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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."
Very few outside of geeks care about the DMCA.
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.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
" Given the Conservative Party's historic disregard of public opinion"
And give Slashdot's historic disregard of non-bias, I think we're tied.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
I managed to talk to someone working for the conservative party this summer, he was a roomate in fact (uOttawa!). Anyways, the point of the legislation is to literally 1) make legislation because that is what they do and 2) hopefully not piss off any big foreign business for some ostie of a reason. They pretty much say don't worry because we wont go after the little guy but then we already have existing anti-piracy laws that work quite fine for the real trouble makers. They then say that we need to modernize the existing laws because they talk about cassette tapes. Well that's fine but there's no way law can keep up fast enough with technology. IMO the conservative party should slim the laws rather than bloat them. In canada at least, the conservative parties are known for talking about "streamlining" laws and regulations and removing the bloat.
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Go canucks, habs, and sens!
The previous minority LIBERAL government had a copyright reform bill C-60 that failed as their government fell. It doesn't matter which party gets in they will try to ram through a copyright reform bill that conforms to what the industry pundits and the United States considers proper.
The real problem I have is that, at the moment we are paying a surtax on media that's meant to offset the loss in income due to copies made under our current "lax" copyright law. If the law is tightened up and allows for easier recovery by the industry through the courts then we should eliminate the surtax.
I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that we'll end up suffering under tougher laws and higher surtaxes as well.
A mere 12 MPs now stand between the Canadian public and the MAFIAA's hungry maw
where does the article say that *ALL* conservatives are would vote for this and *all* NDP, Bloc, Green and Liberals would vote against ?
increases the likelihood that the son of C-61 will come to fruition
While it *may* indeed be horrible for DMCA opponents if/when it's drafted, this awful bill doesn't even exist yet and there's been no indication it's on the docket in the near future.
... Given the Conservative Party's historic disregard of public opinion ...
disregard of public opinion on what? DMCA? The economy? the environment? I'm a conservative, a canadian, AND I agree with and suport fair copyright - but c'mon ... this aritlce kinda sounds like flaimbait to me ...
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.
The consequences of first-past-the-post is that the most powerful party gets even MORE power, while less powerful parties get less than they deserve (analogy of making the rich richer and the poor poorer).
The irony is that only the most powerful party at any given time would be able to change this undemocratic reality, and shift to proportional representation. But obviously, they don't want to, because that'll reduce their power. It's the opposition which always supports changing FPTP to proportional (which will increase their power). But lo and behold, as soon as the opposition becomes the primary party, they immediately go to the start of the paragraph and realize they don't want the change anymore. Now, the former power holders want to change, but they no longer have the power.
The only party who can change the system, don't want to change it, and those that want to change it, can't. This statement will hold true regardless of which party is in power.
Beautiful irony, isn't it?
Your system seems to be much better than the one we have in Brazil, where the results are computed for the whole state, instead of by district.
The result of a proportional voting system is that *every* special interest politician is elected. We have dozens of representatives elected by different churches, and they all vote in a block on religious issues. We have dozens of trade union representatives. We have the "ruralist bench", representatives elected on farming issues. We have representatives for individual *issues*, rather than for the population as a whole.
As they say, politics make strange bedfellows, and when everyone represents a very narrow special interest, the strangest laws get approved by the congress in Brazil, no wonder this is a "third world" country...
The district voting that's used in Western Europe and North America seems to be a much better system, although it magnifies small differences in the popular vote. It's better to have 70% of the representatives elected by 50% of the people than to have 70% of the representatives each elected by a very small slice of the population.
Conservatives have NOT been in control of the USA for the last eight years..
Our conservatives != your conservatives.
See lament for a nation
Book info (amazon)
http://www.amazon.ca/Lament-nation-defeat-Canadian-nationalism/dp/0886292573
Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lament_for_a_Nation:_The_Defeat_of_Canadian_Nationalism
Lament for a Nation is a 1965 essay of political philosophy by Canadian philosopher George Grant. The essay examined the political fate of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker's Progressive Conservative government in light of its refusal to allow nuclear arms on Canadian soil, and the Liberal party's political acceptance of the warheads.
Although grounded in the particular examination of Diefenbaker's fate in the 1963 federal election, the analysis transcended Canadian politics, studying Canadian and American national foundations, Conservatism in Britain and North America, Canada's dual nature as a French and English nation, the fate of Western Enlightenment, and the philosophical analysis of citizenship in modern democracies.
Content
According to Grant, Diefenbaker's position against the Bomarc was defeated by the Central Canadian establishment, who conspired with the Liberal Party to bring down Diefenbaker and diminish Canadian sovereignty. This was his lament; he felt there was an emerging Americanization of Canadians and Canadian culture due to the inability of Canadian to live their lives outside of the hegemony of American liberal capitalism - and the technology that emanates from that system.
