Re: Wonder why some folks distrust LEO's?
No, I'm talking in general.
I've seen orders from the government that were so poorly worded that we couldn't make head nor tail of what the inspector wanted ... and it was concerning a piece of equipment that, upon inspection (not just my opinion - the whole JHSC got involved), met every current standard you care to name for that type of equipment. The order should never have been issued in the first place. The carefully worded response letter that was crafted and scrutinized during a long meeting was very interesting to read ... one has to be very careful when telling someone in power that they don't know what they are talking about. Issue went away ...
I've had the dreaded phone call starting with "the ministry was just here ..." followed by an explanation of what they wanted, followed by my reaction which basically amounted to "are you serious? why would you want to do that? that doesn't make sense", but with additional expletives that can't be mentioned here. (the person on the other end of that phone call is someone I've worked with for 10 years). This was on a piece of equipment that again met every applicable standard to the extent that we know how to do it, and the thing that the government wanted to do would have placed it OUT of compliance by allowing the machine to be started while someone was inside ... we never did what the government wanted, it would have been INSANE to do that - the issue eventually went away.
Automation and robotics is so much fun ... you get to deal with this all the time, and when something happens on a piece of equipment that you've had involvement with, you sure hear about it.
I know from friends that are in the construction industry, that it's just as disconnected from reality over there. Good luck with that reciprocating saw.
Here's another one to chew on. If you are working at heights (3+ metres up) you are supposed to tie off with a harness so that you can't fall down. Fair enough. When working on a roof, how do you get to a position where you can tie off ... without first being tied off? Not very easy to do when you're building the very thing that you could hypothetically tie off to after you're done. Once you get started, it's okay, but someone has to put that first structure up there and secure it ...
Ever see a transport truck driving down the road with a ton of snow blowing off its roof creating a visibility hazard behind it (and possibly throwing chunks of ice at following motorists)? Guess what, the top of that truck is above the height for which tie-off is required and there's nothing to tie-off to up there. So the truck driver isn't allowed to go up there to clear off the top of the truck. Not everyone can park their trailer in an indoor yard overnight ...
There's an article in today's Toronto Sun about how regulations governing how school bus contracts are handed out are killing local school bus operators due to too much red tape.
Over-regulated!
I 100 % see your point on regulation.
At this point, I do corporate finance/M&A type work. But the legislation/regulations are like ridiculous, and can't be navigated by anyone just reading the law.
Short example. Whenever someone issues securities, they have to either have a prospectus or an exemption.
the point of a prospectus ( in line with the main purpose of securities laws) is to protect the public. Now I am sure as adults we all have some investments / nest eggs / put away and some of that will probably be in a public company somewhere through either a mutual fund or directly.
But has anyone ever read a prospectus?.... have you ever met anyone that read one? I write them and I don't read them when I invest.
It costs about 2-300,000 in fees for a company to go public (just for the lawyers), but who the hell are we really protecting?... nobody! The public doesnt' benefit from a prospectus, its all purchased by the banks which retail them out usually through their in house mutual funds.
If i wanted to write things that no one would read! i would write a novel!
So yeah but thats just one example of lots of time and money being spent with very little benefit.
but with regards to regulators, some are definately better than others. They also have a chronic understaffing issue which doesn't help their service. I have been lucky in that the regulatory agencies I deal with usually have to deal with money, and thus are way better funded and staffed (eg. CRA, securities authorities, TSX(not govt but has a regulatory function)
But I admit, in real life, the only time I have ever pulled the lawyer card is when i am dealing with gov't.
