Slashdot Mirror
Canadian Government Going Big Brother?
Eh-Wire writes "If this article by Canadian privacy expert Michael Geist is any indication of what the Canadian Government has in mind for the Canadian Internet surfing public, then it looks like the Canadian public should be concerned. This does not look good!"
Well, there go my plans to move to Canada.
Underloved Movies and Pub Quiz: donotquestionme.org
Michael Geist comes out every once in a while with a "The Sky is Falling!" piece about how government is trying to super-regulate the Internet in Canada or some other country.
It's sensationalist crap for the purpose of selling impressions on the websites he writes for.
The hairbrained proposals that some lobbyists are putting forth in Canada are real, but there's little danger of any of them being taken seriously and he knows that.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Hmm, hopefully our privacy commissioner will step up to the plate on this issue. A few weeks ago, Slashdot was trumpeting the privacy commissioner as a good thing for Canada - now I see a few other posters desparaging Canada. This is good, but hopefully if people raise enough awareness (the Star article will help), and word gets out things can change.
Our government bowed to public pressure with respects to the American ballistic missile defence programme, and they'd bow to any sort of pressure towards the ISPs with regards to this. Of course, it can't hurt to let the privacy commissioner know that people care about this issue.
Privacy Commissioner: http://www.privcom.gc.ca/
"There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all."
- Bob Dylan
In Russia, ISPs have to aborb the cost of providing monitoring to the FSB.
In the US, it's called CALEA (among other things).
Where's the proposed bills that would bring this into law? The journalist makes no mention of it.
Seems to be more along the lines of bitching about VoIP services. The Canadian privacy commission would never allow this to go through.
Canada is not the Utopia that Slashbots love to make it out as!!! What's next? Are we going to find out that Europe is the same? My word, what will we ever do? Is this the end of Milhouse?
Time to make a tinfoil tuke.
Even if this ever made it to parliament, it definitely would never pass. Something as controversial as this would be suicide for a minority government, and we've already seen that Martin is being extra-careful.
Speaking as a student living in Canada and using Canadian broadband, I highly approve of this move by our most excellent and intelligent government! They truly are a wonderful bunch of beautiful and caring people!
psst... End-Say Elp-Hay Ow-Nay!
Somewhere in the West, ca. 1806. The Lone Ranger and Tonto are hiding together behind a rock to escape a withering field of arrows fired by a hostile tribe of Native Americans.
Lone Ranger: "Wow, we're sure facin' a lotta them Injuns!"
Tonto: "What you mean 'we', paleface?"
~wavylines as we fast-forward two centuries~
Somewhere in Cyberspace, ca. 2006. A techie and a legislator are hiding together behind a firewall. Beyond the firewall are piles of blogs, spam, pr0n, and lobbyist- and law-enforcement sponsored counterproposals of varying degrees of stupidity.
Techie: Is this really what we want our Internet to be?
Legislator: What you mean 'our', taxpayer?
I guess there's always Australia.
I have gas, but my car uses petrol.
That the U.S. isn't as bad as the slashdotters say, and Canada isn't so great?
You're only half right. Canada isn't so great.
The internet does not easily recognize national boundaries. If someone wants something that they can't legally get in their country, they'll just go to a domain hosted in a country where they can get it.
To some degree, this is bad. It means that things like kiddie porn get made available. It also means that there are loopholes around copyrights and so on.
But, on another level, the internet is the bastion of freedom! It allows people in places where opinions are regulated to see that there are people in other places who can actually think and express themselves. Totalitarianisim can't really last for long because of this. Although many of us, myself included, think that kiddie porn is an inimaginable crime, I think that the benefits of a free internet outweigh the drawbacks.
The internet is today a sort of wild-West environment. Not much regulation and lots of hiding places for bad guys. I'm sure that will change with time, just like the wild-West did.
It will probably take some sort of I-Gov to bring the 'net into line with laws and regulations. I don't know if I am ready for that yet (or should I say the net is ready for that). This will be the result of a maturing process that will take time.
Oh, give me a break. Considering the kind of stuff that gets glossed over in the American media (Jeff Gannon, anyone? You may not even know who he is because the media has so thoroughly ignored the issue), I don't think that the CBC should be called out as an agency that ignores, obfuscates or smooths over any political controversies. They've reported openly on the Sponsorship scandal, the Gun Registry fiasco, and every other scandal in recent memory. They lean a little left, but they'll take whatever government to task that happens to be available for criticism.
Don't malign Canadian media. Canadians are apathetic about politics because:
1) We don't care
2) Most of this stuff is niggly shit that isn't WORTH caring about
3) We have better things to do than worry about every conspiracy theorist out there that says the government is going to curtail our rights.
Now screw off and criticise your own media for the shoddy job it does of damn near everything. The Briar is on.
I lived in Vancouver, BC for a couple of months a few years ago.
I've lived in Vancouver for 32 years, and I think you did not get an accurate picture in your couple of months. There is great outrage whenever scandal shows up. The provincial NDP party was recently voted into oblivion due to scandal. No premiere has survived re-election for as long as I can remember. The federal Liberals went from massively dominant to a minority government due to scandal.
