Oregon.
As Facebook grows, its data center requirements are growing along with it. The new data center Oregon is a reflection of this trend.
In the data centers where it currently operates, Facebook typically leases between 2.25 megawatts and 6 megawatts of power capacity, or between 10,000 and 35,000 square feet of space. Due to the importance of power for data centers, most landlords now price deals using power as a yardstick, with megawatts replacing square feet as the primary benchmark for real estate deals.
Facebook’s new data center in Oregon will be much, much larger. The facility was announced as being 147,000 square feet. But as construction got rolling, the company announced plans to add a second phase to the project, which will add another 160,000 square feet. That brings the total size of the Prineville facility to 307,000 square feet of space – larger than two Wal-Mart stores.
How Many Servers Does Facebook Have?
This chart provides a dramatic visualization of Facebook’s infrastructure growth. It documents the number of servers used to power Facebook’s operations.
“When Facebook first began with a small group of people using it and no photos or videos to display, the entire service could run on a single server,” said Jonathan Heiliger, Facebook’s vice president of technical operations.
Not so anymore. Technical presentations by Facebook staff suggest that as of June 2010 the company was running at least 60,000 servers in its data centers, up from 30,000 in 2009 and 10,000 back in April 2008.
There are companies with more servers (see Who Has the Most Web Servers? for details). But the growth curve shown on the chart doesn’t even include any of the servers that will populate the Oregon data center – which may be the first of multiple data centers Facebook builds to support its growth.
What kind of servers does Facebook use?
Facebook doesn’t often discuss which server vendors it uses. In 2007 it was buying a lot of servers from Rackable (now SGI), and is also known to have purchased servers from Dell, which customizes servers for its largest cloud computing customers.
Facebook VP of Technical Operations Jonathan Heiliger has sometimes been critical of major server vendors’ ability to adapt their products to the needs of huge infrastructures like those at Facebook, which don’t need many of the features designed for complex enterprise computing requirements. “Internet scale” companies can achieve better economics with bare bones servers that are customized for specific workloads.
In a conference earlier this year, Heiliger identified multi-core server vendors Tilera and SeaMicro as “companies to watch” for their potential to provide increased computing horsepower in a compact energy footprint.
But reports that Facebook planned to begin using low-power processors from ARM - which power the iPhone and many other mobile devices - proved to be untrue. “Facebook continuously evaluates and helps develop new technologies we believe will improve the performance, efficiency or reliability of our infrastructure,” Heiliger said. “However, we have no plans to deploy ARM servers in our Prineville, Oregon data center.”
A look at the fully-packed server racks inside a Facebook data center facility.
What kind of software does Facebook Use?
Facebook was developed from the ground up using open source software. The site is written primarily in the PHP programming language and uses a MySQL database infrastructure. To accelerate the site, the Facebook Engineering team developed a program called HipHop to transform PHP source code into C++ and gain performance benefits.
Facebook has one of the largest MySQL database clusters anywhere, and is the world’s largest users of memcached, an open source caching system. Memcached was an important enough part of Facebook’s infrastructure that CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave a tech talk on its usage in 2009.
Facebook has built a framework that uses RPC (remote procedure calls) to tie together infrastructure services written in any language, running on any platform. Services used in Facebook’s infrastructure include Apache Hadoop, Apache Cassandra, Apache Hive, FlashCache, Scribe, Tornado, Cfengine and Varnish.
How much Does Facebook Spend on Its Data Centers?
An analysis of Facebook’s spending with data center developers indicates that the company is now paying about $50 million a year to lease data center space, compared to about $20 million when we first analyzed its leases in May 2009.
The $50 million a year includes spending is for leases, and doesn’t include the cost of the Prineville project, which has been estimated at between $180 million and $215 million. It also doesn’t include Facebook’s investments in server and storage hardware, which is substantial.
Facebook currently leases most of its data center space from four companies: Digital Realty Trust, DuPont Fabros Technology, Fortune Data Centers and CoreSite Realty.
Here’s what we know about Facebook’s spending on its major data center commitments:
•Facebook is paying $18.1 million a year for 135,000 square feet of space in data center space it leases from Digital Realty Trust (DLR) in Silicon Valley and Virginia, according to data from the landlord’s June 30 quarterly report to investors.
