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Technology Issues Ignored in Canadian Elections
Jem Berkes writes "Today's Toronto Star has a good article on Canadian political parties' positions on important technology issues such as Copyright reform/WIPO, spam, and privacy. With the elections only a week away, it's surprising that these important issues have attracted little or no debate. The current Heritage Committee, for instance, has recommended that Canada ratify WIPO, and few citizens (let alone politicians) are even aware of this issue."
I wonder howm many citizens (let alone politicians) are aware of these kind of topics in the United States. I am sure /.'ers are the exception, not the rule.
"Anything is possible with enough programmers, time and pizza." (Substitute caffeine for time as needed.)
The Green Party has some F/OSS-favoring policies, and a do-not-spam policy: http://www.greenparty.ca/index.php?module=article& view=12&page_num=27
I was a bit surprised by what I read about the positions of the Liberals, Conservatives and especially the NDP. I would have hoped for a more civil-libertarian position from them.
Issues mentioned in the article that affect Cdns include copyright reform, a national ID card, anti-spam legislation, use of open source software by government, etc.
Canadians pay a levy on recordable media (incl blank CD's) which supposedly is collected to compensate artists for copying (as mentioned often on /. it's legal here! with some conditions) of their work. I know no-one who believes the artists will get the money.
re: the Canadian Heritage committee copyright report... MP Sarmite "Sam" Bulte is the 2-term Liberal candidate in MY riding & is campaigning hard for re-election. I had somehow forgotten that she chaired the Canadian Heritage committee; the report (referred to in article) has much in it that affects people in the tech / web sector. In particular, if I see her shaking hands outside the High Park TTC station again, I'll bring up some issues with her!
Many groups are unhappy with the report's recommendations, including educators.
The report is available as PDF.
USians and other non-Cdns may find similarities & differences with your own countries' policies illuminating.
je ne suis pas un fou
The NDP does not yet have a policy on Open Source Software, but I did speak to Jack Layton about it last fall. I hope to be able to bring (or send) a proposal on this matter to the next national convention .
See this journal entry
Any other NDP member/FLOSS folks want to help? Contact user "temojen", or send a message to the NPI mailing list.
(Posting anonymously because I'm at work & don't have my password here)
The NDP is for WIPO/DMCA style laws, and the Conservatives are against it? What in the hell?! Not that its a bad thing mind you, but it seems like those two parties are on the other side of their usual fences.
Huh, maybe a Conservative government wouldn't be so bad after all. I still have to decide who i'm voting for (either Conservative or Green), but maybe now I won't cringe so badly when our new dictator is announced.
Oh, who am I kidding? This is Canada - I might as well start practicing my "horrified suprise" face now.
Compared to things like health care, government waste, gay rights, etc, tech issues aren't really that important on a national scale. We might like to think they are, but they aren't top issues.
Dark Nexus
"Sanity is calming, but madness is more interesting."
No it's not, and you go on to explain why:
Unfortunately for our children, Joe Average sees that his friends and family are getting in trouble for what used to be expected of him to do, but doesn't ever make the connection. It's up to us to explain to our less paranoid friends and family exactly *why* things are headed in the wrong direction. Of course, it's somewhat difficult to do without sounding paranoid schizophrenic yourself, but do it anyway. At this point, it's our civic duty.
Because the conservatives aren't a big business party in Canada.
The Liberals have all the business friends, they make billions of dollars of 'loans' to large companies to keep them around. Guess who makes donations to the Liberal party.
The Conservatives want to lower corporate taxes, but their plan is to only lower the taxes by the amount the handouts are reduced by.
So yes the companies will get $1 billion in tax cuts, but that will be made possible by not giving $1 billion in handouts to other companies.
With the minority government shaping up, there won't be a dictator at all.
Clearly us geeks care, but most of the populace do not. The situation is the exact same in the US, where most people on the street will have no fscking clue what the DMCA even is.
A Multiplayer Strategy Game for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux
I wrote message #9500466. It seems the NPI list has been cancelled though.
With the elections only a week away, it's surprising that these important issues have attracted little or no debate.
This is no surprise at all. Besides not being relevant to Joe Average, these issues are not all that relevant even to techies this time round. Why?
Because there are FAR more important issues.
For me, I'll do anything to prevent Harper (Bush of the north) from getting in. He basically want's to turn Canada into the current USA, something I and all my friends are dead set against.
When things such as military involvment in questionable wars, our health care system, our public infrastructure, and modern social issues such as abortion and gay marriage are on the line, technological issues take back seat. As with last year, many liberal supporters are not *really* supporting the liberals, but rather voting anit-conservative.
Everyone should know by the way, that the current Conservative party is NOT the old progressive conservative party. They are mostly the Alliance and only changed their name to Conservative because they knew that the Alliance name is forever tarnished by thier last attempt to get elected.
I'm a Canadian citizen, and I'll be voting for the first time in the upcoming election. I realize that technology issues are important and all. But let's get this straight: there are MUCH more important issues on the table, and on the line, in this election.
