[kwlug-disc] Parliament adjourned ... bills dead (again!)?

[Paul Nijjar]

On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 04:43:02PM -0400, Adam Glauser wrote:
>
> My thought is this: There were many groups representing  
> industries/constituencies important to our region which spoke out  
> against the problematic TPM protections in C-32. I'm thinking of groups  
> like national student, teacher, library and software/technology  
> organizations.  A good question would be, given the concerns of these  
> groups, what does the candidate intend to do to ensure that these  
> concerns are addressed in future legislation?
>

So I have been thinking about this. I disagree with Russell that
individuals matter much, at least for our ridings. At the same time it
would definitely be helpful to make sure our potential MPs have this
on their agendas. 

I am not sure there is a useful way to ask a candidate a question
during an all-candidates meeting and get a useful response. Certainly
if you frame the question as a FLOSS supporter you are likely to get
an answer that consists of FLOSS-friendly murmurs. 

So what can we do?  I am interested in finding out a few things: 
- Is this person actually an ally for FLOSS?
- Does this person know anything about the issues involved? 

I also know that these candidates are not people, but politicians.
They are out to get votes -- often (but not always) yours. So here are
two approaches that might yield useful information: 

0. Be completely neutral in your wording: "What are your opinions on
the advantages and disadvantages of Bill C-32 -- the new Copyright
Act? Please be specific."

1. Take the opposite approach to copyright and see whether the
politician takes the bait: "The last government released a bill which
makes piracy legal. What will your government do to protect the rights
of content creators from this kind of piracy?"

I don't know whether either of these ideas is any good, but that's
what I have so far. Thoughts?

Also: if you are looking for all-candidates information (and responses
to surveys) for your riding then you might check out
http://www.wonderfulwaterloo.com . These guys were the best source of
municipal election info last year, and I will be posting whatever
all-candidate meeting information I find to that site. 

- Paul 

-- 
http://pnijjar.freeshell.org