Hudak a Second Common Sense Revolution?

Those of you who remember the Harris days, remember the "Common Sense Revolution" gutting Ontario’s social programs, and health care.  The road to economic success which left Ontario without a balanced budget and 8 billion in deficit when the Liberals took over was taken out on the most vulnerable of Ontarians.  Could this be the case again?  Tim Hudak is asking Conservative supporters to go and fill out a questionnaire on a new website asking supporters input on how to return Ontario to prosperity.

One of the most troubling questions I found on this questionnaire relates to those on welfare system that have part-time jobs:

Some people say it is a good idea to allow welfare recipients to keep more of what they earn so they can accept a part-time job and start working again. Others believe you shouldn’t be able to collect welfare cheques while you have a job, even a part-time one. Which view do you support?

The questionnaire also asks questions such as is the welfare system too generous? And are the conditions on those placed on social assistance not strict enough? Considering the people of Ontario shelled out close to 6 billion in corporate welfare packages to the auto makers last year, and plants are still closing around the province putting people on social assistance with a lack of uptake on full time jobs, I would consider making the poor pay for these bail outs a bit out of touch.

Questions also need to be answered about the reliability of the data collected in this questionnaire as well.  You can submit answers, and take this questionnaire more than once anonymously.  There doesn’t seem to be any attempt at ensuring reliable data other than listing your contact info at the bottom of this questionnaire which is not a requirement.

We all have to tighten our belts in times of austerity, but one thing Conservatives should keep in mind is that a single Mom of 2 cannot support the household on part-time wages alone.  I personally would like to know who these "others" are that believe this.

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COOL STUFF: Holographic TV

Get ready to throw out that 3D TV you bought last month (well in a few years anyway). Make way for the Holographic TV:




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COOL STUFF: Eyepet

This game is coming out for the PS3 move bundle this holiday season.

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Google Steals Canadian E-mails + Passwords

Apparently Google Street View cars were armed with a lot more than camera’s.  Google is admitting that their Street View cars have accessed e-mail address and passwords while driving around Canada. Google has now appointed a privacy chief and promises to tighten its policies.

This admission comes days after the Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart stated Google violated the privacy of thousands of Canadians when it captured sensitive information such as e-mails, usernames and passwords, and also information on some medical conditions of Canadians on its street view excursions around Canada.  “This incident was a serious violation of Canadians’ privacy rights,” Stoddart stated.  Google blames the error on an experimental program installed with the Google Street View cars.

It seems Canadians are getting quite the reputation for digital advocacy and whistle blowing abroad.  From ACTA to Facebook and now Google, our citizens and regulators are keeping the digital world in check.  As a Canadian I’m proud to wear that reputation.

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The French View of Democracy

Striking workers in France upset by the French Government to change the age of retirement are being met with the full force of President Sarkozy’s view of "democracy".  The demonstrators have been blocking the routes used to bring in gasoline into the country.  According to theHindu.com:

"Speaking at a meeting with rural officials south-west of Paris, Mr. Sarkozy warned that demonstrators would, under no circumstances, “have the last word”. Strikers and demonstrators did not have the right “to take people hostage” and to hold the country to ransom, he said. By taking such a tough stand Mr. Sarkozy is staking his all on the success of his reform of the pension system. But the movement does not, contrary to government claims, appear to be fizzling out."

The French Parliament passed Sarkozy’s pension reform package without incident tonight.

In related news, President Sarkozy will be pushing the “3 Strikes law” for copyright infringement at an international conference on “online freedom of expression” hosted by France on October 29^th, 2010.  The very nature of this law takes away the right of freedom of expression from those who are caught infringing on copyright, and has been largely condemned globally in the ACTA negotiations, and here at home in Canada.

I think Sarkozy’s view of democracy is largely starting to come together on the global stage.  It’ll be interesting to see just how much that view differs from the people of France in the coming days with more union demonstrations being planned.

