Canadian Conservative Party pledge to reintroduce the DMCA if elected
One formal definition of insanity is doing the same thing twice and expecting a different outcome. Canada's DMCA is, by this measure, insane -- and so is the party that insists on ramming it through.
The Conservative Party has released its platform and it devotes a half-page to copyright that leaves little doubt that it plans to bring back Bill C-61 and continue to support ACTA. According to the platform:Conservatives Promise to Re-Introduce Canadian DMCAA re-elected Conservative Government led by Stephen Harper will reintroduce federal copyright legislation that strikes the appropriate balance among the rights of musicians, artists, programmers and other creators and brings Canada's intellectual property protection in line with that of other industrialized countries, but also protects consumers who want to access copyright works for their personal use. We will also introduce tougher laws on counterfeiting and piracy and give our customs and law enforcement services the resources to enforce them. This will protect consumers from phoney and sometimes dangerous products that are passed off as reliable brand-name goods.
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I wish there was some way I could get the people of Canada to understand what electing the Conservatives to a majority government would do to Canada.
And our Liberals aren't any better... but we have the benefit of having MULTIPLE parties here and people seem to only recognize 2. I think it's time someone else got a shot at running this country, because I have NO interest in seeing more of the same (insanity).
i am so depressed at the prospect of more (neo-)conservative government.
why does anyone believe anything they say? they usurped the founding party of canada in a backroom deal and then betrayed the other party to said deal. it's just been more of the same ever since, and yet people continue to think of them as the honest and transparent ones...
Right now I'm leaning toward Green, but overall my philosophy is ABC - anything but Conservative, anything to keep them a minority.
I can guarantee that this country would be very different if the voting age was lowered to 16 (but that would bring the problem of teens not showing up).
http://vote16.ca/
Renaming themselves the Conservative Party was a brilliant move for the Reform Party. It's like when SBC bought AT&T and then renamed themselves AT&T. People think that it's great that those nasty fuckers at SBC are gone and remember that AT&T was, at the very least, reliable back in the day. Never mind that it's still the same people.
I try to remind people that this Conservative Party is not the old Progressive Conservative Party. Not that it matters. This riding is so likely to vote Conservative that none of the other parties are running a big candidate.
this is almost as scummy as the fact that the conservatives still haven't released an official platform... while at the same time they are encouraging people to take advantage of early voting (maybe so they can't change their mind when the party drops their actual platform just 3 days before the election).
i'm not sure who this is supposed to convince that voting for the conservatives is a good idea, they already had major media execs in their pocket.
vote green! - they actually have a shot at getting a few seats this go around. if you live in a closely contested riding follow the ABC approach listed above. these scum bags should not be in power and a majority government is infinitely more frightening than the current rendition.
They have a curious understanding of SPAM as well
"Protecting Against Internet Spam
A re-elected Conservative Government led by Stephen Harper will introduce legislation to prohibit the use of spam (unsolicited commercial email) to collect personal information under false pretences and to engage in criminal conduct. The new law will reduce dangerous, destructive and deceptive email and web site practices, and will establish new fines for those who break the law."
Most unsolicited commercial email have no false pretences. They are quite up front that they what to sell. Also, most spam also originates from outside of Canada, so how they expect this to be in any way effective is rather mysterious.
As soon as they win me over with their conservative financial policies in regards to the current crisis... they go ahead an crap-out with this nonsense.
Not only will Canada DMCA hurt the marketplace, it will grow the size of gov't. The 2 things they are purportedly dead-set against doing.
It's Green again for me.
"Phony and sometimes dangerous products passed off as reliable brand-name goods?"
Are they speaking of their own Party?
IMO the best way to protect "consumers" would be to vote against the New Reform Party.
Its hard enough to get great digital services in Canada as it is. Lets through in a copyright act that will make everyone paranoid to even offer digital content.
Really is Stephen Harper, the man with the biggest stick in the world shoved up his keister, the man you want determining digital rights. I mean I have visions of his living room containing a VCR that loads from the top and blinks 12:00.
Canadians elected Harper, do they deserve pity?
Canadians elect their local reps, not a National leader, so only the voters of Calgary West IIRC actually voted for Harper, and his Party never had or have had a Majority of the seats in Parliament.
So, no, Takuan, Canadians did not elect Harper, and we do not need pity - Harper's Gov being a Minority Gov, it could not do damage comparable to what the period of Repub controlled Congress + Bush inflicted on the USA.
The US would be pitiable, but you guys really did elect Bush, not just his Party. Twice.
Harper is the result of a antiquated "first past the post" electoral system that favours rural voters over urban voters (really bad considering that 80% of Canadians live in cities). A majority of Canadians didn't vote for his party.
a majority of Canadians failed in their duty to prevent Harper.
Any Canadian voters interested in voting strategically to avoid a Harper majority can check out http://www.voteforenvironment.ca/ - it provides riding-by-riding advice on how to beat Conservative candidates.
Jeez Louise! Even a tonne of bricks has more common sense than these bozos. Brick for senator!
Who are these 'politicians' trying to fool? The word politician isn't even low enough to describe these US-Money-grubbing scumbags.
Yes green is looking really really attractive. I almost went NDP, but I think green has nicer vision. Liberal and Conservative are a total failure.
