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Van Loan Seeking to Centralize Conservative Copyright Message

Sources indicate that staff from Conservative Government House Leader Peter Van Loan spent the morning calling MPs to ensure that they forward correspondence from constituents on copyright to Industry Minister Jim Prentice's office.  MPs were advised that the call was designed to ensure that Canadians receive the Conservative media lines when they write to complain about the Canadian DMCA.  The strategy reinforces two points – (i) the government's focus remains on how to communicate the bill, rather than on its substance and (ii) it fully expects a consumer backlash against the bill and is prepping its response.

16 Comments

  1. Abattoir says:

    I find it very troubling that the gov’t fully realizes how incredibly unpopular this bill is going to be for many people, but they don’t want to take their concerns seriously. Placate the masses, confuse them with contradictory messages and political spin by confusing it with ‘counterfeiting’ and fake Chinese pharmaceuticals, but don’t for a moment ever think that they might have a point worth considering…

  2. Van Loan
    As the head of the York Region Chapter of Fair Copyright for Canada, and a member of Mr. Van Loan’s constituency, I have e-mailed Mr. Van Loan several times with regards to this debate, and only received a canned Conservative response once from him back in January.

    He’s the only Conservative MP, and has been asked on behalf of his constituency not to support a bill with any consumer penalties on downloading content. If he rises in support of an unbalanced bill, he will likely be the only one out of the MP’s in York Region to do so.

    A few months back I received a response from Liberal MP Lu Temelkovski (Oak Ridges/Markham) who assured me that the Liberals will not support an unbalanced approach and looks forward to working with the government to ensure this bill is properly balanced.

    Mr. Van Loan need not be worried about how to communicate this bill nationally. I think it’s his seat that he should be worried about, since an unbalanced approach will leave him the “lone” ranger in our region supporting this bill (and will be seen as such by his own constituency), and he will have to do a lot of explaining in his own riding.

    Out of all the e-mails I’ve written in, it’s interesting I get more of a response from the Industry Ministry, and opposition MP’s then I do from my own elected member Mr. Van Loan. That’s not holding well with the people in his riding.

  3. there going to get it says:

    there going to get it
    there going to get it, there going to get it, there going to get it.
    hehe, this is what shal be the end of the neo con power in canada , all rejoice.
    The end is near.

  4. Let the reichwing propaganda games begin.
    It’s really too bad the tories don’t seem to realize the backlash that will happen with 20 somethings over this or the negative impact it is receiving with future voters. Or perhaps they do but big business goes further then the average voter.
    I noticed in the states today that the MPAA is looking to stop recordings of HD movies on HDTV by using DRM non-recording flags. The same flags Canadians will get under this bill.
    The tories will push the fact that the ACTA bill allows timeshifting, but will it really allow timeshifting when the network sets, by accident or on purpose, a “non-recording drm flag”. We’ve already seen this scenerio happen in the US.

  5. CYA
    i haven\’t voted in 17 years and guess what:
    A) conservatives won by only 3% here.
    B) i like bob rae , and liberal chances to really get ahead here(peterborough) ,
    C) the local conservative instead a creating jobs wants to build a train too toronto. By time its done there will be no work for anyone, so instead a doing that we need ot get manufacturing on track, lower the dollar and curb oil gouging.
    D) i highly doubt this will be popular in a city with a large unniversity population.
    YES HARPER I AM GOING TO CANVAS STUDENTS.
    even a marginal youth turnout will spell massive

    Destruction of the PC party, typically youth votes NDP or more so liberal( wishing to be on a winning side)

    Unless non commercial use is added we need to get them out of power and repeal and amend this MASSIVELY.
    ALSO you remember what happened to mulroney?
    He\’s a very popular guy. NEXT UP
    STEPHEN HARPER BRINGS DMCA TO CANADA, puts DISABLED MAN IN JAIL FOR LIFE FOR WATCHING A 30 YEAR OLD TV SERIES.

    yup thats my headline, guess i\’ll turn myself in and get at it.