There was the
bingogate scandal
fast ferries scandal
sponsorship scandal
casinogate scandal
tainted blood scandal
strippergate
The list goes on. If I was to complain about something, it would be about too much scandal.
Thank you Micheal Geist, for blowing something this routine out of proportion.
Thankfully, Canada has one of the most online governments on the planet. Here's exactly what they, and the public that responded to the governement, had to say about the Lawful Access updates. Of particular note is the Privacy Commissioner's comments:
The law isn't going to pass if it doesn't meet those criteria, among others. I honestly don't see a problem. The only reason that this update is going through is to ensure that law enforcement have the same abilities, irregardless of the technology. They can already intercept telephone and fax communications lawfully, this just ensures tehy can do the same with TCP/IP traffic.
Actually, there's plenty of political movements that happen in Canada (gay marriages, legalizing pot...). However, they aren't as big, mainly because the public gets what it wants.
The main party that's been in power for more than a decade, the Liberals, are famous for waffling. This isn't really their fault. It's because we Canadians waffle so much (we don't want missle defense! but we still want a business realtionship with the US!). The Liberal party usually doesn't commit to anything, untill an opinion poll is released. When the poll was released last week that 80%+ of Canadians were against the missle defense shield, and with mounting pressure in the Parliment to show their hand, the Liberals had to give in (sort of...).
Especially now that there is a minority government, the public will be mighty pissed at the party that causes a re-election. So the Liberals are being very careful to be as popular as possible right now.
As long as our please-the-people Liberals are in power, I don't think you'll see too much activism. Now, if the Conservatives or NDP got the power... then you'd hear something.
First, Canadians have the Electronic Privacy Act, as well as constitutional protections against a lot of the ideas in the article.
...
Second, there's no link to the bill, and anyone can say anything they want in a newspaper or opinion piece, because Canadians have something so sorely missing in the USA, aka Freedom of the Press [caveat - unless it's an article disparaging a certain person who owns most of their newspapers].
Third, while Canucks may tend not to fuss once something becomes law, they DEFINITELY do not just roll over when a government tries to impose things on them. The first use of the railways and machine guns was to put down the Riel rebellion. And they have had way more protests - and successful ones - than we have here in the USA.
But, hey, what do I know, I only lived there from the age of 13 to 29
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I'm outraged by this as a Canadian Citizen! Why, if this passes I'll have to move to Can... where does a Canadian move when his govenment starts going crazy for power?
Frylock: "We should have cloned twenties, Jackson wouldn't have given a fuck."
It may be flamebait, but he is basically right. The more government tends to its citizens' various needs, the more power it will exercise over them.
Don't believe everything the U.S. private health insurance industry tells you. Expensive or complex procedures are commonly done on a waiting list basis, "first come, first serve" basis, not randomly as you imply. As for organ replacement, it has the same limitations as the U.S., namely the organs go to whomever was on the waiting list the longest, and many people, wealthy or not, do die on the waiting list in both our countries because it's also illegal to buy organs in the U.S., and I see little done to change that.
Canadian health care is not nearly as bad as you've been led to believe. So, please stop misleading others.
Of course not. We both have problems with ultra-conservative nutbars. The biggest difference is that in Canada we delegate them to the radio or proposing legislation that will never pass. In the U.S., they're elected to run the country.
You're right, that's Germany where it actually is illegal to deny the Holocaust. In Canada it is perfectly legal to deny the Holocaust, you just can't spread that belief as part of a campaign to incite hatred towards a group (such as Jews) or propagate a movement based on this effort (such as neo-Naziism). Incidently, the person in question here was a German national, exported to Germany, and imprisioned by Germany under German law. He was also deported from the U.S. back to Canada while trying to obtain U.S. citizenship. So neither the U.S. nor Canada wanted him.
Oh, the irony. Yes, although there are Canadian content laws and a government funded national TV and radio station(s), it's ironic that it's the U.S. in which the media is the governments "bitch" as a compliant outlet for government propaganda. The rules and regulations in place to keep the Canadian government from using its own funded media for that purpose seem to do a better job at keeping the media "free" than the so-called independant media in the U.S. I wonder what Marshall McLuhan would have to say about that.
The Mohawks in Oka (not O.K.A.) were protesting the building of a golf course on a gravesite, and they killed a Sûreté du Québec policeman, who would be the equivalent of a state trooper. The Canadian Army took several weeks to move in slowly and arrest the perpetrators. Slowly to make sure no women or children were killed (In the end they killed no one and the Mohawks killed no more; not one of their (the army's) own, as you say). They did this slowly also because and Mohawks has support, and weapons, from other Mohawks, across the border in the US of A. Weapons including a 50 caliber machine gun, and idealogically motivated Iroquois from the Warrior Society.
I recall that there have been many similar situations in U.S. history that ended less well: Wounded Knee and Waco come to mind.
You misrepresent the "notwithstanding clause" which allows provincial governments, not the federal government to ignore a federal ruling for a limited period of time.