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Nasty Attack Ad

I take great exception to political attack ads. It's one thing to attack policy positions, it's quite another to attack someone’s character. I think those that attack character in any debate usually have nothing to go on with respect to supportable policy, or nothing else to attack. I think attack ads keep the talent pool low in the political profession. Check out this latest attack ad from the Winnipeg mayoral race, which in my opinion has hit an all time low for the sponsors of this message:






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Graduated Response: A Threat to National Security

Over the course of the past several years the entertainment industries have been lobbying for laws that would seek to strip internet connections from users who infringe on copyrights.  This lobbied policy is better known as the “3 strikes law” or as industry prefers it “Graduated Response” and “Hadopi”.  Many tech experts including myself have come out strong against such a policy publically online.  While Canadian creators are discrediting and laughing at citizens who are publically against such policies, some international intelligence agencies see the “3 strikes law” as anything but laughable, and in fact extremely dangerous towards the fight against terrorism, and national sovereignty. 

Earlier this month France started implementing the “3 strikes law” on its citizens, which prompted a very strong response from the American National Security Agency (NSA).  Any response from the NSA on this policy should raise alarm bells, considering most journalists who have covered the NSA in the past have dubbed their own term on the NSA acronym to an agency that “Never Says Anything”.  The worry in the international intelligence community globally is that users will simple flick a switch to include encryption to make it harder for the copyright industry to track them, and in turn make it harder for international intelligence gathering on the part of the spy community. 

According to zeropaid.com, the NSA yelled at France on their implication of the “3 strikes law” earlier this month:

“Hadopi – will only encourage Internet users to arm themselves with same encryption tools used by criminal networks.”

This same call came from the British MI5 in 2009 on this policy as well.  As timesonline reports during the drafting of the Digital Economy Bill that included the “3 strikes law” in Britain stated:

“A source involved in drafting the Bill said that the intelligence agencies, MI5 and MI6, had also voiced concerns about disconnection. “The spooks hate it,” the source said. “They think it is only going to make monitoring more difficult.”

I personally think those that support the “3 strikes law” in Canada are putting Canadians at a greater risk.  Not only do I find this law unconstitutional, it’s not a laughing matter as some have dismissed it as.  CSIS came out strongly this summer warning Canadians of how foreign influence over public policy and politicians is creating an environment where Canadian national security, and sovereignty are being put at risk.  Howard Knopf has pointed out just how much copyright has become an issue of foreign influence in Canada.

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Libs and NDP Supporting Net Neutrality

It’s very nice to see Government for a change supporting the need for an unfettered and untouched Internet connection as essential for Canadian Citizens.  Both the Federal Liberals, and NDP have come out strongly supporting Net Neutrality rules in Canada today.  This would open the door to more competition in the creative markets, and ensure that Canadians are not locked down in a marketplace that is only controlled by a few players.   

This could also be the final nail on the coffin for those that support the “3 strikes” law in Canada, as Government has sided with its citizens, rather than extreme fascist and socialist views with respect to our digital future.  It’s nice to see our MP’s up in Ottawa representing the public interest and providing a kick out the door to those who have worked so hard and spent a lot of money too try too discredit Canadian Citizens speaking out on their digital future.

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UN to Canada: "You Suck, Get Lost!"

Today Canada withdrew its bid for a security council seat at the UN.  It was expected that we would not win the seat even after written promises of support from 135 countries.  I kind of expected this after ongoing Conservative ideological debates around the environment and human rights issues that have put a black eye on Canada’s foreign policies.  Of course the Harper government turned around and blamed the opposition for making comments that stifled the bid for the seat.   

Politics is politics, but the room was empty for Canada far before any comments were made politically  at home on this current bid.  Only Conservatives will believe the Liberals were responsible for the loosing this bid, but the rest of Canada paid great attention to what was going on at the UN last month, and didn’t like the fact that only 10 people from the looks of it, showed up at the UN to hear Harper speak:

U.S. President Barack Obama at the UN Last Month:

Swiss President Doris Leuthard UN Speech Last Month:  

Our Great Prime Minister Steven Harper at the UN Last Month:

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My thoughts on a “3 Strikes” policy

Over the next few weeks, the newly drafted copyright bill will make it to the committee process.  The CRIA, MPAA, and many other lobby groups are calling for a “graduated response” to help curb online piracy.  Basically what this means is that the entertainment and publishing industries are calling to strip the Internet from Canadians who are caught infringing on copyright.  While I whole hardly agree that creators need to get paid for their work, I do not agree with the approach of stripping anyone from the net.   Section 2 of the Canadian Charter States:

2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:

(a) freedom of conscience and religion;
(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
(d) freedom of association.

