Harper promoting Liberal Brand as: A vote for the Liberals is a vote for Harper

The most important aspect of this years Canadian Federal Election campaign is the fact that Canada is still using an antiquated horse-and-buggy electoral system known as First Past the Post.  Under this unfair and divisive system a politician does not need to have the support of a majority of constituents, they only need to divide and conquer the opposition.

Harper's election campaign has been clear from the start: promote the Liberal brand and Justin Trudeau as if it were the "opposite" of the Harper brand.  This way voters who agree with Harper will stick with Harper, but those who oppose will go to the Liberals which is Harper's second choice.

Harper will promote the Liberals for a number of strategic reasons:

• The Bill C-51 vote demonstrates that the Liberals are weak in opposition, and they can be trivially frightened by "you are with us, or with the terrorists" style rhetoric.  Harper knows that both Thomas Mulcair and Elizabeth May are adult and more seasoned politicians who aren't going to be so trivially manipulated.
• Under the current voting system the Liberals split the opposition vote, which is the most effective way for a Conservative party member to win.  Harper realizes that there are only a few ridings where the Conservatives have the support of a majority, and he must prop up the Liberals in order for the Conservatives to win over the NDP or Greens in most ridings.
• Without Harper's active promotion of the Liberal brand, more Canadians might notice the polls of other Canadians and realize that it is the NDP that are more likely to win against Harper. In Alberta it was the NDP that dethroned the Progressive Conservative party, with the Liberals nowhere to be found.
• Harper wants less engaged voters to believe nothing has changed in recent decades. He wants people to either vote Liberal or (no longer Progressive) Conservative, as had been the case for decades. This distracts people not only about the changes in other parties federally (Growth of center-left NDP, and center-right Green), but the radical differences between the Progressive Conservative party and the Harper Conservative party.

I can only prey that Canadians become engaged in this election, and not fall for Harper's trap.

• If you don't like Harper's policies, then stay away from Justin Trudeau and the Liberals as they would make a very weak official opposition or government.
• Don't trust the Liberals who claim that you need to vote for them to avoid splitting the vote and allow someone else in.  It is the Liberal candidates that split the vote, and who if they were really concerned would be saying something very different (Lets start with not sabotaging attempts in Ontario and BC to modernize away from the antiquated system which creates the "vote splitting" problem)
• Please pay attention, and realize that between the Liberals and the NDP it is the NDP in the lead.  If your choice is between candidates from those parties, then don't split the vote by voting Liberal.
• If you were a supporter of the Progressive Conservative party, please recognize that the Harper Conservatives are a very different brand.  As a past member of the federal PC party, and as someone who voted in federal PC leadership races, I do not recognize myself in the Harper Conservative brand.  No self-respecting conservative Canadian should support Harper's intrusive big-government policies such as we see with C-51 : who needs a long-gun registry when far more information about all of us will be freely shared between government departments for purposes we all know will have nothing to do with "terrorism".  Harper has duped you if you believed the rhetoric he abused in debates around the long-gun registry or the long-form census.

Ontario Municipal Elections Act Review - Ranked Ballots!

The following is a cut-and-paste of my comments on the Ranked Ballots part of the Ontario municipal elections act review.

As you can tell, I am excited by the possibility as I believe ranked ballots for either single or multi member districts is the best option for municipalities.  This is a system that fixes the flaws in the antiquated first-past-the-post system which creates the concept of "vote splitting" and encourages negative campaigning (and thus more negative and less effective government).

It also doesn't encourage political parties to form at the municipal level, a flaw that some of the so-called "proportional" systems would encourage. Whenever we hear the word "proportional" we need to ask "proportional to what".  If it is proportional to the support a voter has for a political party, this grants more power to political parties in the system. Additional power to political parties has its own harmful effects which we also need to be minimizing.

I have an additional concern, which is that we need to avoid allowing incumbent politicians having undue influence on whether a municipality modernizes to a ranked ballot.  We already saw incumbent politicians sabotaging referendum in Ontario and BC.  Incumbent politicians who were dependent on flaws in the current system to win will oppose (publicly, or subversively) modernization that would close that loophole.