In wartime... truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies. (Churchill)
Whatever stuff you and Ann Coulter are smoking... you should really share.
Your "points", where not incomplete are completly incorrect.
Read the application forms carefully: you have to agree to live in Ontario permanently.
Do you mean this form?
Um, no shit you have to live in Ontario permanently. As opposed to say, living in Quebec and renting an apartment in Ottawa for the weekend, then claiming both OHIP and Quebec Health Benefits? That form seems simple enough to me if you keep your idology in check. Permanent as in primary residence, not forever. There's a huge section of "returning to Ontario". Duh.
Canada does not prevent emigration, but, in many cases it makes it illegal.
In light of your misreading of the simple OHIP form, I think you need to elaborate on this statement.
For example, RRSP HBPs become repayable in full within 60 days of becoming non-resident, or subject to being included in income
You're correct, I would consider this "fair". You can't possibly suggest that it isn't because you feel overtaxed. Again, you fail to support your argument. RRSP have that second "R" in them for a reason. The gov't is trying to get you to save for retirement, not issuing a tax break. How you interpret the plan is not their fault.
there is no joint tax filing as there is in the U.S
I'm not familiar with US tax law, but if your spouse was a stay-at-home type, then he/she would pay no tax at all in Canada, and you could claim the spousal amount. If you put all your savings into both RRSP's and RESP's for your kids, you'd be paying some pretty low taxes I'm sure. If you were smarter and opened of a small business, you could write off your spouse as an employee if she did your books, then write off the car you leased, etc etc.
When you get down to it,US citizens pay less tax than Canadian however you look at it, so it's kind of silly to compare individual structures.
How many hundreds of thousands of dollars do I have to repay to make up for a CA$10k government scholarship I foolishly accepted in the 1980s
I have no idea what the heck you're on about here...Are you suggesting the only benefit you received from the gov't was a scholarship? Are you suggesting you shouldn't repay a student loan?
I'm not sure what you're talking about really.
If the government services were on a par with the taxes paid, it would not be so bad,
I suppose it's a matter of perspective... clearly, certain events in my family's history would have left us broke had we been without publicly provided health care. (Which in the US, a the son of a single mother of 3 we would have, certainly.)
As someone who made use of that helping hand and now sits quite confortably on the other side of the fence I have no problems contributing to our services. Did you factor in lower crime and higher quality of life into your "pragmatic" calculations?
If Canadians ever engaged in a peaceful protest in numbers comparable to an American protest, they'd be arrested for "inciting to riot".
If ever?
Quebec City? UBC? Sure, some people were pepper sprayed, and a few were arrested and released, but that's pretty much how these semi-violent protests go, whereever they are.
You see, Canada is a democracy with no real restraining constititution: the notwithstanding clause makes it possible for the government to pass a law overriding any judgement against it.
For five years. During which time an election will take place, and the government can be turfed. The clause has never even been used by the federal government.
All you need is a majority to enslave the minority, so safest is to "shut up, blend in, and go along".
Right. Ask an African American about enslaving the minority. Or, for that matter, ask a gay American about shutting up, blending in, and going along ("don't ask, don't tell", I believe they call it).
Acutally, only those of us who are ignorant of the consitution do. POGG has nothing to do with the Notwithstanding Clause (in fact, it precedes it by 114 years!) or anything else involving the relationship between government and the people. It only involves the relationship between levels of government: it's the catch-all phrase by which residual powers (i.e. those not explicitly enumerated) are assigned to the federal government.
That's funny, because the Security Certificate is actually a frequent topic of concern on that evil, commie government propaganda machine that is the CBC.
I'm sorry, did you say "big government"? Here on planet Earth, we might use that term to describe a government whose spending plans would add 1.6 TRILLION dollars to its debt over the next ten years...and that's before you count additional military spending or social security reform (which just happen to be its two primary policy concerns).
The US is a great country, but it's currently on a course towards disaster. Unfortunately, too many of its less sophisticated citizens (i.e. hicks) are too distracted by the scary brown "evildoers" to notice how badly Bush is screwing things up.
I would submit that anyone who knows anything about our army would tell you that the quality of our troops and their training are among the best in the world.
Regular Canadian troops are on par individually with high level US ones. Even American commanders will tell you that.
Nevertheless, if the objective was to secure the bridge they were blockin
Once again you're slightly off. Oka was the main issue, and it had nothing to do with a bridge. Your "bridge" was the Mercier Bridge near montreal, which was blockaded by others as a show of support.
Finally, this isn't some fucking invasion of germany! The Mohawk were fucking fellow Canadian citizens (legality and treaty status aside)!
The army was called out in support of the public institution, the same way they were called out to help with flodds in Manitoba, or to perform Search and Rescue. Their mission was not to attack and destroy the Blockade. Their mission was to effect a solution with a minimum loss of life on both sides.
They accomplished their mission in textbook fashion. To suggest that the outcome could have been "better" with bloodshed speaks a great deal to your (lack of) character.