•The social network is also leasing data center space in Ashburn, Virginia from DuPont Fabros Technology(DFT). Although the landlord has not published the details of Facebook’s leases, data on the company’s largest tenants reveals that Facebook represents about 15 percent of DFT’s annualized base rent, which works out to about $21.8 million per year.
•Facebook has reportedly leased 5 megawatts of critical load – about 25,000 square feet of raised-floor space – at a Fortune Data Centers facility in San Jose.
•In March, Facebook agreed to lease an entire 50,000 square foot data center that was recently completed by CoreSite Realty in Santa Clara.
•Facebook also hosts equipment in a Santa Clara, Calif. data center operated by Terremark Worldwide (TMRK), a Palo Alto, Calif. facilityoperated by Equinix (EQIX) and at least one European data center operated by Telecity Group. These are believed to be substantially smaller footprints than the company’s leases with Digital Realty and DuPont Fabros.
That adds up to an estimated $40 million for the leases with the Digital Realty and DuPont Fabros, When you add in the cost of space for housing equipment at Fortune, CoreSite, Terremark, Switch and Data, Telecity and other peering arrangements to distribute content, we arrive at an estimate of at least $50 million in annual data center costs for Facebook.
Facebook’s costs remain substantially less than what some other large cloud builders are paying for their data center infrastructure. Google spent $2.3 billion on its custom data center infrastructure in 2008, while Microsoft invests $500 million in each of its new data centers. Those numbers include the facilities and servers.
How Many People Are Needed to Run Facebook’s Data Centers?
As is the case with most large-scale data centers, Facebook’s facilities are highly automated and can be operated with a modest staff, usually no more than 20 to 50 employees on site. Facebook has historically maintained a ratio of 1 engineer for every 1 million users, although recent efficiencies have boosted that ratio to 1 engineer for every 1.2 million users.
Facebook’s construction project in Prineville is expected to create more than 200 jobs during its 12-month construction phase, and the facility will employ at least 35 full-time workers and dozens more part-time and contract employees.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
George Galloway in Canada :)
Galloway at Toronto's Pearson Airport.
Tomorrow, hear Galloway speak at Trinity St. Paul's church. Galloway's talk will be "From Gaza to Afghanistan - Resisting war, occupation and censorship". He'll also meet and honour US Iraq War resisters on stage.
Saturday, October 2, 5:00 p.m.
Terminal One International Arrivals Gate
Lester B. Pearson International Airport
Rally 5:00
Media conference 5:15
Sunday, October 3, 3:00 p.m.
Trinity St. Paul's United Church
427 Bloor Street (just west of Spadina)
Doors open 2:30 p.m.
Event begins 3:00 p.m.
Admission $10, cash only, at door only
Seating will be very limited!
On September 27, the Federal Court of Canada issued a 60-page ruling that exposed the political interference of "the highest levels of government" in trying to keep former British MP George Galloway out of Canada. The ruling found that "the main reason why [the government] sought to prevent Mr. Galloway from entering Canada was that they disagreed with his political views.
Read the full ruling here: http://bit.ly/bt3E6P.
Read highlights here: http://bit.ly/cIKgPZ.
"What the Galloway court decision means for free speech in Canada": http://bit.ly/bt3E6P
This is a MAJOR VICTORY for Galloway and the social movements in Canada. The ruling also clears the way for Galloway to return to Canada.
Please join us for a city-wide public meeting on Sunday, October 3 to hear George Galloway - in person - speak about his fight to overturn the ban, and about our common struggle to end war and occupation in Palestine, Afghanistan and around the world.
Organized by the Toronto Coalition to Stop the War
Media sponsor: rabble.ca, news for the rest of us: http://www.rabble.ca/
The Toronto Coalition to Stop the War is Toronto's city-wide peace coalition. Comprised of over 80 labour, student, faith and community organizations, TCSW is also one of the largest peace groups in the Canadian Peace Alliance.
