Digital Copyright Canada

One thing I learned from past campaign work is that while a campaign during an election may not change the votes of many people, it is a perfect educational opportunity. All-candidates debates are perfect times to ask candidates questions where the audience will hear both your question and what the candidates say to it.

We will need to create almost sound-bite sized questions to be asked at debates. You aren't given much time to ask questions, so the candidates pretty much need to be aware of the question ahead of time.

Some ideas:

• Ask if the candidate is aware of the Petition for Users Rights in copyright reform, and if they are willing to sign it.
  
• Ask if the candidate is aware of the recent Heritage Committee report that recommended applying an Internet levy for people viewing any page that did not explicitly specify that it was royalty-free. Even though this is the opposite to how the Internet was created and is unlikely to be workable, this is the level of understanding and/or respect that Heritage Committee has offered the Internet.
  
• ...and so on. I had created some questions for candidates earlier.
  

Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) consultant.

As described here, it all started with a planned review of the Copyright Act. The extended deadline was June 2004, and the interim report was released May 2004. Here is the original news release:
http://www.parl.gc.ca/InfocomDoc/37/2/HERI/PressReleases/HERIPR03-e.htm

Many people asked me, what did Parliament come up with? Why are we all so concerned? Well, here is the "INTERIM REPORT ON COPYRIGHT REFORM ... REPORT OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON CANADIAN HERITAGE"
http://www.parl.gc.ca/InfocomDoc/Documents/37/3/parlbus/commbus/house/reports/herirp01/herirp01-e.pdf