What are your thoughts on using ranked ballots for Ontario municipal elections?	I am excited. It is something I have been dreaming of since I first became aware of the fact that Canada was so far behind the rest of the world, and that it was our antiquated voting system that caused "vote splitting" and the negative campaigning.
Should municipalities be able to use ranked ballots for certain offices and not others? For example, only for mayor?	No. It should be usable for any single or multi-member position.
Should public consultation by a municipality be required before implementing ranked ballots or before changing from ranked ballots back to the current system?	No. This would allow the incumbents of that municipality who might be dependent on the legacy system to sabotage the consultation.
What form should that consultation take?	If there must be a consultation or referendum, then the incumbent politicians should have little or no say in the process. Education around the system needs to be independently funded, so that incumbents cant sabotage the process through under-funding education.
Unlike the current system, ranked ballots can involve multiple rounds of counting before all the seats to be elected have been won.
How much information would you want about election results? For example, where there have been multiple rounds of counting would you want to see the results of each round of counting or just the final results?	I would personally want access to full anonymised data. This isn't different than what I would want for the current system, but am unaware that level of data being released.
There are a number of other important decisions that the province will need to consider when determining how ranked ballots could work in Ontario. Throughout this review we will be consulting with Ontarians, municipalities and experts on ranked ballots to help us make these decisions.
Are there other ideas you wish to share on ranked ballots that you would like us to consider?	Suggest to municipalities that implementation be gradual. For instance, move to a ranked ballot for existing positions first before moving towards creating multi-member positions which didn't already exist. Change is hard for people, and it would be unfortunate if a too large change caused people to want to go backward.

The Federal Liberals have excluded themselves from consideration in future elections

Last evening I wrote the following to David McGuinty, my MP in Ottawa South.

I am disappointed at the decision you and other Liberals made on C-51.  While I have voted for you multiple times in the past, I am now put in a position of no longer being able to do so.

While the Harper Conservatives promote the idea that the next election will be between them and the Liberals, the Liberals stand too close on the most important issues for that to hold any truth.  

If we had electoral reform it wouldn't matter as much, but given we don't I will need to spend the next election campaigning to ensure those who don't want to split the vote must keep away from Liberals.

It won't be anything against you personally. The "lawful access" aspects of C-51 are so bad I simply can't vote for anyone who voted for it.

For anyone who does not know me, I should put this letter in context.  I am not a participant in armchair politics, where I sit there at home or with close friends complaining about the world. I get involved.   I first met with David McGuinty before was first elected to federal politics, have had several meetings (on Parliament Hill and in his constituency office), and have voted for him in several federal elections since.  I also met with Justin Trudeau before he became leader of the federal Liberals.

Federally I have been a member of, and voted in the leadership races for, the Progressive Conservative Party and the Green Party of Canada.   I have voted for David McGuinty of the Liberals a few times, and I have made financial contributions to the constituency offices of a few NDP MPs and candidates.  While I don't believe in so-called "strategic voting" to circumvent the failings of First Past the Post (I believe in electoral modernization), I do avoid blind partisanship and will be strategic in my support (or opposition) to candidates and parties for what I consider to be the greater long-term good.


While C-51 has many parts, the most controversial are the parts that should be lumped together with any other so-called "lawful access" proposal.  This is the irrational and emotionally driven policy that suggests the world is extremely scary, except for those few who choose to become part of police and intelligence forces which have none of the faults of the mortals in the rest of the scary world.  This leads to suggestions that the world, including the general population, should be monitored and scrutinized in great detail -- essentially a very Orwellian world where privacy and individuality can't exist.  This mass surveillance is carried out by police and intelligence agencies which, not being made up of humans, can be blindly trusted with these surveillance and database mining powers with minimal or no monitoring or scrutinizing.

While people can rant and rave until their faces turn red all they want about the need for such things to allegedly "protect" themselves from this scary world, that is all it is: emotionally driven ranting which doesn't pass the most basic scrutinizing by a calm rational person.  Many calm rational people have explained what is wrong with this policy and any proposals to implement it for many generations, so I don't need to repeat at this time my support of those rational thinkers.


While some political parties will try to distract us with campaign slogans and empty rhetoric, I believe the decisions around C-51 are at a defining level for what it means to be a Canadian, and should form the basis of our choices in the upcoming federal election.