The Liberals, in their stupendous arrogance, have gone and done a lot of stupid things. They've commited fraud on the scale of a hundred million dollars in Quebec. They've let the health care system atrophie and waste away. In short, they've fucked up.
But that's not the big problem. The big problem is that by fucking up as they have, they've pissed off a lot of people and driven votes toward the new Conservative party (leader: Stephen Harper - AKA Bush Lite). The problem is, these guys have come closer than they ever have to winning the election. And that's bad. This problem trumps a LOT of technology issues. If it had been up to these people, we would have jumped wholeheartedly in with the US on the royal clusterfuck that is the Iraq War.
The Alliance platform can be described as thus:
Massive tax cuts
Massive increases in military spending
"Free Votes" on the issue of gay marriage (which in practicality means that if they form Parliament, they'll pass some notwithstanding-clause backed bill banning gay marriages)
Generally antagonistic views on abortion (no definite statement by the party that they are not going to allow bills trying to roll back time on the abortion issue).
It's a close race, and there's a lot at stake. If the conservatives get into power, we're looking at a future of exteme debt, insane and useless military spending, longterm delay in the ability of homosexuals to get equal rights, potential issues with abortion rights, and the slow death of the social services that makes this country such a nice place to live in.
For all his faults, Martin (Paul Martin - Liberal leader and current prime minister) - has shown that he can actually manage the budget and churn out a significant surplus (at a cost to services, but regardless, it's a notable achievement). We can't afford to waste this money on military spending and corporate tax cuts.
Not to say that I love the liberals though. If the PC was still together (the old, more moderate conservative party), I would have voted for them this election. I'm disgusted with the way the Liberals have behavd.
But being disgusted is one thing. Being scared to death is another. And I'm scared to death of a Conservative majority. They'll take us right down the shitter.
Anyway, I'm sure there are equally strong opinions on the matter from the Conservative supporters.
What I'm trying to say is: there are bigger issues in this election than technology. Much bigger issues.
-Laxitive
With the current split of votes between the Liberals, NDP and Conservitives, chances are the Parti Qubcois will get in and who will care about technology issues while they are tearing apart the country.
There is a term in linux circles about misinformation tactics by large corporations...
It's called FUD, and you seem to have fallen a victim of it in this election.
Look at the policies of the Conservatives, they aren't much different from any of the parties...The NDP have planks in their platform that are the same as the conservatives ie in regards to prortional representation; economic policy is similar to Liberal with slower growth for govenrmental depts. ie more money for other areas such as tax cuts; We do need a better military...
Listen to what the leader is saying and look at Harpers record. He is the only politician consistent thru-out his career on many issues. People are afraid because he personally says he is against abortion, but if you look at the record, it is clear that if it came to a vote in the House, he would allow a free vote, hence we would get a clear indication of the mood of the people of Canada not some legislation rammed down our throats.
Look at the record not what the fear mongers are spreading people!
The info you want is hard to find but here's what I've found so far.
The Canadian Private Copying Collective, CPCC is a non profit umbrella group overseeing distribution of funds.
The CPCC's has handed out $26 million CDN and will hand out a further $28 million CDN.
Depending on the year it has distributed funds as follows
66% to eligible authors and publishers, 18.9% to eligible performers, 15.1% to eligible record companies.
and in other years; authors and publishers 75%, recording artists 13.7% and record companies 11.3%.
So the (13.7%, 18.9%) distributed to artist from CPCC to SOCAN is around ($3.5, $5.2) million CDN depending on the year etc.
Now lets see what SOCAN (Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada) has to say.
Slightly off topic.. Look at the list of fees they collect (besides the tariff). Specifically "Strolling Musicians and Buskers; Recorded Music" Damn! No wonder most buskers who sing for their supper don't have a portable stereo accompanying them. SOCAN wants $32.55 per day for the accompanying music!
The moral on the above story is that the $0.21 for CD-Rs and CD-RWs is peanuts, and (in light of the legitimate purpose of backup) is already reduced from $0.77 tariff on CD-R Audio and CD-RW Audio. Specifically in this link, grep 'I buy blank CDs regularly to store data from my computer'
Okay so what does SOCAN have to say about distribution of money from the tariff... well nothing. They have forms to fill out, and they give you the option of paying with Visa and MasterCard.. but I can't find a damn thing about outflow of cash.
The closest thing I can find is in their Summer 2004 newsletter 381 Kb pdf. Which is vague at best
They "develop the artist" and are into advertisement/payolla to get foreigners to buy CDN music.
So my one last search was in the Canadian Copyright Act. Specifically Subsection Subsection 83. (13) (b).
So SOCAN has to tell the Copyright Board how it spent the money. Great, two levels of bureaucracy.
I have no intention of filling a FOI request as I don't really care enough. I'll let someone else try that. This is the furthest I can get in "following the money". :(
While you're at the copyright Act site look at subsection 84, which says only collectives/societies can collect the tariff. So, you personally cannot fill out a form and get your $0.21 back. If you want that you'll have to write Sarmite and make a good case for how the Act should be amended and how it would not be abused.
