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How is this being modded "Informative"? First off, it's New Democratic Party. http://www.ndp.ca/

If you're going to talk politics, at least try to get the party names right.

Also, as others have pointed out, the NDP might be a minority party but so are the Conservatives who are currently in power - all the parties in Canada are currently minority parties.

I have no clue how anyone found your post remotely informative given how utterly uninformed it is.

Well, well, well...

The Liberals are neck-and-neck with the Conservatives in the polls and are looking for an issue to galvanize the elusive 18-35 year old citizens into voting.

If only there was something contentious, like making it illegal to copy legally purchased materials or record TV. Something like "You could go to jail or face $20,000 for owning a modded XBox." Telling young professionals that content will be decided not by the CRTC, but by cable providers and American lobby groups. If you buy a DVD for your kids and let them use a ripped copy to skip the ads and keep the copy clean, that's a violation of WIPO, which could jail you and bankrupt you. Using any operating system that bypasses security features would do the same, too.

If only there was a way to contact your local Liberal, Bloq, and NDP MPs and let them know how you, as a citizen and registered voter, think this is worth an election.

Imagine the ads:
Have a guy walking down the street, listening to an MP3 player. A van pulls up next to him, and RCMP with guns order him to the ground. One policeman grabs the player, looks through it, says, "full of mp3s" to another one. They arrest him and put him in the van.

Announcer: "This is the Conservative plan for copyright reform."

If he gets a minority, the NDP also supports net neutrality.

http://www.ndp.ca/press/new-democrats-introduce-net-neutrality-bill

For anyone interested in Canadian net neutrality, http://neutrality.ca/ has regular updates.

Yep, and their website http://www.ndp.ca/ is using Drupal! :)

The trap is mandatory internet filtering (see the last paragraph in section 1):

We will:
[...]
Implement new legislation to require all Canadian Internet Service Providers to prevent the publication or proliferation of child sexual abuse content on the Internet.

Generally, countries implement this by using a blacklist which:

• blocks entire sites (by DNS or IP) rather than just the forbidden content, thereby blocking legitimate content as well
• is secret, and maintained by an unaccountable organisation
• can be abused to block legitimate speech
• is unverifiable: assuming it works perfectly, nobody can access the listed sites to check whether they really contain child pornography
• doesn't work unless you're in a police state: things like international VPNs, proxies, TOR, and private DNS servers can't be blocked in a free country

You may not like what you know about today's NDP, but Charlie Angus is the real deal and whether or not Layton is using him for effect, you might like what you find out about Angus if you look around a little. I'm not big on today's NDP, but I'm an Angus fan. He's new to politics, and maybe that's why he still comes across as honest. Heck, I liked his band too, back in the day.

Relevant press releases and Wiki:

The lobbying efforts of these various content industries are going to continue regardless of which party is in power. Take the time to write your MP, and CC each of the major political parties as well:

http://www.conservative.ca/EN/1045/
http://www.liberal.ca/contact_e.aspx
http://www.ndp.ca/contact
http://www.green.ca/en/contact

Make it known that Canadians will not support any government pandering to the one-sided arguments of content publishers. DRM is doomed to failure and propping it up with legislation is just another step towards criminalizing fair-use.

The tax should be run by the government as industry can never be trusted to regulate itself.

Money raised by this levy should be distributed fairly among Canadian artists. This way Canadian music piracy would effectively subsidize the Arts.

I think this protectionist measure would preserve canadian arts and culture. It could probably be written into existing CRTC (Canadian Radio-Television Commission) regulations.

If you ask me, we should vote the Neo-Conservatives out of office and get the Social-Democrats more seats if we want to protect Canadian music interests.

Here in Canada, we actually have four parties currently represented in Parliament. This is down from the five that were there before (two parties merged; nobody got destroyed at the polls).

However, since Confederation, the Prime Minister has been the leader of either the Conservative or Liberal/Whig party. There are other parties, and they do hold seats, but none of them have ever formed the federal government. However, some have won provincial elections.

Handy links:

• Conservative Party of Canada
• Liberal Party of Canada
• New Democratic Party of Canada
• Bloc Québéois
• Green Party of Canada (never elected any members to Parliament, but tends to get a fair number of votes at the polls)

The big problem with the current machines is that they combine both those steps & don't provide any means of independent public oversight.

Nail, meet hammer. Right on the head.

A great deal of the problem with American vote counting, as opposed to Canadian, is that, as another reply stated, with a two-party system, the second party doesn't really care if the first party gets knocked off this time around. Their position is just about as powerful; their 'leader' just doesn't get to sit in the big comfy chair and hold the remote.

