Election questions for Canadians
p2p news / p2pnet: The sponsorship scandal and the need for effective fiscal management continue to dominate the run-up to Canada’s January 23 election. But there are, of course, other issues and, “Canadians want to know where the parties stand,” says CIPPIC (Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic).
Among questions needing answers are: What are the Liberal, NDP and Conservative positions on copyright law reform, police surveillance powers, telecommunications policy reform, and legislative responses to spam, spyware, ID theft, and other privacy invasions?
With that in mind, CIPPIC is opening its web site so party responses can be posted as they’re received.
“Copyright law reform, police surveillance powers, and spam were on the Parliamentary agenda before the election,” says executive director Philippa Lawson. “Private sector privacy legislation is up for Parliamentary review in 2006, and stakeholders have been pushing for reforms in this area as well as to telecom policy.
“So these aren’t new issues. We want to provide a focal point for Canadians to find out how the different parties would approach each issue, before voting. We also hope that this initiative will cause parties to think more about some of the lower-profile, but still important, issues that will be facing the new government.”
December 6th, 2005 at 6:50 pm
I was hoping something like this would come along. The wife and I spent the better part of yesterday evening going over each parties website. Some information can be gleaned there of course, but not what we really want to know, nor in much detail even if we did manage to find some info of interest to us. We did manage to find a copy of The Federal Accountability Act and are hoping to find some time to go over it today or tomorrow. So far what Stephen Harper has been advocating sounds like it may be of serious interest to the folks that are into the whole p2p scene, especially with regards to the limitations that would be imposed on corporate lobbying. Don’t really know much more than that though. Still waiting to hear what p2pnet’s take is on the coming election (Jon?), as well as some of it’s contributors feelings about the whole thing (Russell? Michael?). Normally I’ve never made a big deal or even cared much when it came to Canadian politics, but with what has been happening over the past couple of years, and the spectre of bills like C-60 still hovering around in the shadows (gone but not forgotten), we just can’t afford to sit idly by this time around.
December 7th, 2005 at 12:07 am
I would personally be interested into the Bloc opinion since they are the most credible guys right now (in Québec at least)
Ciao
December 8th, 2005 at 4:18 am
Personal opinion: What the “party” says isn’t going to be very interesting, so please ask your individual candidates and report what you found on the DCC website.
We saw this with the NDP last election. During the election the NDP were campaigning based on what their Heritage Critic thought, a playwrite who would have no personal reason to be dealing with the Internet or anti-competitive industry issues we deal with here. To her the whole digital copyright reform agenda was an academic exercise, and not something she had personal experience with the complexities.
She didn’t run in the last election, and Charlie Angus (Timmins–James Bay)
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/edid/35092 replaced her as NDP Heritage critic. He is an independent musician, so understands the issues, and knows that the current major label recording industry not only doesn’t represent the majority of Canadian musicians, but is their largest threat/competitor.
Base on this single person change they went from having one of the worst party positions to having the best party position. If Charlie doesn’t win his seat (he only won by 613 votes over the Liberal candidate), then all bets will be off as to what the NDP position will be.
Individual people matter more than the parties. It really doesn’t matter for our issues which party forms the government, but exactly which people are sitting in parliament and making the arguments.
Note: How “accountability” will be defined, either by a Liberal accountability bill or a Conservative accountability bill, will be subject to the interpretations of the individual members. What one person considers accountability another person considers corruption.
I know as an independent author and commercial support person for Free/Libre and Open Source Software I find the MERX system designed to make procurement “accountable” to be accomplishing the opposite given this system unfairly favours “software manufacturing” over competing methodologies.
To me being accountable in software acquisition means something different than allowing the lowest bidding software manufacturer to win.
December 8th, 2005 at 4:20 am
Here is one response — doesn’t adequately protect the creator? I suspect this person means it the opposite to how I would mean it.
> Monsieur Lutz,
>
> Tel que demand� a mon confr�re, Serge Geoffrion, je vous transmets
> la position du Bloc concernant le projet de loi C-60.
>
> Tel que pr�sent�, le projet de loi ne nous satisfait point. Il
> n’offre pas suffisamment de protection aux cr�ateurs. De plus, les
> obligations demand�es au secteur de l’�ducation rel�ve de la
> fabulation. Ce secteur n’a tout simplement pas les moyens des
> objectifs du gouvernement.
>
> Il faudra �tre vigilent et s’assurer que l’�quilibre soit atteint
> entre le droit du cr�ateur et les devoirs des utilisateurs. Nous
> comptons bien nous y soumettre.
>
> Bien � vous,
>
> Marc Thivierge
> Adjoint parlementaire
>
> Bureau du d�put� de Saint-Lambert
> Vice-Pr�sident du Comit� Patrimoine
> Chambre des communes
> �difice de la Conf�d�ration
> Bureau 217
> Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0A6
> T�l.:(613) 998-5961
> T�l�c.: (613) 954-0707