The Harper Conservatives continuously promote the idea that the next election will be some sort of horse race between them and the Justin Liberals.  I believe this is self-serving nonsense on the part of Harper.  With C-51 the Liberal caucus stood so close to Harper that it was hard to differentiate them from any other powerless Harper Conservative back-bencher.  It is to the benefit of Harper if the official "opposition" agrees with them on the most substantial issues, and they can then carry out public theatre on the less important policies.  While Harper's first choice is obviously that people vote for his Conservative party, his second choice is that people vote for the Liberal party.

While there are obviously differences between these parties, those differences are not any greater than what existed between the Progressive Conservative and Reform party before they went through their multi-year dance towards merger (or annexation as those of us who supported the progressive arm of the Progressive Conservatives felt).  Maybe we can call this the multi-decade dance of the Canadian Reform Alliance Liberal Party (CRALP rather than CRAP?)

While 2000 was the last year the federal Progressive Conservative party ran candidates, 2015 might be the last year the federal Liberal party runs candidates.  If their 34 seats are reduced below the 12 seats for official party status, I hope the party will decide to let their candidates move to more appropriate parties and not stand in the way of a more honest choices in Canadian federal politics.  I can think of a few Liberal candidates that clearly belong in other parties, including moving to the Conservative, Green and NDP caucus (I don't think either the Bloc or Forces et Démocratie have much of a future, and are more like the Liberals and splintering off into oblivion).

With Alberta returning a Majority NDP government, we again have proof that change is possible in Canada.  If you are like I am that lives in one of those 34 ridings that returned a Liberal last election, and possibly for many decades before, it is time to recognize that it is time for a change and that the Liberal brand can't offer that change.   I'm not suggesting what alternative people vote for, including those who actually support the Harper Conservatives, but suggesting that the Liberals aren't a useful alternative.


I hope that this will end once and for all the "Anyone But ..." campaigns federally, or talk of electoral cooperation between other parties and the Liberals.  Voting Liberal can not be strategic for someone who actually believes "Anyone But Conservative".   I recognize this is not the case in provincial politics, given the "Anyone But NDP" in BC means voting for the "free enterprise coalition" between the Liberals and Conservatives (which confusingly uses the Liberal brand name, rather than Progressive Conservative or some other more clear branding).

Where does "Television" fit on the "Information Superhighway"?

Policy makers during much of the 1990's liked to use the phrase "Information Superhighway", trying to make an analogy between transportation technology and communications technology. With all the recent talk about the future of Canadian television, I started thinking about analogies between transportation and our video distribution systems.

Walking could be compared to over the air terrestrial transmission, which can't reach very far and can be thought of as the beginning of our transportation and video distribution journey.

Riding animals was our next step for transportation, which in my mind is analogous to the creation of Cable, Satellite, and related "Broadcast Distribution Undertakings" (BDU).  We had some choice over what animal to ride, and we could get a bit further, but we were still moving slowly.

Riding carts pulled by animals might be seen as the next step for transportation, analogous to BDUs going digital with BDU technology dependent set-top boxes.  We may not be sitting directly on the animal any more, which gives some advantages, but we were still powered by the animals and all the limitations and costs that came with them.

One of the many steps for transportation which shared roads was the electric car, which might be analogous to the legitimate over-the-top (OTT) video distribution systems like Netflix and YouTube (I wrote elsewhere in this blog why I don't consider Shomi, CraveTV or FibeTV to be legitimate). Like the 1890s where there was an attempt to ban electric cars because they scared the horses, there is an attempt by the BDUs, the companies they own, and their allies, to ban or regulate/tax out of existence the legitimate OTT services.

While there was a ban on electric cars, transportation technology still advanced to the present where we have automobiles, trucks, buses and a variety of other vehicles, powered by a variety of means, all using common road infrastructure.  While people still walk, and still ride horses, these are not considered viable options for longer distances except in very rare circumstances.

There are potentials with video distribution as well, with OTT technologies finally properly enabling the ability of neutral video distribution services to harness the much faster advancements in telecommunication technology. We can see a future where there is an open marketplace for creators and audiences to connect, if only we are all able to break free of all the arbitrary barriers put on these transactions by the legacy BDUs.