In Canada, by contrast, we have the following parties:

1. The Liberals . This party has been in power the most often. They are fiscally conservative, socially progressive, and quite corrupt. They are currently without a real leader.
2. The Conservatives , formerly the Progressive Conservatives, briefly the Reform Party, even more briefly the (conservative) Alliance. One of Canada's two original parties, the Progressive Conservatives were almost completely destroyed by their own leader's unpopularity in 1992. The new Conservative party is fically conservative, socially regressive, quite corrupt, and generally whacko. Their current leader is the head whacko.
3. The New Democratic Party . Canada's semi-socialist party, fiscally socialist, socially very progressive. At the height of their popularity in the 1980s, they became known as "the conscience of the Commons". Unfortunately, when their leader retired, they lost their direction and their credibility. Their current leader is a posturing buffoon. The NDP currently holds the balance of power in Ottawa. They've never held enough seats to become corrupt.
4. Le Bloc Quebecois . One of the parties that formed following the destruction of the Progressive Conservatives, the Bloc's sole mission is to separate Quebec from the rest of Canada. They have only fielded candidates in Quebec.
5. The fringe parties. The Communist Party, the Green Party, the Marijuana Party, the Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party... we've got 'em all. Full list here.
6. The Rhinoceros Party . This party disbanded after its original leader died, but it is worth noting for being the most popular 'joke' party in Canada's history. Although they never held a seat, they received numerous votes from disgruntled voters for policies like the following:
   • putting the national debt on Visa
   • turning the Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine tunnel in Montreal into a free carwash by poking holes in the ceiling
   • switching Canada to driving on the left side of the road to be more like England (and therefore less like the USA), but making the transition gradual: trucks and buses first.

In an election that was mainly a fight over The Religious Right (Corporatist) vs Corrupt Corporatists where you are lead to believe that it MUST be one or the other, few people realise that they CAN vote for a Non-corporatist party ( or another, or another)

Same here in Canada, except our Liberal party's orientation occasionally varies wildly by party leader and member. Lately their policy seems to be to preach the left-wing NDP's platform, only less convincingly, and then promptly implement the right-wing Conservative platform, only less competently. Most Canadians see this as balancing out into being centrist, which is what the Liberals claim to be.
I'm represented by Liberals at the provincial and federal levels. The former loudly proclaimed during an all-candidates meeting that homosexual relationships are an "affront to God." The latter promised to champion against pro-choice bills, no matter what party policy might dictate.

I live in Toronto, and I know that the electricity rate is about 5.5 cents per kWh for businesses. The rate is determined by the Ontario goverment's Ontario Hydro Corporation. It is expected that the rate will go up within a year, but let's estimate 5.5 cents for now.

The CEO's bio, say it cost CDN$175 million to do the project. For the rough estimate, let's assume that it is operating at peak capacity, which it isn't yet. Another assumption is that it is used four months of the year. At a power of 59 MW, it would displace $9.3 million of electricity generation. That would take over 19 years to pay back.

I would imagine there would be a cost for maintenance. However, they may be able to make some profit during cooler months, since as one poster has pointed out, some modern office buildings trap heat in the winter and need air conditioning to compensate for heat sources such as people, lights, and electronics. I don't know what kind of demand that would necessitate.

With such a long payback time, that may be one reason why we don't see more of them. It's exactly the kind of thing the federal government should be investing in instead of Petro Canada (a Canadian oil and gas company.) FWIW, the NDP had a campaign platform to sell off the PC shares for investment in energy efficiency and green technologies like this in the last election: http://www.ndp.ca/ftp/platform/en/greenfound.php

Also wanted to add that I was pleasantly suprised to find the site running PHP and Apache, rather than IIS and ASP.NET, like the Liberals and Conservatives. The NDP appear to use some sort of content management system, with most of the site being static, the server reports Apache with PHP installed.

Yes, we're all impressed that you've read No Logo. Your strident over-simplification still makes you seem like a 15-year old slamming his bedroom door in a fit of pique.

I was pointing out that your manner of expression weakens your message. If the Republican/Randian dig is aimed at me, you couldn't be further from my political leanings

Guess it was too much to expect that the ".ca" would tip you off that our world views might be a liiiitle different.

I followed this case quite closely. Despite our highest court ruling in favour of Monsanto, all it would take is this to become an issue in our upcoming federal election (will be called this Sunday), and our patent law will be changed. Once the law is changed, the Monsanto case's precedent will be tossed aside, and we will get back on the right track.

Our (Canada's) patent law is quite out of date, it does not address the issues regarding patenting of genome, plants, organisms, and other living matter. Once it is brought up to date (not when, it would be political suicide for all parties not to protect farmers like Schmeiser), we will get things right.

All parties which are running in every riding have to deal with this the correct way.

- The new Conservative Party of Canada will stand to loose grassroots support if they do not protect the rights of farmers to save seed. Although I wouldn't vote for them because they have yet to release their platform... shuuush... they don't want people to know that yet.

- The Liberal Party of Canada will stand to loose support in Ontario where Schmeiser was situated, although it is slipping because the provincial government did a 180 in the first budget.