Tomorrow, hear Galloway speak at Trinity St. Paul's church. Galloway's talk will be "From Gaza to Afghanistan - Resisting war, occupation and censorship". He'll also meet and honour US Iraq War resisters on stage.
Saturday, October 2, 5:00 p.m.
Terminal One International Arrivals Gate
Lester B. Pearson International Airport
Rally 5:00
Media conference 5:15
Sunday, October 3, 3:00 p.m.
Trinity St. Paul's United Church
427 Bloor Street (just west of Spadina)
Doors open 2:30 p.m.
Event begins 3:00 p.m.
Admission $10, cash only, at door only
Seating will be very limited!
On September 27, the Federal Court of Canada issued a 60-page ruling that exposed the political interference of "the highest levels of government" in trying to keep former British MP George Galloway out of Canada. The ruling found that "the main reason why [the government] sought to prevent Mr. Galloway from entering Canada was that they disagreed with his political views.
Read the full ruling here: http://bit.ly/bt3E6P.
Read highlights here: http://bit.ly/cIKgPZ.
"What the Galloway court decision means for free speech in Canada": http://bit.ly/bt3E6P
This is a MAJOR VICTORY for Galloway and the social movements in Canada. The ruling also clears the way for Galloway to return to Canada.
Please join us for a city-wide public meeting on Sunday, October 3 to hear George Galloway - in person - speak about his fight to overturn the ban, and about our common struggle to end war and occupation in Palestine, Afghanistan and around the world.
Organized by the Toronto Coalition to Stop the War
Media sponsor: rabble.ca, news for the rest of us: http://www.rabble.ca/
The Toronto Coalition to Stop the War is Toronto's city-wide peace coalition. Comprised of over 80 labour, student, faith and community organizations, TCSW is also one of the largest peace groups in the Canadian Peace Alliance.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
The Role of The Governor General of Canada.
Role
Further information: Monarchy of Canada > International and domestic aspects
The Lord Tweedsmuir gives the Throne Speech at the opening of the third session of the 18th Canadian parliament, 27 January 1938
because your Governor-General is in the service of the Crown, he is, therefore... in the service of Canada... [A]loof though he be from actual executive responsibility, his attitude must be that of ceaseless and watchful readiness to take part... in the fostering of every influence that will sweeten and elevate public life; to... join in making known the resources and developments of the country; to vindicate, if required, the rights of the people and the ordinariness and Constitution, and lastly, to promote by all means in his power, without reference to class or creed, every movement and every institution calculated to forward the social, moral, and religious welfare of the inhabitants of the Dominion
Governor General the Marquess of Aberdeen, 1893As Canada shares its monarch equally with fifteen other countries in the Commonwealth of Nations and the sovereign lives predominantly outside Canada's borders, the governor general's primary task is to perform the sovereign's constitutional duties on his or her behalf, acting within the principles of parliamentary democracy and responsible government as a guarantor of continuous and stable governance and as a nonpartisan safeguard against the abuse of power.[43][44][45] For the most part, however, the powers of the Crown are exercised on a day-to-day basis by elected and appointed individuals, leaving the governor general to perform the various ceremonial duties the sovereign otherwise carries out when in the country; at such a moment, the governor general removes him or herself from public,[n 5] though the presence of the monarch does not affect the governor general's ability to perform governmental roles.