So - where do we go from here?  While some bemoan the lack of the flying cars that science fiction promised we would have by the early 2000's, I think we have legitimate reason to complain far more loudly at how far back we seem to be in video distribution technology.  Will we allow the modern day equivalents of horseshoe and whip makers, and others that feel tied to outmoded technologies, to delay the inevitable advancement in video distribution technology?

I hold it as a matter of pride that I am not a subscriber to a BDU, and that I am able to practice what I believe in this area of policy.  Government manipulations of the marketplace to protect outmoded companies from free market competition denies such choice in other areas.

Ontario Government intervention in Over the Top video policy discussions

I sent the following to my MP and Ontario MPP, after reading a few articles on Michael Geist's blog about Ontario’s Campaign for a Netflix Tax. For me this isn't about price, as I believe I get good value for money from Netflix and wouldn't mind paying more. For me this is a question of fairness, with the Ontario government having naive, counterproductive, and outrageously backwards ideas of what constitutes fairness in this area of policy.

I recommend other people in Ontario write to their MPPs and MPs on this issue.

---

To: John Fraser (MPP) and David McGuinty (MP),

I am a constituent of Ottawa South, sending this to both my MPP and my MP as this area of policy has considerable Federal-Provincial overlap.  Please forward to the relevant ministers and government departments as appropriate.  This should include the Ontario Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport and his Deputy Minister.  The Deputy Minister has already made some of his views on this area of policy known.

The growth of modern communications technologies such as those using the Internet Protocol includes the growth of what is often called "Over The Top" (OTT) video services.  These are services which make use of existing telecommunications infrastructure and standards, and run "over the top" of them such that they finally become neutral to the underlying communications technology.  OTT services are able to be delivered to us wired and wirelessly, over copper and fiber, and will be neutral to any other telecommunications technology we will dream up in the future.

With this technological advancement comes appropriate calls for regulation of these services.  Unfortunately the contribution to this debate by the Ontario government has thus far been naive and counterproductive.

While there are a wide variety of  options in this marketplace, I tend to group them into two classes:  true OTT services which are neutral to both communications service provider and technology,, and services which tie the ability to purchase the OTT service to a specific brand or subsets of brands of communications services.

The first group of legitimate OTT services include Netflix, YouTube, and some of the websites of Canadian broadcasters which allow streaming of content over the full range of Internet access service offerings in Canada.

The second group of services, which I believe should be declared illegal under Section 77 of Canada's Competition Act, related provisions under Canada's Telecommunications Act, and likely the Copyright Act (some copyright exceptions that legalized BDUs don't apply to OTT), include Shomi (Rogers, Shaw), CraveTV (Bell), and Fibe TV (Bell).

The harm of allowing this tied selling between content delivery services and specific brands of communications services cannot be underestimated.  The best way to protect the interests of Canadian creators and their audiences is to enable and protect an open marketplace that minimizes commercial barriers between these two groups.  Canadians who wish to access and pay for content made by fellow Canadians should not have intermediaries blocking their transactions.  One of the greatest advancements in communications technology for the benefit of these groups has been the growth of the Internet and neutral communications technologies.

The greatest threat to creators and their audiences is attempts by legacy communications technology providers to block or otherwise delay this distribution technology neutrality.  Government should take special care with proposals from people alleging to represent creators who suggest the welfare of creative sectors are tied to specific distribution brands, as evidence suggests they are under a form of Stockholm syndrome.  These individuals are not putting forward the interests of creators, but the interests of the intermediaries which represent their greatest threat.  Reading the Ontario government submission to the CRTC's "Let's Talk TV" consultation suggests it was authored by or on behalf of people with this harmful point of view.

I believe the primary objective of OTT service regulation should be to further foster and protect content distribution neutrality.  As with other policy goals there are a wide variety of policy levers that can be harnessed.

CRTC chair Jean-Pierre Blais has recently announced decisions  that suggest that agency will be appropriately targeting non-neutral OTT services like Shomi and CraveTV with additional regulatory obligations than what will be required of neutral OTT services (CRTC 2015-86).  While Steven Davidson, Deputy Minister, Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport, called for the reverse, I hope that the Ontario government will reverse its regulatory direction and help promote a healthy modern video content sector.