Critical reception
Described as one of the seminal works of Canadian political thought, it discusses the influence of the United States via liberalism and technology on Canada - which Grant argued was traditionally a less-liberal and more traditionally conservative entity and culture. Grant argued that Canada was doomed as a nation as was illustrated by the 1963 Bomarc Missile Program crisis. He predicted the end of Canadian nationalism, which for Grant meant a small-town, populist conception of Canada as a British North American alternative to American capitalism and empire, and a move towards continentalism.
The problem is a perceived lack of options. The Liberal party has been in power the majority of the time since confederation but they've been plagued by scandals and weak leadership in recent years so their poll numbers are flagging. The NDP and Green parties picked up votes from the Liberals and in some cases split ridings which handed them to the Conservatives (another issue with FPTP). I've said it for nearly 3 years now but the Conservatives aren't popular, it's just the Liberals are unpopular and the Cons are seem by many as the only other party worth voting for. We're not a two party system but we're close.
Well, it has never been successfully tested.
"Conservatives" in control of the USA? I don't think so. Those are "Neocons" who've run up the largest deficit in US history and are practically socializing the nation's banks. The Bushites are about as "conservative" as the Communist Party.
I disagree with the others who say our Conservatives are different(I am Canadian). They share the same ideology (Pro Corporation, anti-socialism) and Harper seems to share the same mean spirited mud slinging personality as many republicans.
How they won is related to vote splitting and a weak Liberal leader. We have 1 right wing party, and 4 on the center left splitting the vote. Over 60% voted against the current government. But vote splitting gave them a government.
The green party is essentially the "Ralph Nader party" They elect no members and siphon off enough center/left votes to give yet more seats to the Conservatives. Idealistic people voting their idealism and giving the worse case result in reality.
Hell no! Quebec is much more progressive than France in that regard. In fact, one of the reasons that the Tories were unable to get a majority is because they want to introduce legislation to punish young offenders more severely. There was a massive backlash in Quebec to this proposal and the Tories were unable to get more seats in the province.
The president may still be a Republican, but Democrats control the house and senate and have done for four years now (the period between elections) - they are the ones who are in control at the moment...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
She's absolutely correct. I'll support her argument with one from the UK, where the House of Lords is in essentially the same situation as the Canadian Senate, see: The 'Democratic' Option by Lord Norton.
An un-elected upper chamber (Senate or House of Lords in a bicameral system) is a check on power. The idea is to stop stupid legislation, like Secret Inquests, for example. Or, more importantly, use their expertise to help government get legislation right the first time.
However, an elected upper chamber will rightly want the power to create legislation themselves. This is the biggest issue with such a system: dilution of accountability.
What this means: currently, when things go wrong federally, we all look at the House of Commons. But with an elected Senate, it is not clear who is to blame for creating or supporting a piece of legislation.* We already have to think in terms of Provincial vs. Federal, imagine what politics will be like when it's Provincial vs. Federal vs. Senate.
The next issue: lack of debate. An elected upper chamber gives us two elected chambers, with no substantial differences between the them. Like local councils (in Britain, I forget what they're called in Canada: municiple govt. perhaps?) people don't vote for the best candidate, they vote for whatever party they're voting for nationally. So the Senate becomes the same as the Commons, and in this case, who is there to stop the stupid legislation? What's the point in having a bicameral legislature, if they're both the same. They may as well be re-factored (to use coding parlance) into one house, but then the check-and-balance of an upper chamber is lost.
The last, but still important, issue: lack of representation. No seriously, as Lord Norton puts it: 'people vote for white haired, middle-aged men.' Typically the ones with enough cash to mount FUD campaigns against their opponents. Women, ethnic minorities, even average people are under-represented in our legislature. The political system is filling with career politicians, with little-to-no experience of real life, and this is reflected in the quality of legislation. An elected upper-chamber will only make this worse.
Side-note: what is meant by 'average people' are IT workers, plumbers, electricians, doctors & nurses, basically everyone in the real world, who're affected by legislation squeezed out by the government. The House of Lords is an instructive example, as patronage is slowly being phased out, to be replaced by nominations of members based on 'conspicuous merit' and decided by an impartial committee. Just look at the list of authors on that Lords blog alone, there are professors, teachers, lawyers and scientists.
So, for what it's worth, I would like to see the Canadian Senate change from a system of patronage (Senators appointed by the PM). To one where the public may nominate Senators, who're then appointed by an impartial committee based on conspicuous merit.
