Canada Election Result Bad News For DMCA Opponents

An anonymous reader writes "For those with a stake in the opposition of Jim Prentice's C-61, the Canadian DMCA, this previous week's election results will be displeasing. The Conservative Party, which promised to reintroduce the DMCA if elected, gained 19 seats this election, mostly at the expense of the flagging liberal party, a mere 12 short of a majority government. The increase in Conservative representation, as well as the relatively low profile of this issue amidst other, more pressing concerns, increases the likelihood that the son of C-61 will come to fruition. On a positive note, the number of MPs supporting Geist's copyright pledge has increased to 34. Given the Conservative Party's historic disregard of public opinion, however, the efforts of the copyright-pledge MPs will have to rally the full opposition across three major parties in order to defeat the bill. A mere 12 MPs now stand between the Canadian public and the MAFIAA's hungry maw."

Comments

Vote Skew

[TheSpoom]

The real problem here is the system. Let's take a look at the ratios between the percentage of seats each party got in the election, and their percentage of the national popular vote:

Conservative
Seats: 143/308
Popular Vote: 37.63%
Ratio: 2.03 (More than twice the seats they would have obtained under a 100% proportional system.)

Liberal
Seats: 76/308
Popular Vote: 26.24%
Ratio: 0.94

BLOC Quebecois
Seats: 50/308
Popular Vote: 9.97%
Ratio: 1.63 (Interesting thing here; because voters in Quebec will vote the BLOC in much more often, they're skewed way above other parties even though they're practically running only in Quebec.)

NDP
Seats: 37/308
Popular Vote: 18.20%
Ratio: 0.66 (Screwed once again.)

Independent
Seats: 2/308
Popular Vote: 0.65
Ratio: 0.999 (Oddly proportional.)

Green
Seats: 0/308
Popular Vote: 6.80%
Ratio: 0.0 (Yeah. 6.8% of the vote, 0% of the representation. Good stuff.)

(Source: CBC.ca Election Results)

We could have even fixed this (at least in the Ontario Legislature) if we'd voted in MMP a year ago, rather than stayed with the skewed first past the post system. Unfortunately, I don't think enough people were educated about what the new system would mean and saw it as some sort of radical change, and so voted to stay with the current system.

Note: I think my math is accurate here but feel free to correct me.

Re:Vote Skew

[mpetch]

At the Federal level first past the post has been used in Canada for most of its history. Why now do people want proportional representation? It is simple. Canada is general left leaning and pretty much small "l" liberal. Canada historically votes for a Federal Liberal party. But now things are changing. There is a shift of power in Canada to the west, as well as a move to the right on the political spectrum. The Conservatives in Canada managed to finally unite the right over the past decade and a half. The Bloc Quebecois became a major force that literally takes away 50 seats in parliament that won't go to the Liberals or the Conservatives. The left is more fractured than ever with the NDP, Federal Liberals, and the Green party all spitting the vote. What does this mean? The only way Canada will get a left leaning government again is if they unite themselves OR change to a method of proportional representation. It is not likely the NDP and Liberals will merge (Liberals and Green more likely). This isn't enough to compete with a united right. So now we have the left uniting not as a party, but as a force to push proportional representation - because they are too stubborn to have their parties work together.

Re:Vote Skew

[Anonymous Coward]

We could have even fixed this (at least in the Ontario Legislature) if we'd voted in MMP a year ago, rather than stayed with the skewed first past the post system. Unfortunately, I don't think enough people were educated about what the new system would mean and saw it as some sort of radical change, and so voted to stay with the current system.

Note: I think my math is accurate here but feel free to correct me.

Your math might be correct but your premise is flawed. MMP and proportional representation are a disaster. I campaigned & voted against MMP. MMP and PR condemn us to permanent minority governments, with most parliamentary effort going into backroom deals to stay in power instead of governing. Governments with MMP or PR are always shaky.

You are taking away the right of the people to elect (and REMOVE) their representatives. MMP and PR demolish accountability.

Example: I live in the Trinity-Spadina riding in Toronto, where Olivia Chow (NDP) cruised to an easy victory because she is popular with the voters. If the people of Trinity-Spadina decide that they don't like Olivia Chow, if they think Olivia Chow is corrupt, incompetent, lazy, or any other reason, the people of Trinity-Spadina can organize and REMOVE Olivia Chow from office (and her extravagant $155,000 salary). The only people who can put Olivia Chow into office (and remove her) are the people of Trinity-Spadina. Olivia Chow is accountable to the voters.

On the other hand, with MMP or PR, since every party will get some share of the vote, the only determinant of whether Olivia Chow gets a cushy job with a $155,000 salary is if she keeps the NDP party bosses happy. The only people who can put Olivia Chow into office (and remove her) are the party bosses. Olivia Chow is no longer accountable to the voters.

Now, first past the post does have its problems, but MMP & PR are even worse.

If you're going to abandon first past the post, the single transferable vote system is much better: politicians still have to answer to the people.

Re:Vote Skew

[Ralph Spoilsport]

No. What you do is what the europeans have been doing for decades: coalition governments. So, what you'd get is a "liberal" govt, with 1/3 of the cabinet NDP in the portfolios they need (labour, housing, welfare, etc.) and let the Greens have Environment.

Bingo. That would kick ass and put Canada aright.

