Slashdot Mirror
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."
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 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.
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.
Even when the levies were imposed some time ago on recordable media they went through without much more than a whisper, despite a good number of people protesting by writing their letters.
I doubt very much if there's going to be any serious discussion between the Liberals and Conservatives with respect to any kind of technology issues unless at least 80% of their prospective voters will understand it clearly or care enough to make a voting decision based on their position. Sure there are other parties that may have policies surrounding the issue -- but the grits seem to be neck and neck with the tories, and the other parties are barely given credit in the news as they are presumably expected to win no more than 7-10 seats between them.