Showing posts with label David Graham. Show all posts
Showing posts with label David Graham. Show all posts

Sunday, June 16, 2019

Importance of GOSSIP and David Graham (MP for Laurentides—Labelle)

(Photo from recent GOSLING gathering copied from tweet by Mike Gifford.  Mike is sitting beside MP David Graham in the top-right, and I'm sitting beside John Hall on the bottom-right)


In May of 2002 I was one of the co-founders of what became known as GOSLING (Getting Open Source Logic INto Governments).  While many participants were focused on how the government creates/distributes and uses FLOSS (Free/Libre and Open Source Software), my primary concern was in how the government regulated software.

Starting in the summer of 2001 when the government launched the consultations towards that copyright section 92 report until copyright bill C-11 passed in 2012, I spent a considerable amount of time talking to parliamentarians, attending all committee meetings studying the bill, and giving public talks on copyright focused on the regulation of software and hardware.

During that time I fairly regularly had people come up to me and ask if they could financially support me, or if I would ever consider running for office so that they would have a representative in parliament.

Having members of our community in parliament would be towards GOSSIP (Getting Open Source and Standards Into Parliament).


We currently have a situation far better than me trying to get elected, which is someone from the FLOSS technology community who is fluently bilingual, a much better public speaker, and has  an intimate understanding of parliamentary process from prior experience: David Graham (follow him on Twitter)

Shortly after his election he was written about on SlashDot, referencing a video of him talking tech in committee.  With OpenParliament.ca it is possible to subscribe to get an email notice whenever he speaks in parliament, and I've been following his house and committee participation closely over the years.

If you were wondering why the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology report on copyright was so much better than what we've seen in other committees (Industry or Heritage, including in previous years), you only need to notice David's name as an active participant in that study.


For the partisans who support other parties, please note that I'm not endorsing any particular party.  The backward-facing report from Heritage committee is just as much a Liberal party report as the report from Industry as the party makeup of the committees are the same.  My experience has been in this area of policy that there are greater differences between the views of people on Heritage committee and those on Industry committee than between the political parties.

I am strongly endorsing David Graham, and hope that other non-partisans like myself or partisans from the FLOSS community will endorse and help ensure David is re-elected in the October federal election.  Even if you don't live in his riding there are other ways to help.

Please consider donating (Ensure riding is set to Laurentides—Labelle) before and during the election campaign.

Monday, August 29, 2016

MP Meetings: David Graham and David Lametti

I've met a few dozen federal MPs so far, and given how important technology law is to me I am always wanting to be introduced to and meet with more.  This is why I was so happy when I heard that a very technology savvy MP was going to be joining us for a GOSLING gathering on April 15th this year.

This was David Graham (Laurentides — Labelle) about the only Canadian MP I've heard being spoken of highly on SlashDot as this is a person already well known in the Linux and FLOSS community.  As technology literacy of politicians is a huge problem (it is what allowed most discussions around the "paracopyright" part of Canada's Copyright law to sound more like a scene from Harry Potter than actual science and technology), I was so happy to be meeting someone who would understand these issues.


When I went to introduce myself, David asked me what I was doing.  Demonstrating what makes him a good politician he explained that he knew me well, and reminded me of the various times we had already met in the past (on a variety of different policies, and even in a social context of when my sister-in-law worked for the Liberal party).  Having a good memory for people is an important part of being a politician, and it is great to see someone who both has the technical know-how as well as those important social skills.

This was something new for me -- meeting with a sitting MP that I met before they were an MP, and that was already actively working on some of the areas of policy that most concern me.

David and his staff invited me to an informal gathering for April 18 to meet with visitors from Sweden's Digitalization Commission. who were in town for a conference. David wouldn't be able to be there himself, but there would be another MP, staff from both MPs offices, as well as Canadian representatives from other parts of the public and private sector.

I was again pleasantly surprised to realize that I had already met Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade David Lametti (LaSalle—Émard—Verdun). He had written chapters for In the Public Interest: The Future of Canadian Copyright Law and From "Radical Extremism" to "Balanced Copyright" : Canadian Copyright and the Digital Agenda, and I attended the book launch for (and owned copies of) both books.  Mr. Lametti was already familiar with my particular stance on Paracopyright law.


Both David's are part of a Digital Caucus made up of Liberal MPs and staff.  I hope to meet with them and other caucus members in the future.  There are so many issues to be discussed: while Paracopyright is the issue that dragged me to being so involved with federal politics, the issue this summer is online voting (which if implemented in our current level of digital literacy would become an unaccountable proxy voting system where software vendors would decide the outcome of elections).