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Reactions Split On What Canada's Liberal Majority Means For Tech Policy Future (freezenet.ca)
Dangerous_Minds writes: Few could have predicted the Liberal majority win in Canada's recent election. Now that the Canadian government is in a state of transition, some have speculated what the new government will bring to the table when it comes to a policy on technology. Michael Geist is speculating that the people in the new Liberal government may bring about a positive policy change, concluding "All of this points to real change and the chance for a fresh start on Canadian digital policy in the years ahead." Meanwhile, Freezenet has a very different take. Drew Wilson points out that the last time the Liberal government was in power, the party was very combative on digital rights because they were trying to bring in Lawful Access and the Canadian DMCA before Stephen Harper took power. In one very infamous exchange, Sam Bulte lashed out at people like Michael Geist by calling him and his supporters "pro-user zealots". With digital rights not even on the radar during the election outside of Bill C-51 towards the beginning and the Liberals long history on these files, Wilson paints a very bleak future given that the Liberal party now has a majority government and can push through policies unopposed whether controversial or not.
It will mean nothing at all.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Now that the SJWs have taken over Canada, they're going to force everyone to undergo sex reassignment therapy. It's a proven fact that I read on 8chan.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Their citizens actually believe it makes a difference whether a "liberal" or "conservative" is in power.
Heck, here in America "Liberal" is a cuss-word that even Democrats run away from. That's part of why they suck as a political party - they can't/won't even defend Liberal values.
Well, it can. About the only time I was proud of my country was when Schroeder said no to Iraq war. A conservative government would have followed Dubya without even thinking twice about it.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Canada has a lot of very innovative start-ups such as D-Wave and General Fusion, the former received some federal venture capital, but with regards to fusion Canada turned out the lights long ago. There isn't even anybody designated anymore at the federal level for that file.
Pathetic given that Canada used to be a pioneer in nuclear technology as evideneced by the CANDU reactor design.
How dare you?
Justin has much better hair.
While true, only Liberals or Conservatives/PC have had enough seats to claim the PM title, smaller parties have held significant power at times. Whenever you get a minority government the ruling party must make deals with someone to get legislation passed and it's at those time the smaller parties can get some things done.
The problem is in a majority government the ruling party doesn't have to listen or negotiate with anyone, in many cases even their own members so the PM can pretty much do whatever they want. While not a legislative issue, Trudeau's already shown his willingness to rule from on high by effectively removing Canada from the multinational anti-ISIS campaign against the wishes of his own party members and the majority of Canadians. Our handful of jets weren't doing much but at least they gave us a voice at the table and showed some willingness to help.
There are simply no checks or balances in a majority government.
If we at least had a useful Senate then there might be some hope but seeing as they are all just appointed and would rather not rock the boat while getting their nice paychecks, what the PM wants the PM pretty much gets.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
Well, it can. About the only time I was proud of my country was when Schroeder said no to Iraq war. A conservative government would have followed Dubya without even thinking twice about it.
Absolutely! Americans who have only the Republican/Democrat "choice" to contemplate can too easily dismiss the difference made by the party in power. Joschka Fischer and the SPD/Grüne coalition conducted a foreign policy significantly different from that of the CDU.
Wir sind geboren, um frei zu sein - Rio Reiser
We don't get to vote for the boss. The boss is the person who fills the lobbyist's pockets and tells them under what conditions to fork over said money. The boss is the person who arranges that little junket Thailand, or the Bahamas, or Las Vegas. The boss is that person who makes sure that congress-critter McTurd's second cousin Tedwina gets an absolutely amazing price on that succulent little bit of property. The boss is that guy who sees to it that post-congress, there's a $$k/event speaking tour waiting the wings. The boss is the guy with that awesome stock tip.
And sure as hell, the boss is not us.
But yes, new boss, same as old boss. Because no change in boss. At all. Has nothing to do with elections.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Our jets were also preserving our names on the list and our place up against the wall when the revolution comes.
- In Soviet Korea, only old people loose all their bases to Natalie Portman's petrified hot grits overlords.
The Liberals have also promised this will be the last election under our current first-past-the-post system. Depending on the result of that, there may be a lot more MPs elected who arent from the two parties, and it may be the last majority government in Canada.
How dare he! Doing something for the people. Maybe even by the people.
