lex naturalis - txwikinger's blog Free Software - Law - Politics

In the last couple of days, the Cities of Mississauga and Toronto have passed by-laws banning the sale, possession and consumption of products containing shark fins. While the motivation to do something against the practices of obtaining these shark fins might be understandable, nevertheless, the behavior of the councillors passing such by laws can only be described as anti-democratic and childish.

As previously discussed in part 1 and part 2, the election was triggered by the fact that at the time there was a minority government and there was an ever increasing bitterness between the opposition parties and the government. This lead to a non-confidence motion by the opposition party which succeeded.

As previously mentioned, this series of article describes the current very confusing election of the Federal Parliament of Canada from the perspective of a recent immigrant to Canada. In this part, the leaders of the major parties and the issues discussed will be presented from the described perspective.

After the constitutional crisis in 2008 that was described in Part 1 of this series, the minority government held by the Conservative Party was able to maintain the confidence of Parliament until April 2011. Despite this, the bitterness of the opposition party with the government has steadily increased.

The current Canadian election seems to be very confusing, even for Canadian, but even more for recent immigrants or people living outside Canada. For this reason, this series of articles is suppose to shed some light on this 2011 federal election in Canada from the perspective of a recent immigrant to Canada.

Apparently the Pirate Party in Canada is on its way to achieve similar popularity, especially among young voters as it has become normal in Europe. In a debate for the federal election in Canada's premiere research and technology, Kitchener-Waterloo, the home of RIM's blackberry, according to this survey, the local pirate party candidate won.

The star reports that the Government will reverse the "Metered Internet" / "Usage Based Billing" decision by the CRTC if the CRTC will no do so itself.

It seems that in the current political climate 300,000 signatures on a petition can make a difference.

Open Media has started an online petition against the CRTC's decision to allow Bell Canada to meter Internet services sold through resellers with additional fees.

The CRTC approval of this form of usage based billing (UBB) is raising the overall Internet costs for consumers to upto 50% of the current costs.

According to an article on the MyCE (My Consumer Electronics) Website, the RIAA ( Recording Industry Association of America) and the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) have recruited Mastercard to "govern" the Internet.

According to the article, Mastercard will in essence stop payments made to websites who the RIAA and MPAA claim to violate their copyrights. While technically this can all be done according to the law, it seems to be a big issue of anti-trust and at least violation of due process.

The Inquirer has currently, due to Nokia's patent suit against Apple, an Internet poll asking people about their opinion about patents.

Certainly, everybody knows that such such surveys are not scientifically based and the Inquirer probably attracts a log on anti-patent crowds. However, it is still interesting that only 4% selected to answer with the true reason that patents have been originally enacted (and it is still the only reason for given the US Congress the power to enact such legislation), namely to create an environment for innovation.

As described in this Wall Street Journal article and many others on the Internet, the FCC is planning to stronger regulate the Internet in the future. There will be an important vote this week, and a lot of Democratic politicians are leaning on the democratic members of the FCC board to vote for the proposal of its chairman.

There are also strives by several countries - China, Brazil, South Africa and others to give the UN oversight over the Internet. Other countries - Australia, Germany, and currently the UK - have discussed or are discussing legislation that would allow censorship of the Internet for their own citizens.

What effect will this have to the common Internet user or Open Democracy, Open Source/FLOSS or other open projects on the Internet?