Past governor general the Marquess of Lorne said of the job: "It is no easy thing to be a governor general of Canada. You must have the patience of a saint, the smile of a cherub, the generosity of an Indian prince, and the back of a camel,"[49] and the Earl of Dufferin stated that the governor general is "A representative of all that is august, stable, and sedate in the government, the history, and the traditions of the country; incapable of partizanship, and lifted far above the atmosphere of faction; without adherents to reward or opponents to oust from office; docile to the suggestions of his Ministers, and yet securing to the people the certainty of being able to get rid of an Administration or Parliament the moment either had forfeited their confidence."[50]
Constitutional role
Further information: Monarchy of Canada > Federal constitutional role
Though the monarch retains all executive, legislative, and judicial power in and over Canada,[51][52] the governor general is permitted to exercise most of this, including the Royal Prerogative, in the sovereign's name; some as outlined in the Constitution Act, 1867, and some through various letters patent issued over the decades, particularly those from 1947 that constitute the Office of Governor General of Canada;[53] they state: "And We do hereby authorize and empower Our Governor General, with the advice of Our Privy Council for Canada or of any members thereof or individually, as the case requires, to exercise all powers and authorities lawfully belonging to Us in respect of Canada."[54] Amongst other duties, however, the monarch retains the sole right to appoint the governor general.[7] It is also stipulated that the governor general may appoint deputies—usually Supreme Court justices and the Secretary to the Governor General—who can perform some of the viceroy's constitutional duties in her stead,[55] and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (or a puisne justice in the chief justice's absence) will act as the Administrator of the Government upon the death, removal, incapacitation, or absence of the governor general for more than one month.[56]
It is the governor general who is required by the Constitution Act, 1867, to appoint for life persons to the Queen's Privy Council for Canada,[57] who are all theoretically tasked with tendering to the monarch and viceroy guidance on the exercise of the Royal Prerogative. Convention dictates, though, that the governor general must draw from the privy council an individual to act as prime minister – in almost all cases the Member of Parliament who commands the confidence of the House of Commons. The prime minister then directs the governor general to appoint other members of parliament to a committee of the privy council known as the Cabinet, and it is in practice only from this group of ministers of the Crown that the Queen and governor general will take direction on the use of executive power;[58] an arrangement called the Queen-in-Council or,[52] more specifically, the Governor-in-Council. In this capacity, the governor general will issue royal proclamations and sign orders-in-council. The Governor-in-Council is also specifically tasked by the Constitution Act, 1867, to appoint in the Queen's name the lieutenant governors of the provinces (with the premiers of the provinces concerned playing an advisory role),[59] senators,[60] the Speaker of the Senate,[61] supreme court justices,[62] and superior and county court judges in each province, except those of the Courts of Probate in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.[63] The advice given by the Cabinet is, in order to ensure the stability of government, typically binding; both the Queen and her viceroy, however, may in exceptional circumstances invoke the reserve powers, which remain the Crown's final check against a ministry's abuse of power.[n 6][64]
The governor general alone is also constitutionally mandated to summon parliament. Beyond that, the viceroy carries out the other conventional parliamentary duties in the sovereign's absence, including reading the Speech From the Throne and proroguing and dissolving parliament. The governor general also grants Royal Assent in the Queen's name; legally, he or she has three options: grant Royal Assent (making the bill law), withhold Royal Assent (vetoing the bill), or reserve the bill for the signification of the Queen's pleasure (allowing the sovereign to personally grant or withhold assent).[65] If the governor general withholds the Queen's assent, the sovereign may within two years disallow the bill, thereby annulling the law in question. No modern Canadian viceroy has denied Royal Assent to a bill. Provincial viceroys, however, are able to reserve Royal Assent to provincial bills for the Governor General; this clause was last invoked in 1961 by the Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan.[66]
Ceremonial role
Further information: Monarchy of Canada > Cultural role
With most constitutional functions lent to Cabinet, the governor general acts in a primarily ceremonial fashion. He or she will host members of Canada's royal family, as well as foreign royalty and heads of state, and will represent the Queen and country abroad on state visits to other nations,[67][64] though the monarch's permission is necessary, via the prime minister, for the viceroy to leave Canada.[68] Also as part of international relations, the governor general issues letters of credence and of recall for Canadian ambassadors and receives the same from foreign ambassadors appointed to Canada.
The governor general is also tasked with fostering national unity and pride.[69] One way in which this is carried out is travelling the country and meeting with Canadians from all regions and ethnic groups in Canada,[67] continuing the tradition begun in 1869 by Governor General the Lord Lisgar.[70] He or she will also induct individuals into the various national orders and present national medals and decorations. Similarly, the viceroy administers and distributes the Governor General's Awards, and will also give out awards associated with private organizations, some of which are named for past governors general.[67] During a federal election, the governor general will curtail these public duties, so as not to appear as though they are involving themselves in political affairs.