There is no room for that in our democracy!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
We only do $750 billion dollars worth of trade with the US and ship them 3,000,000 barrels of crude a day (more than OPEC put together)
Oh they definitely thought about it. Some Steven Harper quotes:
Having this new government is like waking up from a terrible nightmare.
Well in the case of Canada and my opinion at least we don't really have much of an option. We have about 5-6 parties but 1 only runs candidates in Quebec, a couple don't run candidates in enough ridings to have a chance of being an opposition let alone form a government. Of the 3 left, really only 2 have had a good chance of winning in the last 20 or so years. So effectively 2 party if not actually.
I thing a better solution, which would be in effect the same thing as campaign finance reform: eliminate the party system entirely. Ban party whips, common signage, block voting etc. Every candidate has the stand or fall on their own positions. We'd still have committees to write laws, but those committees would be formed by some combination of qualification and lot (no more education minister with no post secondary for example) but everything would be a free vote.
I say it is effectively campaign finance reform because a single politican wouldn't have the machine to suck in the money from lobbyist. The lobbyists wouldn't have any guarantee who they need to bribe before the election because they'd have no idea who would end up being the strong negotiator at debates.That is one thing Canada has going for it though, we don't have long campaigns and advertising is a faction what it is per capita in the US.
We have what is effectively a 2 party system too and both parties are equally willing to rubber stamp anything the big media companies want (like the recent bill allowing media companies to force ISPs to block pirate websites)
And you've fought beside us, time and time again. I didn't vote in your election - I can but I don't. I'm First Nations and hold dual citizenship, but I don't feel it is my right to vote because I spend, at best, a month in Canada each year. I am in Buffalo, still, at the moment but I have crossed over to visit a dozen times in the past month. I think they're getting sick of me at the border. :-)
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
We only do $750 billion dollars worth of trade with the US and ship them 3,000,000 barrels of crude a day (more than OPEC put together)
Sheesh. Who knew there were Canadians on here? I didn't even know they had Slashdot in Canadia.
Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..
Oh it makes a difference. Not as much as it should, but it does. Or do you seriously think that Obama is just like George W, or that it will make no difference whether we have Hillary Clinton as President or Carly Fiorina?
In general politicians of opposing stripes tend to be most like each other on issues that their respective bases don't pay attention to -- like intellectual property rights and fair use.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Well, considering the immense contrast between when the Liberals were last in power and what happened in our country during the last 10 years under Harper, we don't just believe it makes a difference, we have conclusive proof it does.
Leaders lead, they don't take surveys. A leader should lead from his heart, and if the people don't want to follow him any more, they should follow someone else.
A leader whose actions are dictated by public opinion is not a leader at all, and should be immediately replaced because he has nothing to offer.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
The previous Liberal governments that preceded the one we just kicked out, worked out very well. It's very nice to have them back. They balanced our federal budget back in the 90's and used surpluses to fund debt repayment and personal income tax cuts for the middle class mixed with corporate tax cuts. Within a few years the Harper Conservatives turned a 8 billion dollar surplus into a record 56 billion dollar deficit. They gave tax credits and cuts to corporations and the wealthy, and wondered why their trickle down economics didn't work. It was always somebody's fault. Sometimes it was the Americans fault, sometimes Chinas that our economy didn't grow for 10 years.
Dear Mr Trudeau,
I voted for you. But one look at that map says you better start making some friends in Alberta if you want to get re-elected. Here's what you'll need to do...
1) Get Elon Musk on the phone. We'll take two hyperloops. First one goes in between Calgary and Edmonton, second one to get you through the GTA in Ontario. Get all the unemployed guys from manufacturing / oil patch to do the work == jobs.
2) You'll need to get Chris Hadfield into your cabinet as Minister of Being Awesome. That guy's a serious Canadian rock star. Then pump a bunch of money into the Canadian Space Agency. If the planet is seriously going to tackle space travel, we're going to need Canada-Arm's - lots of em.
3) Everyone gets a free Blackberry. No more cell phone bill = more money in the pockets of Canadians. That should solve all your people tracking spy agency stuff too. Most Canadians probably wouldn't care if the RCMP had access to their phone stuffs, (especially now that pot's legal) but you better guard our data from the evil corporations beyond our borders. A fleet of Avro Arrow's parked on the roofs of our data centres ought to do the trick.
