Digital Copyright Canada

On Friday 24 November 2006 11:27, Russell McOrmond wrote:

>    Sorry for misunderstanding.
>
>    The more things get delayed, the better.  In some ways there would be
> advantages to having something get first reading only before the next
> election, as it would show people some of the similarities between the
> Liberal and Conservative copyright bill.
>
>    Mobilizing people on substantial policy issues during the election is
> hard, as the focus seems to be on negative rhetoric rather than real
> policy.
>

That's true, because there are always "more important" issues for each of the 
parties than copyright. The "more important" issues will vary from party to 
party, and will vary based on how many votes each party thinks it can gain or 
lose with the particular policy.

(The only way that will change is if we make them aware of a widespread 
interest in copyright policy and consequences for a particular position. If, 
for example, there were thousands of E-activists who would make it their 
mission during an election to campaign for or against candidates based on 
their views on copyright and DRM we would have much more influence.). 

Nonetheless, in the run-up to an election we do have a good chance to 
influence the views of politicians and would be politicians alike. I think 
they're far more receptive in this "lull before the storm" because they may 
actually have both time to talk to you and not be constrained by party 
communications policy during an election. 

> > However, based on what we've seen so far, I have deep concerns that the
> > Tories will be even less copyright friendly than the Liberals.
>
>    What type of things have you seen?  If I've missed references to
> copyright and related policy in Hansard, please let me know so we can
> add it to our BLOG.  If ever anyone sees something on an MPs personal
> blog about these issues, please also make sure it gets posted.

I haven' seen the blog, but I've been reviewing testimony before the Heritage 
Committee and the way that Danielle Bouvet (Director, Copyright Policy 
Branch, Department of Canadian Heritage) and the Minister, Bev Oda declined 
to answer questions on fair use, on DRM, etc make me suspicious. 

>    While Ms. Oda is in a fundraising scandal, it's not all that
> different than past Heritage Ministers or parliamentary secretaries.  I
> met with Ms. Oda when she was still the Heritage critic in a previous
> parliament, and is at least aware of diversity of views (Better than Ms.
> Copps who ignored anything outside of her established way of thinking).

Perhaps not, but it's the very industries that are in favour of most of the 
stuff we oppose that have been giving her money. 

>    I have a letter in front of me from Mr. Rajotte (text posted to
> BLOG), and he has been very open minded about these issues.  I expect
> that if he is on the committee studying any future bill that there will
> be far more balance shown than when Heritage committee studies anything.
>   This is the Conservative member for Edmonton-Leduc who is also the
> chair of Industry committee.

Good. Every MP counts on this kind of issue.

>    I'm curious if you watched Even Moglen's talk.  Extremely
> inspirational on the importance of moving away from marginal-cost based
> business models for creativity.  It is this broader new-economy
> economic, social justice, globalist, etc approach that inspires me to do
> the volunteer policy work I do. http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/2813

No. I've heard of him but that's it.

>    I've interacted with both allies and foes in the federal NDP, Liberal
> and Conservative parties.  There are MPs in each of these parties with
> seats in the federal parliament that I respect, and MPs I do not.   I
> don't have much experience with the Bloc because of my own language and
> geography barriers (they have no reason to ever talk to me).

>    The important thing to remember is that it is individuals that make
> this difference, and that there isn't party policy from any of the
> parties with seats that speak to this issue better than others.  This
> may change over time if the grassroots of the parties push, but thus far
> I haven't seen this change.

Not yet.

> > Agreed, but I wasn't suggesting that we do that. At this point, I
> > certainly agree with, and fully support, a "non-partisan" approach on
> > copyright.
>
>    Non-partisan as well as multi-partisan.  Those with strong party ties
> should be trying to fully educate their party.

We are. And after convention we found a few more allies. We'll keep pushing.

>    It would be interesting if there were petitions signed that weren't
> about what riding someone was in, but were collected at party events and
> were tabled by a party MP as "being from members of our party from
> across Canada".

That's more difficult to organize, but may be doable.
-- 
Robert Smits, Ladysmith BC Email bob@rsmits.ca
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