- The NDP hates GE food, says there is no viable market for the stuff, it should be labelled, etc etc. They would definitely protect the rights of the farmer to save the seed.

- And the Green Party. This is a given, they don't like GE foods, they don't like GE anything, because it destroys biodiversity.

This is just a temporary setback. The justices here did not fully comprehend the severity of their decision, but they were forced to work within the framework of the laws given to them by Parliament in 1985. Things have changed, and this act of Parliament will be apart of our next election, and will be dealt with the next government.

Conservatives are somehow going to be any different, disagree.

Which is why I'll be voting for the New Democrats.

Seriously, go to the All Candidates Meetings in the upcoming election. Chances are that the NDP candidate will be the only one who's well informed and has any kind of debating skill.

For example, in my riding the Liberal candidate refused to debate and would only participate if she was given the questions in advance and allowed to bring pre-written speeches as answers. The Progressive Conservative's retorts consisted mostly of, "That's a lie!"

Well, the Liberal won, and sure enough she can't perform in legislature to save her life.

At least strongarm your rep into implementing proportional representation! That's the first step in fixing this democracy.

The liberals are alright, but not liberal enough for me. Check out the NDP, my party of choice. You're going to think we're total commies after this.

This is likely part of the recent Liberal scandal, and therefore it's evident that there is a significant level of corruption in the Liberal party of Canada. For all those of you who are Americans, you should know that the Liberal party is the same as the Republicans, the Progressive Conservative party is also the same as the Republicans, while the New Democratic Party is quite left of the Democrats in the US. Yes, it's true, we have TWO Republican parties in Canada.

My thoughts are that this is definately part of the Liberal scandal, and not to restate this, but it's very important someone cleans up Canadian politics, and IMHO, that is the NDP. The thing is, the NDP would need to remain in power for two or three terms in order to do that, and it may take even longer to clean up the huge mess left from years of PC and Liberal waste/corruption. People would go to jail, people would pay for their crimes. People like Jean Cretien, former prime minister of Canada, who oversaw the entire scandal, and was likely heavily involved. People like the current PM, Paul Martin. Leaders should go to jail if they rob the taxpayers as much as these people have!

I love Canada, the land and its people but I could do with a different government.

1. Go to France and learn how to protest

   What if university and college students in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal etc. shut their cities down when things like this happened?

2. Join the NDP or the Green party and get involved

   The New Democrats and the Greens are the only parties in the country that don't have the "yes sir, no sir, may I please suck your balls sir?" attitude towards industry.

3. Write to SOCAN and demand a refund for all the CDs you've bought

   Send SOCAN your receipts and tell them what you've done with your discs - burned Linux ISOs, saved photos, etc. Also, tell them that you wouldn't pirate their music, since it's all slop anyway.... OR

4. Run a "music exchange"

   Really rub the private copying decision in SOCAN's face by having a "music exchange". Get a bunch of computers with fast CD-burners, then invite a whole bunch of people and tell them to each bring 10 of their favourite CDs. Then give everyone free blank discs. As long as the person who's keeping the copy actually MAKES the copy (i.e. puts the discs in the provided computer, clicks "copy", collects discs), it's all nice and legal.

Online elections have been tried before in Canada -- the last one I heard about was for the election of the New Democratic Party held over a year ago, run by election.com.

During this election the system was hacked and was down for a few hours, highlighting the fact that anarchists and hackers see elections as a focal point to concentrate their efforts; luckily for election.com, the NDP, and pro-online vote advocates, they had a backup plan of some sort that seemed to thwart further hack attempts (I don't know what they did though).

Online elections will not lead to massive fraud, no more than has happened with paper ballots in most countries already. The software set up by some of the online election companies is robust and undoubtedly have redundancies built in that can thwart potential hacks. Of course nothing if foolproof but there is no sense throwing up one's hands before trying.

Maybe someone can explain to me why an online election would be any different to, say, online banking systems, for example? An online bank has a lot at stake as well, and is open to hack attempts 247, not just for 12 hours in 4 years.

It also probably WILL mean a larger voter turnout, as people with internet access (quite a large percentage of registered voters, in Canada anyways) will find it easier to vote, as they have when filing their taxes online (another government system that hasn't been seriously hacked in the few years it has been active).

Get used to on-line elections -- their "paper" trails are as good as we have already, and they attest to how robust software can be made to fend off serious and concentrated hack attempts.

The Patriot Party of Canada is a good new party. The progressives are out there, and not all waffles like the NDP or republican-imitators like the Alliance. Hell, technically, the PC Party is still around, albeit dying... you could say the same for Paul Hellyer's Party.

No... you're right... only the Liberal's are around.