Although the constitution of Canada states that the "Command-in-Chief of the Land and Naval Militia, and of all Naval and Military Forces, of and in Canada, is hereby declared to continue and be vested in the Queen,"[10] the governor general acts in her place as Commander-in-Chief of the Canadian Forces and is permitted through the 1947 Letters Patent to use the title Commander-in-Chief in and over Canada.[9][15] The position technically involves issuing commands for Canadian troops, airmen, and sailors, but is predominantly a ceremonial role in which the viceroy will visit Canadian Forces bases across Canada and abroad to take part in military ceremonies, see troops off to and return from active duty, and encourage excellence and morale amongst the forces.[9] The governor general also serves as honorary Colonel of three household regiments: the Governor General's Horse Guards, Governor General's Foot Guards and Canadian Grenadier Guards. This ceremonial position is directly under that of Colonel-in-Chief, which is held by the Queen. Since 1946, the governor general has also always been made the Chief Scout of Canada, a position that some viceroys have taken seriously.
Further information: Monarchy of Canada > International and domestic aspects
The Lord Tweedsmuir gives the Throne Speech at the opening of the third session of the 18th Canadian parliament, 27 January 1938
because your Governor-General is in the service of the Crown, he is, therefore... in the service of Canada... [A]loof though he be from actual executive responsibility, his attitude must be that of ceaseless and watchful readiness to take part... in the fostering of every influence that will sweeten and elevate public life; to... join in making known the resources and developments of the country; to vindicate, if required, the rights of the people and the ordinariness and Constitution, and lastly, to promote by all means in his power, without reference to class or creed, every movement and every institution calculated to forward the social, moral, and religious welfare of the inhabitants of the Dominion
Governor General the Marquess of Aberdeen, 1893As Canada shares its monarch equally with fifteen other countries in the Commonwealth of Nations and the sovereign lives predominantly outside Canada's borders, the governor general's primary task is to perform the sovereign's constitutional duties on his or her behalf, acting within the principles of parliamentary democracy and responsible government as a guarantor of continuous and stable governance and as a nonpartisan safeguard against the abuse of power.[43][44][45] For the most part, however, the powers of the Crown are exercised on a day-to-day basis by elected and appointed individuals, leaving the governor general to perform the various ceremonial duties the sovereign otherwise carries out when in the country; at such a moment, the governor general removes him or herself from public,[n 5] though the presence of the monarch does not affect the governor general's ability to perform governmental roles.
Past governor general the Marquess of Lorne said of the job: "It is no easy thing to be a governor general of Canada. You must have the patience of a saint, the smile of a cherub, the generosity of an Indian prince, and the back of a camel,"[49] and the Earl of Dufferin stated that the governor general is "A representative of all that is august, stable, and sedate in the government, the history, and the traditions of the country; incapable of partizanship, and lifted far above the atmosphere of faction; without adherents to reward or opponents to oust from office; docile to the suggestions of his Ministers, and yet securing to the people the certainty of being able to get rid of an Administration or Parliament the moment either had forfeited their confidence."[50]
Constitutional role
Further information: Monarchy of Canada > Federal constitutional role
Though the monarch retains all executive, legislative, and judicial power in and over Canada,[51][52] the governor general is permitted to exercise most of this, including the Royal Prerogative, in the sovereign's name; some as outlined in the Constitution Act, 1867, and some through various letters patent issued over the decades, particularly those from 1947 that constitute the Office of Governor General of Canada;[53] they state: "And We do hereby authorize and empower Our Governor General, with the advice of Our Privy Council for Canada or of any members thereof or individually, as the case requires, to exercise all powers and authorities lawfully belonging to Us in respect of Canada."[54] Amongst other duties, however, the monarch retains the sole right to appoint the governor general.[7] It is also stipulated that the governor general may appoint deputies—usually Supreme Court justices and the Secretary to the Governor General—who can perform some of the viceroy's constitutional duties in her stead,[55] and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (or a puisne justice in the chief justice's absence) will act as the Administrator of the Government upon the death, removal, incapacitation, or absence of the governor general for more than one month.[56]