A small sampling of proposals:

* The companies that own the non-neutral OTT services have been the beneficiaries of many decades or longer of grants, tax breaks, government granted monopolies, and in some cases public infrastructure handouts.  One small way to help level the playing field is to provide directed content production grants to new entrants, encouraging original content by neutral OTT services to be produced in Ontario and Canada. These grants should not be available to non-neutral OTT services, their owners, or companies owned by their owners.

* Any existing government grants and programs which support content creation, whether audio/visual, audio, multimedia, text or otherwise, should be conditioned on the outputs being made available to citizens in a distribution neutral way.  Content which would be exclusively licensed to specific distribution mechanisms, including OTA, BDU (Cable/Satellite), or non-neutral OTT services would not qualify for these programs.

* Any proposals or promotions of a "Netflix tax", "YouTube Tax" or similar counterproductive proposals should be clearly revoked both publicly and in any behind-the-scenes lobbying.  Anyone who is honestly looking for a level playing field between neutral OTT and non-neutral OTT services should recognize that it is the non-neutral OTT services which have had decades of unfair government granted advantage which should be reversed.  Far from a "tax" on neutral services, there should be additional government grants for neutral services.  I don't  propose a tax on non-neutral services as I believe the CRTC and the Competition Bureau should declare these services unlawful and force them to become neutral services or shut down.

* While traditional CanCon is not a provincial responsibility, I believe there is a place for provincial involvement if CanCon rules are finally modernized and adjusted for the current content distribution reality.  The strength of CanCon rules should reflect the level of intermediary editorial control.   Services where Canadians are free to choose what they access from a large catalog with minimal intermediary interference should have a minimum of regulation, while services that have greater intermediary editorial control should have stronger regulation.  I don't believe CanCon should apply to Netflix or YouTube, but strongly believe this regulation applies to traditional OTA and BDU broadcasting.  I believe CanCon should also apply to a growing class of physical retailers like Walmart which through display and stocking choices have effective editorial control.

Thank you, and I look forward to a reply.  I apologize for the length of the letter, but this is an area of policy that is too complex for soundbites.  The health of the neutral network sector is of great importance to me as both a consumer and as someone who works in the Internet sector.  This is part of a larger area of policy I watch closely, and is one that greatly influences my voting and related political choices.

Russell McOrmond

305 Southcrest Private,

Ottawa, ON

K1V 2B7

http://www.flora.ca/#contact

Tough on criminals and terrorists, but soft of crime and terrorism

Out of interest I subscribe to the email mailing lists of all 4 Canadian parties with members in the house of Commons (I have no interest in the Quebec-only parties).  While there is nothing unexpected in the mailings from the Greens, Liberals and NDP, I find the messaging from the Harper Conservatives to be surprising.  In their choice of parliamentary activity to highlight, and the language they use, they come off as excessively emotional, immature and naive.

I could quote specific examples from mailings, legislation and media, but I suspect we have all seen it.

There seems to be no recognition that there is a difference between being tough on crime and terrorism is very different than being tough on criminals and terrorists.  There seems to be a simplistic focus on punishment rather than looking into the reasons why people commit acts which are put under these labels.  There also seems to be an ever increasing list of activities which are being put under these labels, with more and more otherwise law abiding citizens fearing that their legitimate political activities might be captured by these labels.

Canadian society, like any other, is complex and the solutions to complex problems within our society will themselves be complex.  This is not what we are seeing from the Harper Government.

There seems to be no recognition that police officers are human beings.  Within the ranks of Canadian society there are a small percentage which will carry out activities which fall under the label of illegal, criminal or worse.  Contrary to the language used and policies promoted by the Harper Conservatives, the same is true of the Canadians who are employed by the various types of police, security and military agencies.  While there might be more scrutiny of the employees of these agencies than for most other jobs, there is also more exposure to a wide variety of scenarios that would entice them to harmful activities (bribery, increased power which corrupts, often seeing and having to engage with the worst of society, etc).

With the subjective language used around terrorism (which sometimes seems like we are headed towards "thought crime"), more and more power is being granted to police and security agencies that can be abused to harm otherwise law abiding Canadians.

