quote:

---

Readers in Canada are reporting that about a week and a half ago Queer Day mysteriously became available again after a period of a month and a half when the site was completely inaccessible. Readers were surprised to see that the news continued throughout the past month and a half and have been writing in trying to figure out what happened. One person's belief is that Telus, the major phone company for Western Canada and the largest highspeed broadband provider in British Columbia, blocked the site for reasons unknown. He's looking into finding out the reason behind the block, but with Telus currently involved in a lockout/strike action it could be awhile before we hear any answers. In the meantime, I'd like to send out a great big Welcome Back!

---

quote:

---

Regarding Queer Day being banned in Canada, the lovely and talented Jim writes, "The workers at the telco in the story (Telus) have been on strike for quite a while. In an effort to suppress free thought (after all, they ARE a telco) they attempted to block access to the union's website www.voice-for-change.com - protecting their customers from those awful strikers.

While doing so they appear to have used the scattershot approach and blocked over 700 domains ... uh... by mistake? I don't think they were being specifically homophobic - Queer Day got hit by the backspray along with a recycling company in Colorado, a breast-cancer fundraising site and over 700 more domains! You're all back on-line because the courts took a dim view of this type of union-busting. Boing Boing documented the occurence." Thanks Jim, you're the best!

---

Note that the link for the worker-support site (not actually affilated to the union) is wrong int hat article. The site address is: http://www.voices-for-change.com

quote:

---

Many Canadian readers were unable to access Queer Day for more than a month, prompting questions about this site banned in Canada? Then we discovered it wasn't just us, but that 700+ other sites were also blocked by TELUS in their union-busting attempt. Was Queer Day's block random? An inside source says it most likely wasn't and that homophobia at TELUS is widespread, evidenced by a videotape called "TELUS IDOL" that can no longer b viewed online "due to issues with the items content." What issues?   Queer Day's source says that the videotape reveals "female performers were offered hotel room keys after being subjected to humiliating language. Sexual orientation was mocked as well as ethnicity. This was largely done by a panel of two TELUS VP's and a director. The CEO Darren Entwistle is present and does nothing. They taped the whole sick affair, then put it in the TELUS media library for all to view."

Apparently the video was recorded at a Telus sales retreat in Montreal, and it was done as a takeoff on Canadian Idol. During the retreat both bargaining and management employees were forced to sit through skits where a woman was bound to a chair by tape and gagged, management used homophobic slurs openly and interaction between the contestants and the management judges included sexual banter, presumably for the pleasure of the viewing audience. The most incredible part of the whole thing is that the event required participants to be members of a captive audience, since the session was a mandatory part of the sales conference. Not only did Telus videotape the lewd behavior that was displayed at the conference but employees who were unable to attend were required to order the video and watch it. Executive vice presidents, vice presidents and senior managers and CEO Darren Entwistle participated. If you want to watch the video, it's still available onlinehere although a bittorrent program is required.

---