Digital Copyright Canada

Elections Canada Electoral district profile (Links to Map, Past Candidates, and Past Election Results)

Member of Parliament for Winnipeg South / Winnipeg-Sud

Name: Rod Bruinooge
e-Mail: <Bruinooge.R@parl.gc.ca>
Party: Conservative Party of Canada

Hill Times journalists Abbas Rana, Simon Doyle and Harris MacLeod have assembled a list of 57 ridings in British Columbia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec, where the parties won or lost by a margin of about five per cent or less in the last federal election. This is a superset of what Michael Geist called the Copyright MPs which won their riding by 10 percent or less in the last election and their riding is home to a university.

Michael Geist has identified a group of 27 MPs (nine percent of all MPs) who share two key attributes - they won their riding by 10 percent or less in the last election and their riding is home to a university. The combination is important since it is these MPs - not the very safe Jim Prentice - who will face the consequences of the Prentice bill that will harm a generation well versed in digital technologies, social networks, and the Internet.

When reading an eWeek article by Roy Mark talking about political donations to US presidential candidates, I wondered what would be said in Canada. We don't have a separate executive branch, with our prime Minister simply being the leader of the party that receives the most seats, so an apples-to-apples comparison isn't possible.

An article by ITBusiness.ca editor Shane Schick discusses the recent FLOSS MP awareness campaign by the GOSLING community which involved creating 308 envelopes of material, one per federal member of parliament.

While GOSLING had found a sympathetic ear in former MP Reg Alcock, McOrmond said the regime change in Ottawa has meant searching among new faces for support. One possibility, he said, is James Ragotte, MP for Edmonton-Leduc who used to act as Industry critic when the Conservative Party was still in opposition.

“Normally you can't tell who the important people are before they become important,” McOrmond said.

My hope is that people will write their MP so that we can find out who the people are in parliament that are aware of FLOSS.

An Ottawa Citizen article by David Reevely discussed the recent GOSLING MP awareness project.

McOrmond says GOSLING has had positive responses from a few MPs -- Tory James Rajotte is one. Unfortunately, he says, two enthusiastic open-source proponents have left the picture. Former Liberal labour minister Joe Fontana is quitting federal politics to run for mayor of London; Reg Alcock was an enormously influential supporter as president of the Treasury Board, McOrmond says, but lost his Winnipeg seat in the election that defeated his government last January.

It was Joe Fontana's hill staff that hosted an Open Source event on parliament hill on June 19th, 2006.

Here are the preliminary results for the ridings we were watching closely. There are some very positive outcomes for us, especially in the two top ridings we were watching. This is hopefully an indication of a positive future for creators and users of "works of the mind".

General results from the Library of Parliament.

Parkdale--High Park

Peggy Nash wins the election, unseating Hollywood's member of parliament, Sarmite Sam Bulte.

Timmins--James Bay

Independent writer, broadcaster and musician Charlie Angus retains his seat. This is an important win for Canadian independent creators.

Durham

Bev Oda, possibly the new Minister of Heritage.

Jeanne-Le Ber

Liza Frulla, past Heritage Minister, looses her seat.

The following ridings are considered to be of special interest to our community.

Parkdale--High Park

Close race between Peggy Nash and Sarmite Sam Bulte. Ms. Bulte is a close friend of the incumbent foreign intermediaries, and possibility to become the next Heritage Minister if the Liberals form the government. She is seen by our community as one of the greatest threats to Canadian creativity, especially independents and creators using alternative methods of production, distribution and funding. Anyone with ties to this riding should do what they can to support Ms. Nash and ensure that Ms. Bulte does not win her seat.

Timmins--James Bay

Riding of independent writer, broadcaster and musician Charlie Angus. He was also the NDP Heritage critic. It is important that this independent creator, who understands the competitive issues in Copyright, is in the next parliament. He was sent signatures to the Petition for Users Rights which he offered to table for us, but this did not happen before the election was called.

Election 2006: Please add comments to discuss riding specific activities, links to candidate information, etc.

Incumbent information

The following letter was sent to a number of key MPs, as well as to the editor of the Hill Times. It was published under "Newsmakers" in the October 14, 2005 issue of Canadian New Media.

ACTRA, CIRPA, SOCAN and the "Friends of Canadian Broadcasting" have taken out a full page advertisement in the September 5 issue of the Hill Times promoting government intervention into a recent CRTC decision on satellite radio.

I was pleased that the CRTC decision recognized that subscription satellite radio is not the same as broadcast radio. I support a full spectrum of production, distribution and funding models for creativity, and believe that the greatest threat to Canadian creativity comes from those who wish to impose past models onto all creativity.