It is the governor general who is required by the Constitution Act, 1867, to appoint for life persons to the Queen's Privy Council for Canada,[57] who are all theoretically tasked with tendering to the monarch and viceroy guidance on the exercise of the Royal Prerogative. Convention dictates, though, that the governor general must draw from the privy council an individual to act as prime minister – in almost all cases the Member of Parliament who commands the confidence of the House of Commons. The prime minister then directs the governor general to appoint other members of parliament to a committee of the privy council known as the Cabinet, and it is in practice only from this group of ministers of the Crown that the Queen and governor general will take direction on the use of executive power;[58] an arrangement called the Queen-in-Council or,[52] more specifically, the Governor-in-Council. In this capacity, the governor general will issue royal proclamations and sign orders-in-council. The Governor-in-Council is also specifically tasked by the Constitution Act, 1867, to appoint in the Queen's name the lieutenant governors of the provinces (with the premiers of the provinces concerned playing an advisory role),[59] senators,[60] the Speaker of the Senate,[61] supreme court justices,[62] and superior and county court judges in each province, except those of the Courts of Probate in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.[63] The advice given by the Cabinet is, in order to ensure the stability of government, typically binding; both the Queen and her viceroy, however, may in exceptional circumstances invoke the reserve powers, which remain the Crown's final check against a ministry's abuse of power.[n 6][64]
The governor general alone is also constitutionally mandated to summon parliament. Beyond that, the viceroy carries out the other conventional parliamentary duties in the sovereign's absence, including reading the Speech From the Throne and proroguing and dissolving parliament. The governor general also grants Royal Assent in the Queen's name; legally, he or she has three options: grant Royal Assent (making the bill law), withhold Royal Assent (vetoing the bill), or reserve the bill for the signification of the Queen's pleasure (allowing the sovereign to personally grant or withhold assent).[65] If the governor general withholds the Queen's assent, the sovereign may within two years disallow the bill, thereby annulling the law in question. No modern Canadian viceroy has denied Royal Assent to a bill. Provincial viceroys, however, are able to reserve Royal Assent to provincial bills for the Governor General; this clause was last invoked in 1961 by the Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan.[66]
Ceremonial role
Further information: Monarchy of Canada > Cultural role
With most constitutional functions lent to Cabinet, the governor general acts in a primarily ceremonial fashion. He or she will host members of Canada's royal family, as well as foreign royalty and heads of state, and will represent the Queen and country abroad on state visits to other nations,[67][64] though the monarch's permission is necessary, via the prime minister, for the viceroy to leave Canada.[68] Also as part of international relations, the governor general issues letters of credence and of recall for Canadian ambassadors and receives the same from foreign ambassadors appointed to Canada.
The governor general is also tasked with fostering national unity and pride.[69] One way in which this is carried out is travelling the country and meeting with Canadians from all regions and ethnic groups in Canada,[67] continuing the tradition begun in 1869 by Governor General the Lord Lisgar.[70] He or she will also induct individuals into the various national orders and present national medals and decorations. Similarly, the viceroy administers and distributes the Governor General's Awards, and will also give out awards associated with private organizations, some of which are named for past governors general.[67] During a federal election, the governor general will curtail these public duties, so as not to appear as though they are involving themselves in political affairs.
Although the constitution of Canada states that the "Command-in-Chief of the Land and Naval Militia, and of all Naval and Military Forces, of and in Canada, is hereby declared to continue and be vested in the Queen,"[10] the governor general acts in her place as Commander-in-Chief of the Canadian Forces and is permitted through the 1947 Letters Patent to use the title Commander-in-Chief in and over Canada.[9][15] The position technically involves issuing commands for Canadian troops, airmen, and sailors, but is predominantly a ceremonial role in which the viceroy will visit Canadian Forces bases across Canada and abroad to take part in military ceremonies, see troops off to and return from active duty, and encourage excellence and morale amongst the forces.[9] The governor general also serves as honorary Colonel of three household regiments: the Governor General's Horse Guards, Governor General's Foot Guards and Canadian Grenadier Guards. This ceremonial position is directly under that of Colonel-in-Chief, which is held by the Queen. Since 1946, the governor general has also always been made the Chief Scout of Canada, a position that some viceroys have taken seriously.
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