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Saanich - Gulf Islands

Elizabeth May and C-11

Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party, was the focus of attention for the debate at report stage of Bill C-11.  In her speech introducing amendments she spoke about why she introduced 18 amendments to the act.  It was also voting on each of these amendments that was taking the time yesterday during votes, and it was she that eventually "released the hostages" by allowing previous votes to apply to later motions.

Unlike other MPs and other parties, her amendments more closely reflected what Canadians said in consultations.   While there were other issues up for debate, such as educational copyright, the bulk of submissions and participation in the consultations were opposition to legal protection for "technological measures".  Given this, while she also addressed educational copyright, the bulk of her amendments addressed various aspects of technological measures.

Bill C-11 3'rd reading on Monday May 14.

The order paper for Monday May 14 included C-11 3'rd reading "debate".

There were motions to make amendments in the Order paper: Report Stage of Bills. These were from Mr. Bellavance (Richmond—Arthabaska) of the Bloc and Ms. May (Saanich—Gulf Islands) of the Greens, neither of which had party representatives in the committee studying the bill.

There are many more motions from Ms. May than the earlier list I commented on.

Green Party C-11 Amendments

On March 30, 2012, Ms. May (MP for Saanich--Gulf Islands, Leader of the green Party) added a few motions to the Notice Paper, Report Stage of Bills.  I will offer my own quick comments on these motions in the hope that they are useful for the ongoing debate.

Bill C-11 house debate day 8

On February 8, 2012 we had the 8th time when the House of Commons debated Bill C-11 (at Second Reading). The previous debate day was December 12, 2011.

The debate started with Hon. Peter Van Loan (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, CPC) moving a time allocation motion:

Bill C-11 house debate day 7

On December 12, 2011 we had the seventh time when the House of Commons debated Bill C-11 (at Second Reading). I didn't write about the 6'th time as it was simply a vote on an amendment that was deferred from the 5'th day of debate.

The debate started with Mr. Paul Calandra (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, CPC, MP for Oak Ridges—Markham) giving a short promotion of the bill and then moving a motion "That this question be now put."

Bill C-11 house debate day 4

On November 22, 2011 we had the fourth time when the House of Commons debated Bill C-11 (at Second Reading).

I am glad that Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP) included discussion of the constitutional questions raised by Bill C-11.

The problems are in two areas, and I will refer to the first. Briefly, it is constitutional. The constitutional problem is simple to describe. Copyright is clearly an area of federal jurisdiction, whereas property rights are provincial. To the extent that we have intruded into property rights, we have a problem. This has been described in a learned article published by professors Crowne-Mohammed and Rozenszajn, both from the University of Windsor, in the Journal of Information, Law and Technology in which the authors describe the problem this way:

The DRM provisions of Bill C-61 represent a poorly veiled attempt by the Government to strengthen the contractual rights available to copyright owners, in the guise of copyright reform and the implementation of Canada's international obligations.

Let us de-link them. Let us protect the rights and protect copyright reform without acceding to pressure from U.S. interests, which want to have excessively restrictive controls in the form of digital locks. That is setting aside the constitutional issue.

Bill C-11 debate day 1

The hansard for Tuesday, October 18, 2011 includes a transcript of the first day of debate of Bill C-11. The debate is at second reading, after which it will be sent to a committee.

The debate started a little after 10:30, and continued to 14:00 when "Statements by Members" proceedings interrupted. Debate continued after question period (and a point of privilege) at 15:15 and continued (with a few of the normal interruptions) until 18:30.

New shape of federal parliament and districts I watched closely

Saying this was an interesting election to watch would be an understatement. The Conservatives received the majority they asked for with 167(54.2%) seats, but that wasn’t the biggest story for me last night. The NDP is now the official opposition with 102 seats, the Liberals are down to 34 seats, the Bloc may fade out of existence having barely kept 4 seats, and Green party leader Elizabeth May won her seat. It is clear that change was in the air, and change we received.

Now we will move to the hard part of governing. The Conservatives have some Progressive Conservative types who may be willing to aggressively ensure that Mr. Harper governs close to the center.

The NDP have a large, but very young and new caucus. Their learning curve is going to be massive, and there will be some bumps along the way which they will need to be very careful about.

The Liberals now need to take the time to figure out where they go from here, as will the Bloc who I hope will decide that the days of having a separatist party within the federal parliament are now over.

Districts I will be watching closely on election night

This is turning out to be a more exciting election than it seemed heading into it. While a Conservative majority or minority still seems most likely, who would have guessed that an NDP minority government or NDP official opposition was on the table? Who would have predicted the collapse of the Bloc support in Quebec?

While the mangling of voter intention caused by our antiquated First Past the Post electoral system makes it hard to predict outcomes, I'm pretty confident about some districts. There are a number of specific districts I will be watching closely election night, with most (but not all) based on my interest in technology law.
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