In my view an internet connection is needed to fulfill subsection (b) of our fundamental freedoms.  The Internet is now becoming essential for Canadians as a medium, a way to become politically active, and communicate with the outside world, and is essential to our economic growth.  Too simply take this right away, or inhibit it through disconnecting users, to me represents a fascist and socialist view on society, and must be questioned within committee, and by the public. 

It is my hope that a wider discussion on the graduated response happens within the public domain, and that those who support this policy will be confronted individually by fans, artists, and the market.  In the coming weeks I will attempt to facilitate this communication with the public, by posting individual names, and public social contact info of those calling for such an approach.  This will include all Canadian artists that the CRIA represents that haven’t come out against the graduated response, and who have gave the CRIA permission to lobby on their behalf.

Stay Tuned...

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CBC Vs Creative Commons Round 1

There has been a lot of talk over the past 48 hours about CBC’s policy to not allow Creative Commons works into CBC productions.  When asked by a listener of CBC's Spark podcast if CBC uses any creative commons works in their podcasts, a producer from the Spark podcast stated:

“It turned out that our use of Creative Commons licensed music was going against some of the details in collective agreements we hold with certain talent agencies. As such, we had to discontinue our use of it.”

This comment sparked wide spread interest with respect to bloggers following the copyright debate.  Within a matter of hours accusations were flying around the web on some of the most widely read copyright blogs stating the CBC was banning Creative Commons.  Before reporting on this I decided to get a bit more information myself.  I spoke with Lily Mills who is an associate producer for the Spark Podcast at CBC, who seemed to be quite threatened by a response I made with respect to filing for an access to information request on collective agreements which the CBC is legally responsible to provide to the public.

Further conversations with Ms. Mills turned out she herself could not get access to any of the documents or collective agreements from the CBC with respect to the discontinuing of Creative Commons works, stating that she would probably have to file an access to information request herself before she received any information on this, after repeated attempts at connecting with several different departments within the CBC and the CBC’s legal department.  I stated to her that this story was taking a mind of its own online and might be a good idea for the CBC brass to come out and provide a comment on this.  Within minutes of hitting the send button on that e-mail, CBC Radio Program Director Chris Boyce issued this statement on the thread:

“We’ve been listening to the conversations today regarding a “ban” on the use of Creative Commons music in our podcasts and want to take the opportunity to clarify some of the misconceptions that are floating out there.

The CBC has always embraced new ways of creating and sharing the content we make (in fact, shows like Spark and previously Search Engine were some of the first in Canada to use this type of music license in their programming), however, just like you, we must do so in a way which respects the limits put on that use by the music's creators.

The issue with our use of Creative Commons music is that a lot of our content is readily available on a multitude of platforms, some of which are deemed to be “commercial” in nature (e.g. streaming with pre-roll ads, or pay for download on iTunes) and currently the vast majority of the music available under a Creative Commons license prohibits commercial use.

In order to ensure that we continue to be in line with current Canadian copyright laws, and given the lack of a wide range of music that has a Creative Commons license allowing for commercial use, we made a decision to use music from our production library in our podcasts as this music has the proper usage rights attached.

Everyone can rest easy-- there are no “groups” setting out to stop the use of Creative Commons music at the CBC, and we will continue to use Creative Commons licensed music, pictures etc. across a number of our non-commercial platforms.

We hope this helps clarify things.”

In the defence of Ms. Mills this could have been a miscommunication between CBC departments.  On the other hand Mr. Boyce hasn’t provided any information to debunk Ms. Mills comments, only his reassurance and an argument on why CBC doesn’t use Creative Commons works.   As Michael Geist points out in a recent tweet:

“Note that the commercial concerns do not require a Creative Commons ban - could still use appropriately licenced CC music.”

I find it interesting that even a CBC staffer after spending the entire day communicating with several different departments, and CBC’s legal services that she was not able to get any solid information out to the press on this.  It almost seemed as though the CBC didn’t know how to respond to this.  They took almost the entire day to issue a response, and a response that was basically debunked in 1 tweet.  What exactly is going on over at the CBC?

There is definitely a debate brewing with respect to the commercial use of Creative Commons works, but that also steers this away from the fact that the CBC hasn’t come out with the facts needed to clear them of any wrong doing here.   It’ll be interesting to see what comes out of the access to information requests.

In my view, if a producer of CBC wants to use Creative Commons works he/she should be allowed to do this by the brass.  Something smells here.

Hat Tip To: Russell McOrmond for tweeting the Spark thread and leading me on to this.

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