4) Support the CBC. These guys did a bang up job on the election coverage. I streamed it live for hours, not a single buffering, not a single commercial. Granted it wasn't HD, but seriously, I can live without Rex Murphy in HD. Mansbridge on the other hand...
5) Rick Mercer for Speaker of the House. Then everyone would watch Parliament.
6) Profit!
That $56B deficit is called stimulus, and every other sane developed country was doing it too.
Canada's economy did grow for 10 years, and it's done better than most major nations, except Germany.
There's plenty to gripe about the Harper government without making stuff up.
More importantly Buffalo has a hockey team. You are one of us.
One of us.
One of us.
One of us.
Harper spent the entire 2008 election saying there was no recession, he didn't know what everyone was talking about. Stimulus spending would be irresponsible. Then after he was elected there was stimulus spending and it was significantly lower than $56 billion that year. It was misdirected spending like building $100,000 gazebos in Tony Clement's riding. Since then and even today we have very little growth. We are the only ones still in recession because everything is about Oil to them, and now oil is cheap.
They were also investigated by the RCMP for Adscam which went all the way to the PMO's office and his assistants, and the funneling of federal tax dollars into Quebec, where the said people in Quebec then donated those federal tax dollars right back into the Liberal party coffers. Sorry man, they're corrupt as fuck and they're not any different than the Provincial Liberals in Ontario, who are involved in 4 different police investigations ranging from destruction of data to engineering an election result in Northern Ontario.
Om, nomnomnom...
Being investigated and being found guilty of something are two completely different things. The Liberals booted everyone involved in Adscam and prosecuted them. They did not give hush money to senators, or prorogue parliament to avoid answering questions about it, or pass laws retroactively absolving people for it like the harper cons did.
If the new majority is a liberal-in-the-US-sense party, by what ideological theory is it supporting business over consumer in copyright matters? Canada doesn't have a big film industry to protect, as our Democratic Party does.
While true, only Liberals or Conservatives/PC...
Stop right there. These "Conservatives" are not the Progressive Conservative Party. They are the Reform-Alliance Party that took the name Conservative, after the PC party imploded, in order to fool voters into voting for them.
Being investigated and being found guilty of something are two completely different things. The Liberals booted everyone involved in Adscam and prosecuted them. They did not give hush money to senators, or prorogue parliament to avoid answering questions about it, or pass laws retroactively absolving people for it like the harper cons did.
The liberals didn't prosecute anyone that was the RCMP. They even gave diplomatic posts to individuals who were involved in Adscam in order to get them out of the country. The liberals stonewalled as hard as they could until popular opinion in the country was at such a pitch they couldn't stonewall anymore. Sadly, I'm old enough to remember that.
Oh and the liberals sure did give hush money to senators. One of them even spent the last 20 years of his time in the senate, sitting in mexico. And sadly, they also passed laws to retroactively absolve people. You think that the Cons set precedent on this? Pierre Trudeau did the retroactive pardoning first.
Om, nomnomnom...
Given the PM's remarks on Gamergate, it'll be more about left-wing "diversity" policy than tech policy.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
My hotel is not that far from the First Niagara Center. I have yet to go. :( I'm like a muffin. I guess. I'm sitting around, getting stale, and full of raisins.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
"If we at least had a useful Senate then there might be some hope but seeing as they are all just appointed and would rather not rock the boat while getting their nice paychecks, what the PM wants the PM pretty much gets."
To be fair, this is a symptom of the first past the post system more than anything. Canada has been largely blessed over the years with a combination of fairly competent governments, or minority rule. It's only the last few years it's suffered from a bad majority that the problems of FPTP have come to the fore.
Here in the UK FPTP has long been a problem because we've constantly faced the exact problems you describe. The last parliament was the first coalition in about 60 years, but also a reasonably moderate government as a result. Unfortunately, we're still stuck with it though because one thing it didn't achieve was electoral reform (a stiched up vote for a new voting system that only had a bad choice rather than the choices people actually wanted, and Conservatives breaking their promise to reform the Lords).
