Dear Elon,
Congratulations on becoming the world’s richest man.
When I heard the news, I tried imagining what that meant and found myself struck with an indescribable urge to write you an interview request and publish it – openly, candidly, and with healthy amounts of humility.
Look, we both know that you’re the real rocket man. A true visionary who starts his day by presumably brushing his teeth and putting on one shoe at a time while also finding ways to make worthwhile things happen which then end up making humanity better by using your astonishing candor, endless resiliency, and a glorious love of technology.
In other words, you’re basically Tony Stark and we love the cut of your jibe. And if there’s one person on this entire planet whom I believe will always put his money where his mouth is…it’s you.
Be it with Tesla self-driving cars that lower pollution and reduce our carbon footprint to your SpaceX satellite that beams low cost, high-value internet into homes from celestial points high above; it’s abundantly clear to me that you’re the dude poised to make the biggest impact on my generation that will likely be felt by our children and their children’s children. And when this global pandemic mercifully subsides and the layers of atrophy settles, the only heroes remembered will be the ones who did something to help others when it mattered most.
These days, it’s a brutally overrated experience to be known as a Canadian when it comes to internet access and affordability. In fact, it’s downright sad and existentially humiliating. And here’s why:
It’s far too expensive and we’re price-gouged.
We don’t have any competition.
And our governments and regulatory bodies pay nothing more than lip service when it comes to folks living outside of cities and across our vibrant rural communities.
To put it bluntly, we’re an international joke when it comes to the internet.
Our political and business leaders have failed us in so many astonishingly irreversible ways that the average Canadian has little or no idea of just how bad it is. And it keeps getting worse and worse with every passing generation.
Every notion of fairness when it comes to the way the internet is priced and provided in my country has been absolutely shattered. Between the white noise of condescendingly vicious marketing tactics and disingenuous bloated media corporations who care more about maximizing shareholder dividends over ensuring customer satisfaction, our population has become nothing more than wilfully naive and clueless sheep being preyed upon by cunningly duopolistic wolves.
Elon, I know you’re a busy human in a world of billions – but if you were to give me just ten minutes of your time for an organic, down-to-earth interview where we could talk about this for all to hear, I truly believe you’d find it time well spent. Because you understand what I’m writing about, and so we could treat it more than just a rallying cry or a wake-up call for my country.
I’m no longer simply furious about having absorbed decades of false promises and paternalistic lies. I’m finally ready to do something about it.
To draw a line in the sand and make Canadians take action against our noxiously anti-competitive reality and the misanthropic practices of largely indifferent provincial and federal governments who keep failing our taxpayers from coast-to-coast.
We deserve better. But we’re getting hosed and served perpetual gruel and horribly stale porridge.
So, I’m ready to be your Chewbacca, your Samwise Gamgee and your Ellis “Red” Redding all wrapped up in one; a veritable internet crusader and social media soothsayer that you’ll deploy to help fight the miscreants of fibre and to battle those gluttonous telecom power brokers that need to be held accountable for how badly they’ve fucked up my country’s perception and belief system when it comes to the internet, and why the dehumanizing practice of treating it like a colour-branded commodity instead of the most basic of utilities must end immediately.
Ten minutes, Elon. And we’ll ruffle feathers and make hard-working Canadians pay attention to something that needs to be addressed in a way that brings back honour and respect to every single one of them.
Because at the end of the day, I believe it’s a human indignity to pretend that things will get better if nothing is done.