Really what they really need to do...is line up all of the politicians and shot them. That way whoever gets in power will know what happends if you will fuck with the people and take their money.
My riding (Mississauga-Streetsville) voted for and elected the Liberal candidate, Wajid Khan.
Then Harper bribed Khan to change sides with an all-expenses-paid vacation back to where he was born to see his family.
Khan took the bribe and switched sides, effectively stealing the votes we gave him in good faith, and giving those votes to the party we didn't want.
So, yeah, Anything But Conservative.
#14, Takuan: wow, you really have no idea how a parliamentary democracy works, do you? It doesn't take "a majority of Canadians" to install a Prime Minister.
So how about protecting the rights of politicians whose speeches you rip off? (ahem.)
nope, but a clear majority of Canadians could have stopped Harper.
Americans: Janai @#20 is referring to the revelation a few days ago that almost half of a speech in favour of the Iraq Invasion given by Harper in Parliament was a word-for-word plagiarism of an earlier speech by Australian PM John Howard.
ABC.
@21 takuan:
a "clear majority" voted against harper. that we weren't able to stop him has nothing to do with the failure of "canadians".
Darryl Moore @ #7
"Most unsolicited commercial email have no false pretences. They are quite up front that they what to sell."
I think they're referring to email phishing...
Ah, Mr. Harper - you out-of-date fool. Your brand of lapdog conservatism makes Mr. Bush look like a drunk buffoon (oh, wait....).
Nonetheless, sir, I made it to the advance polls on Monday, and sorry to tell you this, but you didn't get MY vote. Not that you ever had a chance. But thank you for calling me at home and asking if you had a chance, anyway. When I asked the pollster that called if they wanted to know WHY I wasn't about to vote for you or your party, they suddenly had to hang up.
I only hope the majority of my countrymen manage to vote you out as well.
Is Canada a democracy or not? Did Harper steal the election with voting machine fraud? Split vote or not, the fact remains the bulk of Canadians were not not astute enough to detect the danger and then failed in their duty to protect their country and coming generations. Further, even after the Afghanistan disaster,it is not completely evident Canadians have learned their lesson since the outcome of the coming election is very much in doubt.
Hey the majority of Canadians did not vote New Reform. Never have,never will.
My suspicion is that some Tories set up the Green party to further split the Left.
Dion would be the greenest PM ever, he's running on a Carbon Tax, fer cryin' out loud, a tax increase. That's effective "greenery", but unpopular for the "no-government" yahoos. And he's a prof, like Obama.
Our Parties consist of more than just two flavors of vanilla (comme les etats-unis) that always taste the same and keep delivering the same rotten outcomes, so our politics is more interesting. But it has also given us universal single payer health care, and possession of marijuana is not a jailable offense, and we have no private prisons or armies, so who is to be pitied, here?
We also have regional govs ('Provinces") that are responsible for a lot of our infrastructure (like education, power, roads, the administration of Justice, property rights) and that are hence somewhat more prominent in our "daily lives" than the Feds. Kinda like individual States down yonder. This too adds a layer of complexity across our vast land, but yet more representatives to bitch to/ talk to, and hence more democracy and responsiveness at a local level.
Finally, there is simply fewer of us in total. Which means that on average, each voice counts for relatively more than in large polities.
Harper has bloodied Canadian hands. It will be a long, hard time before that washes off.
@#26 (TAKUAN): "Is Canada a democracy or not? Did Harper steal the election with voting machine fraud? Split vote or not, the fact remains the bulk of Canadians were not not astute enough to detect the danger and then failed in their duty to protect their country and coming generations."
No, I don't think you get it. The bulk of Canadians [i]were[/i] astute enough to detect the danger. The Conservatives have a MINORITY government right now, which means that less than half of Canada voted for them. Most of us voted for the other parties. The Conservatives may have gotten the most votes, but there's a greater number of votes [i]against[/i] them.
Whoops, sorry about the message board-style HTML in the last comment.
so where did the votes for Harper's minority come from? Republican Americans? He got in. How many Canadians failed to exercise their franchise at all? Whether by the wrong headedness of those that voted Conservative - a failure in part of other sane Canadians to convince them otherwise - or by the apathy of those that couldn't have been arsed to get up and vote, the fact remains: Harper seized power because those who could have stopped him didn't. What was the actual turnout?
By percentage of votes:
Conservative - 36.27%
Liberal - 30.23%
New Democratic Party - 17.48%
Bloc Québécois - 10.48%
(Of all eligible voters, 64.7% voted. In comparison, 60% of all eligible voters in the United States voted in the 2004 presidential election.)
Given that Harper also seems to be striving to copy the State's oh-so-successful war on drugs, I'm saddened, but hardly surprized, that he thinks the DMCA is a great idea too.
so 35.3% of eligible-to-vote Canadians stayed home and let Harper ruin their country? Slap every third person you meet on the street in the face as you pass.
great site BTW
http://www.voteforenvironment.ca/
@33
thirty eight years ago:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Dain_Commission_of_Inquiry_into_the_Non-Medical_Use_of_Drugs
@takuan
and even more people stayed home in the usa, allowing gwb to ruin the world.
slap every us american you meet in the face as you pass?