So be glad at least that this is something Trudeau has promised to deal with, and make sure above all else that you hold him to that promise. If you can get him to move you to a more proportional system then you'll be in much better shape to avoid those issues. This is why Germany has a fairly decent parliament that's fairly successful and accountable to and representative of it's citizens - it's more proportional system means that parties are forced to compromise more and provide solutions that are at least somewhat acceptable to the majority, rather than unacceptable to the majority which is all too often the case under FPTP - for example, the current government in the UK got 38% of the vote, so 62% of the electorate voted against them, and yet that government will be forcing through laws regardless of what that 62% majority want. That's not really democracy.
So be careful not to take your eye off the real problem - your broken electoral system that's a copy of our broken electoral system. Make sure that if nothing else that that gets changed and then at least you only have 4 years until you can have a more representative form of governance. Achieve that and majorities will rarely be an issue - your subsequent governments will have to be more reasonable, more open to compromise, and more representative of the electorate.
Polls by Ipsos Reid, EKOS and Angus Reid all had support for the mission at between 54-74%, while opposition maxed out at 33%. The only place opposition was above approval was in Quebec but on a party line, all parties had a majority supporting the mission (66% for Liberals specifically).
So unless every poll performed on this was just dead wrong, yes, a majority of Canadians supported the mission.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
see above. every poll had support for the mission significantly above opposition across all party lines.
google is your friend.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
Every poll including ones requested by the CBC, had support significantly above opposition to the bombing missions, including amongst Liberals and NDP.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
Revoking what? There's talk of moving to proportional representation (which there isn't a lot of support for outside of the NDP), or a ranked ballot.
http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/polit...
I can't tell if your being serious or not. Compared to the alternative? The largest mass incarceration of Canadians in history:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m...
I wouldn't have a problem with a majority government having such power if the government actually represented the majority of voters. Hopefully Trudeau will follow through on his promise of election reform. With his 54% of seats achieved through only 39% of the votes, we have to hope he won't change his mind.
As part of a national engagement process, we will ensure that electoral reform measures – such as ranked ballots, proportional representation, mandatory voting, and online voting – are fully and fairly studied and considered.
It's one of many of options. It's very unlikely they will try to implement mandatory voting though, unless they actually want the reforms to fail. Changing the voting system at all is controversial enough, given how badly the notion has been defeated in recent times.
It was pretty disappointing that a lot of tech issues didn't make the appearance that I would hope they would. Things like how our telecommunications industry has us over a barrel and we enjoy the most expensive experience in the developed world.
There were a few tech issues that were touched upon during the long campaign, however most of them got over shadowed by BS topics used to distract.
1) The first is about the future of Bill 51. Which is a draconian privacy invasion government spying bill under the pretense of "OMG TERRORISTS!". It was introduced by the Conservatives and supported by the Liberals prior to the election. Only the Conservatives were all fantastic about it. The Liberals said they would repeal *parts* of the bill to be re-worded, specifically changing it so that it would require warrants. Which to me is a bit confusing as I was pretty sure the government already had the power to go after just about any information using warrants anyway... The NDP said they would scrap the entire thing. So the real test will be in the details on how far the Liberals will go to castrate Bill 51, a little or a lot. If they are smart, they will realize that a lot of people voted NDP on this very single issue, many of them former Conservatives even, so politically they could win a lot of points by cutting deep with the knife on this one for the eventual next election.
2) The second issue, was in fact introduced by the Conservatives as a distraction, as was initiated with a YouTube video about how they didn't support a "NetFlix Tax", which absolutely no one had heard about until watching that video. What this was actually alluding to was a issue that was brought up by the CRTC about a year ago with NetFlix, which I believe NetFlix basically told them to go take a hike. It was about the release of subscriber information, the amount of Canadian content being distributed, and the fact that they do not charge tax on the service (not being physically located in Canada). It is also sort of about the CRTC trying to fit the TV model on the Streaming service which isn't quite the same. It also has to do with likely complaints by our aforementioned barrel buddies the Canadian telecommunication Industry having a monopoly of sorts and a cozy relationship with regulators. and the fact they all of them are launching their own competing streaming services, which they however must charge tax, probably because they want to sell it to you as part of a package like normal TV, and with bundles of internet, phone, etc... Anyway it is pretty much a non-issue, that likely has more to do with courts than anything else. Despite Conservative warnings, I don't think any of the other parties actually planned this, nor is it really on their radar. As I said this is more about industry pressuring regulators to do something which will eventually end up in court anyway, so little political impact excepting in what the CRTC might decide prior to a court decision.