I'm Canadian, and I know there are lot of Canadians who also share the same ignorance/lack of information on how our Canadian government works but I hope this helps:

The Canadian Alliance is the "Opposition party" or the group of elected individuals in our House of Commons (sorta like the House of Representatives in the states). The difference in our elected officials is that we have more than just two large parties. There's the Liberal Party of Canada, NDP, PC Party of Canada and other parties like the Green Party, The Communist party, etc. (I don't have their URLs, but I'm sure google would help)

To better understand Canadian government, check this out: Structure of the Government of Canada

The Minister of Canadian Heritage is this person named Sheila Copps who is in charge of keeping Canadian Culture 'Canadian'. A lot of people don't like what she does as a lot of times it removes freedoms from the people of Canada and makes things more expensive (our taxes pay for her position and her policies/ideas).

To answer your actual question: Is this one individual overruling a lobbying type group or a governmental group?
The bill became law despite the Canadian Alliance fighting against it.

What exactly is an American "New Democrat"? Unless ive missed something, you only have Democrats and Republicans... one of which has formed every government for over 100 years.

Canada has a New Democratic Party.. Im happy to hear you Yanks are finally paying attention.*

*that was a joke, i know nothing of the 'new democrats' in the USA, but im betting they are even MORE right than the ever so vibrant Right-Right duopoly of the American Republicrats.

The problem with this is that govenments tend to, at least, unofficially, side with big business. Why?

• Business -> economy -> more jobs & tax revenue
• Businesses contribute a lot of money to politicians' campaigns
• Businesses fund lobby groups to influence politicians
• Many politicians, especially in the US, are very right-wing, and support business on principle
• Many politicians are businessmen (ie. Cheney)
• Other reasons I haven't thought of...

What you guys need in the US is a mainstream centre-left socialist party, such as the NDP we have here in Canada, that is sympathetic to individual rights, and suspicious of the motives of big business.

US citizen trying to get the hang of all these darn parties while I wait for Immigration to let me the heck in.

Here's all you need to know:

Liberals (or "Grits") - The centrist ruling party.
Progressive Conservatives (or "Tories) - Traditional right-of-centre alternative to the Liberals, until a decade ago when its support splintered.
New Democratic Party - Traditional "third party", left-of-centre, have never formed a government.
Canadian Alliance - Formed in 1987 as the "Reform party", a Western party that split from the Tories. Currently involved in a fratricidal leadership controversy; likely to disintegrate before the next election.
Bloc Quebecois - A Quebec-based party that split largely from the Tories. They run candidates only in Quebec and campaign solely on Quebec independence.

Of course we also have the usual fringe parties - the Marijuana party, the Communist party, the Green party, and so on. My favourite is the Natural Law party, whose basic policy is to teach Canadians to levitate using Yoga.

Right.

Speaking of all the election hype, I feel compelled to throw in my $0.02 on the upcoming elections for us neighbors in Canada..
Since I'm generally (by choice) uninformed about American politics, I only take interest in the subject purely for entertainment value.
Equally entertaining is that of Canadian politics, which from my personal observation, us Canadians take more of a humouristic look..
The next Federal Election is Nov 27, 2000, and our candidates have given us a few more boxes on the ballot to check (or spoil) :)

So, for those Slashdotters interested, here's some nifty links I've come across for some more comic relief

Elections Canada
Some Logos
Parties
Liberal Party
PC Party
NDP
Canadian Alliance
Marijuana Party
Bloc Quebecois
Government of Canada

Know what that means? Choice! That's right... I can't just flip a coin, because there are SOOO many choices to make! Yessir... I can vote Liberal, and keep our international code-of-conduct FUBARing Frenchman Jean Chretien. Or, maybe I'll go for the new kid on the block, Stockwell Day and his Canadian Alliance just to piss both the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives off. Oh yeah... I could vote PC... but that'd be sort of like picking the slow nerdy kid with asthma for your soccer team - you'd do it just to make him feel good. I could shore up the New Democratic Party, who are rumoured to possibly cease to exist as a federal party after this election, but Lord knows I didn't care for Bob Rae. I can't even keep him straight with Preston Manning.

So yes, as a Proud Canadian with an upcoming election, I Have Choice! Too bad... finding the lesser of 2 evils is a lot easier than finding the lesser of 5. I wonder if the Natural Law Party will be running again. I still have to see a flying yogi.

BC has (or had, as of 1999) a majority government headed by the New Democratic Party, a near-left-wing organization... or at least it used to be near-left-wing. Spending too much time in BC can do that to you.

Somehow I don't believe Big Business fits in the plans of the NDP, with its pro-union pro-worker stance, in that province. Microsoft represents the penultimate in Big Business. In addition, the federal government in Ottawa is so far out of touch with BC I can't imagine our Prime Minister endorsing such a move.

Now here's a thought: Would one of the conditions of such a move be to form a M$ staff union? The thoughts of a unionized M$ are amusing.