From my FB friend:

Chargeback season

Canada Post is not the cheapest provider... 99% of the time we ship with Purolator, except for when shipping to rural areas / Northwest Territories/Yukon. We already avoid Canada Post at all costs.

Cheapest is Canpar/Loomis. There's also GLS now but I haven't personally used them. In terms of reliability, Purolator has always been good.

When shipping to the US, UPS is the cheapest. Unless you absolutely have to, I would say try to always ship state side (so from Blaine). If you were shipping from Canada to the US via Purolator, they do it via UPS. So UPS takes the customs entry bill and marks it up. Then they bill Puro who marks it up. Then you get the bill and it's a whole wtf.

Wow, watching SG1 reruns. Came across the episode with Harlan <sp?>. He does this thing with his hands. Both hands together in a praying position. Both middle fingers intersecting each other, perpendicular to the praying hands. Brilliant!

Now I have the perfect "god bless" gesture. A combination of thank you and a fuck you!

Those of you who know, know what god bless from MG1 really means.


god bless and MG1 out!

there is no god old man, if he was here, i wouldn't be alive.

Fat Buddha on the other hand... this seems right up his alley. Sitting around all day, letting shit go to hell.

Update: I got a notification that there is a weather delay - service will resume weather permitting. :suspicious:

Your friend's analysis kinda falls apart on the point that CP workers don't get to decide to strike or not. 100% the union/mgmt decision, workers don't get a say.

Don’t you vote on job action?

Not according to the 2 posties I know... they don't want to be on strike at all / can't afford it and there was no vote for job action, lovely union just made the decision on their behalf.

Blows my mind that you are in a "union" and yet you have no say in what goes on.

You figure there would be an email / poll sent out, "do you wish to strike for pay raise (yes/no)" and based by the response that would trigger an action

Same can be said for government actions, once every 4 years you vote for a party, and thats it. Should be changed to a poll system.

Then again i know nothing about politics / unions, the above would probably just cause more chaos than needed

At Telus we even had fucking “fake” strike votes prior to the shit union forcing everyone to accept the deal.

This might be a good place to ask, as I'm sure there are many OG RSers who are Hong Kong-born Canadians now have kids.

My daughter and partner are planning to travel to China to visit in-laws. Since my daughter only has a Canadian passport, we applied for a travel visa at the China Visa Office last week. To our surprise, her application was rejected due to an issue with her birth certificate.

The problem is that her birth certificate lists my partner’s birthplace as Beijing, China, while mine is listed as Hong Kong, Hong Kong. Apparently, this is a common issue for families where one partner is from Hong Kong, Taiwan, or Macau, and the other is from mainland China.

I went to the BC Vital Statistics Office to request an update to my birthplace from "Hong Kong, Hong Kong" to "Hong Kong, China," but they denied the request, stating that my passport only lists "Hong Kong."

I’m guessing this is a common issue, so I’m hoping someone can shed some light on how to resolve it. We’re eager to travel soon, as her grandparents are getting older.

I am guessing the problem with the China Visa Office is -- they are being dicks and insist that your birth place says "Hong Kong, China" on your daughter's birth certificate?

I had a quick look at the BC Vital Statistic birth certificate ordering website, and I don't see anything that would prevent me from ordering a new birth certificate (for my kid). So a wild guess attempt is -- perhaps you can try to order a new birth certificate for your daughter, with you entering "Hong Kong, China" as your place of birth this time. At $27, it seems to be the cheapest option.

If BC Vital Stats is giving you grief about your passport only saying "Hong Kong", potentially it seems like you might need to apply for a new passport (instead of renewing your existing one). And then you can write in your passport application that your place / country of birth is "Hong Kong, China". And then go back to BC Vital Stats to have them change your birth place on your daughter's birth certificate.

But this seems roundabout to me, and applying for a new passport would be a lot more expensive than just getting a new birth certificate too.

An option is to use the 144hr transit visa. It’s free and you just need an outbound ticket to a third country like japan/korea. They also accept HK/Macau as a third country.

So to give an example it will be vancouver-china (layover) - Hongkong (destination). Then back to vancouver from HK

Weird, my sister in law’s family just went through the exact same scenario (and are currently in HK). The BC Vital Statistics Robson office processed the BC birth certificate change for the kids to Hong Kong, China despite the father’s passport stating his birthplace is only Hong Kong…

Edit: Only the child's birth certificate can be updated. The adult’s citizen card or landing papers cannot be altered.

Wonder what Taiwanese born go through. For ex does it say Taipei, Taiwan or Taipei, Republic of China on their Passport?

They got rid of the country code for HK, Macau and Taiwan...

So it just says "Taipei" and not "Taipei TWN" on Canadian passports now

Oooooo youz all chinar now!!! Kakakakkaka.

Ni hao ma Xiong di ?

"Xiong di" in canto is "hing dai" for anyone like me who had to look that up.

"hing dai" in white is "brothers" for the rest of you looking confused lol

Better brush up on your yarrr yarrr yarrrr mandarin arrr. Dem commies don’t take it lightly you no speak china-ney

Original Macanese chiming in here.

While not exactly the same, I had trouble getting a tourist visa to China when I went to the Chinese consulate a number of years ago. My passport (then) only showed Macau SAR. They ridiculed me, called me a traitor to the people, and told me to come back when my passport shows Macau, China. As you can imagine, I was pretty choked.

My workaround was going through a travel agency I think on Renfrew, near the plaza on East 1st Ave. The guy there took care of it for me in 48 hours. What changed? Absolutely nothing. By the way, don't go there. The consulate won't work with him anymore. :inout:

Going to China itself was a nightmare where they gave me the same spiel when I did a layover in Shanghai Pudong and when I went to Fuzhuo Changle. Going to Macau itself was also a royal pain in the ass, and that is another story in itself. Exiting China was equally a pain in the ass. I never want to go back to China ever again.

Any way, I had to renew my passport in 2022 and it shows Macao (not Macau) China. I have no intentions to go back to China, so I'm afraid I will never know what the process is like. Good luck!

What I don't understand about Canada post is they are hemorrhaging money and have been for a long time. The business model is obviously not sustainable and is shrinking so either find new business or move to weekly deliveries? We aren't delivering milk to peoples homes anymore either, times change.

Who actually checks their mail more than once a week anyway? The majority of it is flyers. Switch to once a week deliveries, axe 70%+ of your work force and try and find a way to operate not in a deficit. Now you might even have the money to give the 30% that didn't get sacked that raise they were looking for, win win?

Well that’s exactly what I said before and I’m sure more people here who aren’t waiting on a passport are coming around to feel the same.

It’s been a month without mail delivery, have you missed it? Outside of the seniors mentioned previously the strike is kind of underlining how their demands are out to lunch for a dieing industry