The problem is the NDP leadership is a bunch of whiny 5 year olds, the Liberal leadership is too interested in knifing each other in the back to care, and they're both sceptical of the greens because, unlike in the USA, the Greens are actually more right wing than the Liberals in terms of fiscal ideas. I'm surprised Harper hasn't offered to go down on May for Green support to greenwash the Conservatives.

sigh. Still, Harper faced the most inarticulate and inept Liberal candidate in decades, and wasn't able to get a majority, so that shows you how little support the conservatives actually have.

Argh. I really dig Canada, but their politics are completely fucked.

RS

Re:The people have spoken

[urbanriot]

You're absolutely wrong. Michael Geist writes a column for the Toronto Star which has a large readership and many 'common folk' were enlightened by his articles, and the Facebook group drew an immense popularity. There were so many people caring that they've prevented the last two from going through.

DMCA = Political Suicide in Canada

[Cordath]

Canadian citizens have much higher expectations of privacy than U.S. citizens do. Our privacy laws reflect this. However, if a U.S. style DMCA law were to be enacted it would lead to CRIA, etc. throwing a lot of their muscle around trying to get ISP's to divulge information that most Canadians would not approve of being shared. The conservatives would be scandalized by this, and I think they know it.

Prentice, in some circles, is regarded to be an unusually savvy politician. However, he was given the job of keeping both Canadian citizens *and* american media conglomerates happy. He was screwed, and he knew it. He drafted a law to avoid another chorus of "Blame Canada" from the U.S., but his party never tried to ram it through the HoC like they would with a bill they actually care about. In fact, the timing of when it was tabled seems to suggest that they wanted it to be cut off by the election rather than being passed.

Now, obviously, the Conservatives didn't want this bill making them look like a bunch of Bush sycophants right when Harper was trying to distance himself from that sort of accusation. (The liberals accuse Harper of being a Bush groupie on a weekly basis. It's like clockwork.)

So... What happens now? The conservatives might plan to ram unpopular legislation through ASAP and hope it's forgotten by the next election. However, I think they realize that the embarrassment C-61 (or it's successor) is going to cause will be an ongoing thing. By passing C-61, they grant power to CRIA to embarrass them with U.S.-style frivolous lawsuits at will. If CRIA were so inclined, they could deliberately wait for the next election and then turn courtroom cowboy.

Are the conservatives dumb enough to hand a foreign interest the power to embarrass their party whenever they feel like it? I tend to doubt it. It's more likely that C-61 will be amended, diddled, massaged, and ultimately only talked about just enough to keep the "Blame Canada" shouts to a manageable level. Either that, or severely castrated into a law approaching sensibility, if such a thing is possible.

Re:The people have spoken

[FilterMapReduce]

Yeah, I'm encouraged to believe that this is starting to seep into the mainstream. I actually heard DVD DRM being negatively discussed in the context of consumer gadgetry on a (not particularly geek-oriented) morning radio show a little while ago.

The recent xkcd strip "Steal This Comic" makes a solid and concise against the DMCA and similar laws. If you want your non-geek acquaintances to understand why this matters, you might consider showing it to them.

Re:That system works fine!

[mangu]

The voting system we have in Brazil isn't totally proportional, but still it raises more problems than it solves. Each party must have a minimum percentage of the vote to elect representatives. The total vote for the party is computed, a candidate for a popular party needs less votes to get elected.

A sad example of how this, very complex, voting system works is that this clown got elected and got three other representatives in his party elected when he ran as a "protest" candidate, i.e. people voted for him because they thought no one was a worthy candidate. His motto was "my name is Eneas" and his main political project was that Brazil should detonate the nuclear weapon that reportedly was developed here in the early 1980s.

Re:The people have spoken

[Xaria]

Lots of IP lawyers are against DMCA, etc. They actually understand what it means to consumers. Some IP law makes sense, so you do need IP lawyers. Lawyers aren't ALL evil you know. ;)

Re:The people have spoken

[Anonymous Coward]

Very few outside of geeks care about the DMCA.

Quite true, but in this election a lot of geeks weren't even aware that Harper planned to re-introduce the DMCA. There were several submissions in the firehose before the election, when the news had a chance of having an effect, but Slashdot didn't publish them. Probably more of a kdawsonfud effect if they only publish these things when the electorate don't have a choice.

It's the same sloppy editing that brought us the mis-reported UK 42 days detention story. And the same sloppy editing that has refused to publish the stories in the firehose, saying The Lords have rejected it.

Um...not quite

[hyades1]

The assessment of the Conservative gain is 100% wrong, and conclusions proceeding from it may also be flawed. The Conservatives were facing a grossly underfunded Liberal Party in historic disarray, and led by a man widely perceived to be utterly unfit to be Prime Minister. The time was so ripe to grab a majority that the Conservatives broke their own platform promise to stick with a scheduled election (the "It was a minority and we couldn't help it" dodge is a complete red herring). The New Democratic Party, which would be regarded in the US as raving loony communists, also picked up seats.

The Tories have now been told twice to cool their jets, and they won't be going back to the public any time soon unless they want their asses thoroughly kicked. Seven out of 10 Canadians either voted against them or didn't vote at all (a historic low turn-out, by the way).

I won't bore you with further details (except to note that of all the parties, the only one that actually got more total votes was the Green Party), but the bottom line is that this result is a repudiation of the Conservative Party's attempt to steal candy from a baby. If they choose to introduce legislation like this, which has historically been unpopular with Canadians, they'll be playing with fire. Most likely, they'll either let it slide under the guise of building inter-party amity, or they'll allow the legislation to be brought forward, but not make voting a matter of confidence.