a cross-post from the Arcadian Recorder:
Looming Digital Copyright/DRM/Net Neutrality/Privacy Law changes have a way of making all of Canada's citizens feel a bit like a criminal, if they dare try anything out of the ordinary on the internet.
Citizens , 'voters' in politico-speak, want their say on these issues - in person and in depth, just like 'the suits' are used to.
By and large, they aren't getting that chance.
The government's claim that it would be more open on this round of proposed amendments to the Copyright Law finally boiled down to a total of two token town hall meetings with the public.
The two, one in Montreal and one in Toronto, only drew flies - and were designed to do just that.
Halifax got only a particularly one-sided private industry roundtable with Industry Minister Clement.
Now the Dalhousie Student Union and the local access-for-all internet provider, Chebucto, are about to hold a real town hall in Halifax.
The keynote speaker is Pippa Lawson of CIPPIC, who some have called 'the citizen's bulldog' , because of the David versus Goliath stand she and her little band of law students have taken against the federal government time and again to force them to do what the law demands they do.
It was Pippa and CIPPIC students whose complaint to the federal privacy commissioner forced the commissioner to move against Facebook over privacy concerns - a case that had had global implications.
DSU and Chebucto expect 600 to attend - not bad considering the GTA of Toronto is about twenty times as big as metro Halifax and Clement's own town hall in Toronto only got 300 people out and the town hall in Montreal drew 100.
The venue is the Dal Student's fabled McInnes Room, a hall that has hosted just about every PM and political leader in Canada at some time or other over the last 41 years.
If an election call does happen in the next little while, the date of their town hall, October 26th,could fall right in the election period .
Interesting, because if any one issue is likely to get the non-voting youth out in droves at the ballot box, it would be the thought that the government is about to make it easy to send young people to jail for downloading tunes off Bit Torrent.
Critics charge that the Harper Tories are choking innovation and any chance at creating new interesting jobs for young people when they propose regressive copyright changes that only shield dinosaur industries from having to face new digital realities.
Just imagine : an election fought over fostering innovation, with the Conservatives on the 'nay' side.
Could be interesting...
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