* Note: the US system is completely different to Canada or the UK, so please don't think I'm casting aspersions on your own elected Senate. They may have the same name, but the purposes are different.
I'm going to transform myself into a mighty hawk. Either that or I'll just go and work at Dixons, haven't decided yet.
The green party is essentially the "Ralph Nader party" They elect no members and siphon off enough center/left votes to give yet more seats to the Conservatives. Idealistic people voting their idealism and giving the worse case result in reality.
Sorry, but this 'blame the third party' crap really piss me off, especially in this election, where it doesn't hold up to analysis. Even if you took every single Green vote in every riding and gave it to the Liberal candidate in that riding, the party would still have lost a dozen seats. No one lost this election for the Liberals except the Liberals, and the Greens certainly didn't prevent a Liberal government.
I'm proud to vote for whoever I think is the best party to lead Canada, and not for some 'lesser of two evils' party.
I came here for a good argument
Yeah, if you live in Canada, have linux, and own a dvd and a laptop, grab them both and go down to your MPs office. Boot up the machine, take the DVD out of its nice official commercial case, pop it into the drive, and start playback.
Then explaining to him/her how you are breaking US and (possibly soon to be) Canadian law by watching a DVD you own on a laptop you own (i.e., the machine has to circumvent the encryption in order to play it back to you).
I find drawing an analogy to making it illegal for anybody but the dealership to open the hood of your car a good example (sure, in theory, it may prevent hotwiring and such, but...)
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.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
It's obvious that people didn't vote IN the conservatives, they just voted OUT the liberals.
The thought being that despite their good work, there were one too many cock-ups (the gun registry) and one too many scandals (gomery report) for the liberals to keep on going. Obviously Canadians don't want the conservatives in power, but they don't want the liberals in power either, and the NDP and Greens are not prepared to run a majority government.
It's been a long time.
People seems to assume this is some sort of made in Canada fluffy bunny DMCA lite. It isn't. This is an RIAA wet dream.
People tout the lower $500 fine per file, but that is downloading, most people get busted for uploading in the USA (which most file sharing clients do) the fine for that is $20 000 per file. Which is also the fine for breaking any DRM. Say hello to bankrupting lawsuits in Canada for your kids file sharing.
It also makes "making available" a crime, where this is being challenged in the states, it will be a codified law with this bill.
It also gives the power to corporations to make anything they want law, by make EULA 100% binding. Something else that was shotdown in the USA.
Say goodbye to any semblance of fair use, or first sale doctrine type rights. They are all out the window.
Basically whatever corporations say goes and huge fines if you disagree.
Of course that this was returning was only announced days before the election so no opposition could be built up against it.
Yes that is more or less what happened, but just like last time, Harper will continue to do whatever he pleases and govern like he has a majority.
Given no one wants another election, we can look forward to about a year of Harper dictatorship as he pushes any legislation he feels like.
For Harper the election was win-win. He had a shot at majority, but even if he failed, he would get another year at minimum where he was untouchable and could do what he wanted all the while taunting the opposition.
then express your intolerance and make a hypocritical ass of yourself.
If people are not allowed to be disgusted at intolerance, than exactly how is it to be mitigated or eliminated?
Maybe I should just continue serendipitously skipping as the poor, the people of color, the people with opposing political views to the conservative machines are targeted and persecuted merely for wanting to live their lives the way they wish?
Liberals don't engage in such agendas. The ONLY thing they limit is behaviors which interfere with the lives of others.
Unless of course you consider money to be "just as important" as basic liberties, food, shelter, and medicine.
"Oh god, don't tax me a tiny portion of my income to assure my fellow man doesn't starve, exposed to the elements, just because insurance companies won't cover his pre-existing condition"
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
The reason PR failed is exactly because of campaigners like this one. Usually representing entrenched party interests (getting their 4 year dictatorships). Every discussion would have Liberal and Conservative representatives (the main beneficiaries) spewing anti PR FUD.
PR is not about producing minority governments. It is about producing coalition governments. Failure dispense with the all or nothing fight for majority governments, and refusal to cooperate in governing coalitions with minorities is also part of the resistance. A coalition as a viable governing can be very workable and many (most?) western democracies have some form of PR. It is more cooperative and less political.
Any party that tried to entrench old cronies (another common piece of FUD) would suffer extensively at the ballot box. If we had MMP and Brian Mulroney was a list Candidate, the party would sink into the toilet. The opposition would have a field day saying a Vote for the Conservatives is a Vote for Brian Mulroney. Parties are politically expediant and they would axe any member that the public found disagreeable.
I would like PR, but it will never happen because of the extensive FUD machine arrayed against from the mainline parties who benefit disproportionately from FPTP.
Unfortunately FUD is the favored and often winning tactic to block any change.