The only exception to the levy is subsection 86 (1) which exempts societies for people with perceptual disabilities. So you if you have a perceptual disability you could ask, say the CNIB, to purchase blank media for you.
FWIW: Upcomming tariffs for 2005., for private copying shows there will be no increase ($0.21, $0.77) and the distri
Take a look at the the user feed back during the Copyright Reform Process. Over 700 submissions all sorted by date and submitter.
Among the contributions who asked for specific legislation to ban circumvention technology were, the Canadian Independent Record Producers Association (CIPRA), which on page page 4 requested
Since there will be no such regulation I believe Bulte and others have the right idea.AOL-TW Inc also called for DMCA type regulation of technology,
Such DMCA type demands were completely dismissed by the Committee.FWIW: The September 4th 2001 submission from "The Edifying Fellowship of Ook" is hilarious. I couldn't get past the first page with that funky old English font.
I'm usually 100% cynical, but the system seems responsive.. even to the eccentric.Be careful in what you are interpreting Sarmite to have said. She is not a technology law or technology aware person. She is not someone who would recognize that legal protection for DRM (TPM/RMI combination) is in fact a considerable regulation of technology.
She also seems unaware of the fact that proposals to tax educational use of the Internet are an exemption of copyright where the intentions of the copyright holders are ignored and instead a royalty-collective society receives what amounts to "a tax on the new to protect the old".
Ask her why after those 700 submissions, 650 which were generated by the Canada-DMCA-Opponents community (now http://digital-copyright.ca ), why none of us were invited to speak before the committee? I was invited by Industry committee to speak on a different bill, I believe partly because Heritage committee was ignoring our community after many submissions and many offers to speak with individual members.
I live and work in Ottawa, and have offered to do one-on-one or committee-wide sessions. The offers still stand, and hopefully the new Heritage committee will take me up on that offer.
BTW: If this is an area of policy you are interested in, please join the Digital Copyright Canada forum and help us move this policy/education forward.
Digital Copyright Canada forum
Generally, the big Canadian parties realize copyrights, patents, and digital freedom are not understood by the average person; that's why politicians prefer to cave in to the corporations on these issues.
As someone has pointed out, the Green Party does have a pro-open source platform. But they're not the only ones. Libertarians favour people's rights (fair use, etc) over artificial state-created monopolies like copyrights and patents. Even though Canada's Libertarian party is in a state of rebuilding, they're a good choice for those who value digital and cultural freedom.
In my riding (Cariboo-Prince George), Jeff Paetkau includes copyright and patent reform (the good kind of reform) in his platform. Jeff is an active member of the Gentoo community, and was responsible for the nightly KDE builds until recently. Canadian Slashdotters can read up on his platform here: www.timeforless.ca
Politicians would pretend to care about any topic that was really important to the average voter. Surprise, surprise, it appears that the average Canadian voter is not a Slashdot-reading geek!
I don't really care which corporate conglamerate is going to manipulate Canada. Here in Edmonton, AB there is enough problems with R&D. The combination of research and development +policeSciencesBioNano[GRC]+endlessLiberalbudget+u nlimitedCorporateStakeholders+governmentTaxIncenti ve and kickbacks mixed with no Canadian law to protect and --*GoodLuckExplainingThisTo-->>IamNaive>>>NowItsMi ne.
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I do not share this interpretation of Sarmite Bulte's words.
I was subjected to a speech from her at the Rethinking Copyright conference, and checked my interpretation with a number of other people there (some lawyers or law students, some other laypersons like myself). We all came to the same conclusion that she didn't understand technology law, and didn't separate many-to-many mediums of communication like the Internet to one-to-many broadcast media of the past.
Since you seem to have been able to reach her, try again with a few additional questions:
Digital Copyright Canada forum
If they know an election can come any time now, maybe they'll keep their promises.
The Ontario Liberals are certainly acting like everyone will forget sometime in the next 5 years.
http://www.canada.gc.ca/depts/major/depind_e.html
Tell me, which R&D did I conviently provide the intellectual property?
Where does a subject go for compensation?
Who cares about the election. We live in a GRC Science R&D test site and project pilot zone.
I have had enough of these corporate government and police agencies exploiting my intellectual property, infringing my rights and invading my privates... I mean privacy.
http://www.privacyassociation.org
Fuck all of this subtle inuendo of watch me fuck you because no one told you about this technology.
How about this? I will find where you live. And if you know where I live, by all means come over, I look forward to seeing you. Maybe we can laugh together about how computer illiterate I am, or the average user.
Research and develop this: Infringing Intellectual Property Impeding Corporate Innovation IIPICI And make it a protocol.
Information Technology? How about InFormat Ion Tech Knows where your RAT ass lives.
Bunch of fucking goofs.
Better insure my patents...--->>>Because I don't give a FUCK
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