The reality is that for the same reason why we need police forces to protect society from that minority which would disrupt it, we need to restrict the power of the police and must police the police to protect society from that minority which would disrupt us all.  The Harper Government has a blind trust of police forces and security services, naively believing that giving these agencies access to more information about Canadians without court or other oversight is not itself a harm to Canadians.  This puts information of ordinary law abiding Canadians in the hands of individuals within these agencies that can and will abuse this information.

The naive and harmful policy is the same whether we are talking about so-called "lawful access", so-called anti-terrorism laws, or so called "tough on crime" bills.

I find it both sad and ironic that the same Harper Government which cancelled the long form census (IMO incorrectly) claiming that there were privacy concerns has been ignoring the legitimate privacy concerns of Canadians when it comes to information collected by government agencies which are far more likely to abuse this information.


Terrorism is the use or threat of violence for political aims.  The purpose is to disrupt society towards those political aims.   It is hard for me not to feel like the Harper Government is disrupting Canadian society by ignoring legitimate privacy interests, granting inadequately policed powers to police and security agencies, and through the politics of fear making people feel less safe.   While the violence is not their own, it appears to me that the Harper Government is using the violence and threats of violence of others for their own political aims.   While I believe governments must protect their citizens from terrorism, I feel that what we have been seeing from the Harper Government is counter productive.

Samsung, the Harper Government, and Technology Property Rights

I have found the media attention around the recognition that manufacturers like Samsung can spy on technology owners to be interesting. After decades of misunderstanding, ignoring, misdirecting or actively lobbying against owners on this issue, the media is finally reporting one of many examples of the issue.

While some are starting to discuss complex and expensive regulation to manage some of the worst symptoms of this problem, I still believe that fully recognizing and legally protecting technology property rights is the most effective solution. Unfortunately the Harper Government has thus far been opposed to property rights, so it might be an uphill battle to solve the problem in Canada.

Fundamentally the problem is that technology is obeying the instructions of a third party, rather than those of the owner. These instructions exist in the form of software, so it needs to be the owner and not a third party who chooses what software is executed on any hardware they own.

Most technology owners are not software authors, so it is not enough to protect the rights of owners to author their own software. Owners must have the right to choose software authors they trust, and be able to hire this trusted software vendor to replace the software running on their hardware. Some owners may trust the hardware vendor, and will leave the technology the same way it came. This should be their choice, not something imposed on them by the government.

We can only effectively protect our rights as long as third parties are not allowed to condition the supply of a product or service on us waiving our property rights, something that was recognized and included in our federal privacy legislation as it relates to our privacy rights.

That is 3 conditions required to protect the most basic of property rights for technology owners

1. That owners have the right to author software to control devices which they own
   
2. That owners have the right to make their own choices of software authored by others
   
3. That the provision of a product or service cannot be condition on an owner waiving either of the above two rights.
   

For the hundreds of Canadians who already signed it, these conditions will sound familiar from the Petition to protect Information Technology Property Rights. That petition was created during the process leading up to the passage of a copyright bill, with statutory monopolies like copyright often being abused to justify direct and contributory infringements of our technology property rights.

1. By far the largest barrier to owners authoring their own software come in the form of statutory monopolies on interfaces, including interface copyright and software patents. While there is a minority who believe that all statutory monopolies are somehow good, proper economic analysis has recognized that the harm to the economy and rights of citizens of these types of statutory monopolies greatly outweigh the alleged (but never demonstrated) benefits. Some Governments have specifically excluded interfaces from copyright protection, such as within the European Union (Council Directive 91/250/EEC of 14 May 1991 on the legal protection of computer programs)
   
2. The right of technology owners to choose software written by the authors of their own choosing is all too often denied by device manufacturers who apply locks on devices which disable owners from making that choice. This is coupled with laws, such as the technological protection measures aspect of the Harper Government's so-called "balanced" copyright bill C-11 which many believe protects these anti-owner locks. The law should be modernized to clarify that not only are these non-owner locks not legally protected under any legislation (including, but not limited to copyright), but that they are clearly prohibited.
   
3. The Harper Government's C-11 is also presumed to legally protect techniques such as encrypted media where copyrighted content is encrypted, and keys are only provided to providers of hardware and software which have anti-owner locks. This is a clear example of conditioning the ability to pay for copyrighted works on technology owners waiving their property rights, a scheme that should be clearly legally prohibited.
   

(Also published on the Digital Copyright Canada blog)