p2pnet news | Politics:- Canada’s traffic shaping / net neutrality battle is moving to the streets —- or, at least, to Parliament Hill in Ottawa.

Rocky Gaudrault, co-owner of Teksavvy, the Ontario ISP that’s up front in the fight to make Canadians understand the bandwidth throttling issue centres as much on, “privacy, choice and ISP transparency,” as anything else, is organising an event on the Hill for April 29.

“I’m working on putting together as big a rally as possible for net neutrality,” he says. “The Telco/Cableco monopolies in Canada have all recently accelerated their efforts in the resent weeks, since Bell’s throttling started.”

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is scheduled tomorrow to open deliberations aimed at deciding whether or not Bell should be ordered to halt its traffic shaping, as CAIP (Canadian Association of Internet Providers) and others are demanding.

The CRTC ruling, “may very well pave the path to either continued technical advancement, or a corporate Canadian internet without the freedom of choice,” says Gaudrault, going on:

“If we don’t stand up and get both a public and a political uprising we fear our internet freedoms might be up for grabs by the highest bidder, or worse simply taken away!”

That April 29 is marked down as the date of the rally is no coincidence.

That’s when a Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics is slated to run.

It’s scheduled for between 3:30 and 5:00 pm, and it’s a certainty industry minister Jim Prentice, if not prime minister Stephen Harper, will be there, providing concerned citizens with an opportunity to reprise the political disaster visited on Prentice last year when he tried to force a Canadian DMCA through Parliament.

Then, a group organised by ‘Ideas Revolutionary’ Kempton Lam (picture) confronted Prentice in Calgary, Alberta, “forcing the government to step sharply back,” p2pnet posted.

The industry minister has so far refused to get involved, saying it’s up to Canadians themselves to do something about the throttling scandal.

A strong showing in Ottawa on April 29 could force him to once again do an about face.

“One major thing to consider is much of this battle has been confused by the word ‘Internet,” says Gaudrault in a comment post to p2pnet’s Q&A with NDP digital culture spokesman Charlie Angus.

“Bell isn’t selling ISPs internet, they’re selling ISPs a regulated back-end connection.”

Slashdot it! . . .Stumble It!

are demanding - p2pnet traffic shaping digest, April 19, 2008
political disaster - Don’t repeat US mistake, CLA tells Prentice, December 21, 2007
Charlie Angus -p2pnet talks to Charlie Angus on throttling, April 23, 2008

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 at 9:58 am and is filed under Politics, Freedom, P2P. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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