3) The last issue really talked about came up late in the campaign, and was not talked about in much detail, which was the TTP. The TTP does have some provisions such as copyright and some tech trade related type things to worry about. Unfortunately because of all the secrecy most of what was said either way was pretty ambiguous. Most of the real talking points seemed more concerned with things like the milk industry of all things and car manufactures and the like...
On the other hand, the LPC got a pretty clear mandate, and one of their clear campaign promises was, gasp, to pull out of combat against ISIS.
Remember, the LPC won a handy majority, WITH the left vote being split between two parties, AGAINST the incumbent party, with ZERO vote splitting on the right. That's a clear mandate.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
The son of one of the biggest Canadian socialist ever and a notorious coke whore who seemed to hang out at studio 54 every weekend. That being said this guy was a part time drama teacher. So politically all he has is a famous name and no credentials of running a major country. I agree with his governmental transparency iniatives. I agree with the legalization of cannabis. Beyond that I do not agree with anything this guy is for.
Paul E. Bahre
A man should lead according to his conscience. If the circumstances are right, he will be the ideal leader, if they're not, someone else will be. But he shouldn't run around asking the people he's leading what they think in order to hold on to his position. What's the point of having a leader in the first place if that's all they're going to do?
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
People like TFA who are telling you otherwise are part of the problem. The TPP is very much about digital rights, and the election was a de facto referendum on the TPP.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Using the German system of 50% representative and 50% proportional it would have worked out something like:
Liberal: 39.5% of vote = 48.7% of seats vs actual 54.4%
Conservative: 31.9% of vote = 32.1% of seats vs actual 29.3%
NDP: 19.7% of vote = 17.5% of seats vs actual 13%
All other parties failed to meet threshold for proportional seats though to be fair, this is based off our single vote ballot as opposed to Germany's two part ballots.
A little better, to be sure, but still only a handful of seats away from total domination with less than 40% support.
I think in addition to House reforms a properly elected Senate would be a massive improvement. Elected Senators as opposed to lifetime appointments would actually make them accountable to the people.
I also personally think we have too many MPs and Senators for the rubber stamping of PM/party policies they currently do. Sure, they occasionally do some personal work to help constituents but for the most part that could be done by lower level staffers. Either revamp the system or start lowering their numbers.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
It is not true that there is no check on a majority government. The Supreme Court of Canada is a check on the power of majority government and has in recent years very much functioned in that role. That being said, parliament can use the "not withstanding" clause to curb the check, but to say there are no checks on a majority government is not strictly true. In practice, it is true, but majority governments have, in Canadian history, acted relatively reasonably given the amount of power they do have...
Our jets were also preserving our names on the list and our place up against the wall when the revolution comes.
If an ISIS revolution comes, they're not going to give a shit whether you sent jets or not. They'll want you dead either way.
Maybe it'll change the manner of your execution, but death is pretty much a guarantee unless you fly the black flag and wholeheartedly endorse their twisted philosophy.
They promised to replace the GST with a harmonized tax, and the HST is still an option for any province that wants it.
What is this minimum wage you speak of?
Please post the math. I'd love to see it.
...as in any regime change, making it barely distinguishable from the previous government's, and on similar sources of "support".
If contradictions to the campaign that got them into office become all too flagrant (e.g. recently enacted or even forthcoming anti-citizen, anti-consumer provisions, in particular via international conventions), they may conveniently be excused by "having to keep bearing the burden of their predecessors' unfortunate legacy".
If votes could change a nation, there'd be a law against them.
Yep, the issues you raise regarding your Senate mirror the issues we have in the UK's House of Lords which is our equivalent. It sounds like Canada inherited all the worst ideas in our political system here in the UK that we too are stuck with and desperately need rid of :)
There's something like 816 peers in our House of Lords now and only 650 elected MPs. The last government was a coalition of the Liberal Democrats (centre left) and the Conservatives (centre right, with a roughly 20% - 30% hard right fringe to it). The Liberal Democrats wanted reform of the Lords, but the hard right in the Conservative despite being a vocal minority got their way as usual because their leader, our PM David Cameron is scared to death of them for whatever reason.
This makes the status quo even worse for us in some ways, because not only does a party with 38% of the vote have 100% of the power, but that 20% - 30% fringe of the Conservatives that are hard right have way more power than they're warranted.