  6. Larger question:
    There is a much larger question that begs to be asked: Does anyone believe it is only in the area of copyright policy and not all policy that this government operates in the shadows, in secret, and readily at the behest of foreign political and business interests?

    This appears to be a government unworthy of trust in any of its endeavours; one that abundantly demonstrates that it does not guard, defend or represent the interests of the Canadian people. This appears to be a government dangerous to Canada’s national sovereignty and identity and all its interests. Its ignominious reign must be ended as soon as possible and its members and memory relegated to nothing more than a small collective stain on the Canadian fabric.

  7. Jason: Unfortunately, there are few free votes in Parliament… Party discipline means that the MP is not voting to represent their constituents, they are voting to represent their party (or risk getting ejected from caucus like John Nunziata was). So, while Lu Temelkovski may have said one thing to you in his response, this may represent their personal inclination but not be indicative of the party’s inclination.

  8. Kevin is right
    MP\’s reperesent their party, not constituents.

    I have given up writing my MP, since I always get the form letter, \”Thank you for writing…..but I support my party….\” I don\’t think anyone in Ottawa even saw my letters over the years on anything.

    Perhaps it\’s better to write the US Congressmen that are on our side, since the US obviously has more voice in Ottawa than we do.

  9. Typical, everyday music lover says:

    Ah shux, I guess those days of free downloading are over. Oh well, it’s been a long, fun ride!

  10. What Now?
    Is there some way to go about organizing an ad campaign to let the canadians that aren\’t educated about what this bill really means. I know that in the states some groups set up online donation campaigns to run ads these political style ads.

    Is that allowed in Canada (I can\’t see why it wouldn\’t be, but I\’m no expert on anything related to this)? How could one set up something like that? – I imagine a web site would be needed, but I\’m not sure what else.

    Any thoughts anyone?

  11. Bytowner says:

    The role of the MP
    It’s increasingly clear that the doctrine of the New Conservatives is to demand that MPs represent the will of the Party to the people, not the will of the people to the Party. We exist to be maneuvered into voting them in on their terms of debate, full stop.

    I think there’s been some legislation to contain third-party ads during elections at the federal level, which the New Conservatives(or their Reform/Alliance ancestors) and their allies in the “Taxpayers’ Federation” objected to at the time it was passed.

    Now, though, the shoe may well be on the other foot…

  12. Secrecy and Chernobyl
    Operating in secrecy = recipe for disaster.

    Chernobyl is secrecy’s epic fail!

  13. F. Montana says:

    STOP SUPPORT
    May I suggest we begin supporting new ideas by new people who understand the value of the internet? Like new filmmakers, musicians, artists, writers, etc who understands digital marketable content as the new frontier for entertainment and education. Having restrictions only stifle progression in the digital era and so far the old dinosaurs are hanging on to old philosophies that seems to be outdated with the new crowd. I know I’m not the only one jaded with Hollywood movies that churn out the same old crap in new packaging. So I find indie filmmakers who come up with new ideas fresh and it’s available on the internet at no cost or donate what it may be worth to me. NiN and Radiohead took a chance and it was successful. May I suggest we STOP supporting anything under the MPAA and RIAA by not owning anything that’s wasn’t ours in the first place. Yup, we can buy a copy of a movie but it’s not ours and we paid for the license to watch it as well as having that package take up shelf space in our homes. But it may be hard for most who rely on Hollywood entertainment for a fix. So rental is a great option. In medieval times a knight was fighting this horrible dragon and was losing. He saw Merlin and asked for help. Merlin said if he wants to defeat the dragon and save his life all he has to do is stop believing in the dragon. Then it will go away. Maybe if we stop supporting a corporation who is willing to crush our Human Rights it will go away, too.

  14. Reform Party has died
    It’s a pity, this is precisely sort of thing that the Reform Party was founded to stop. The instant they merged with the conservatives, and politically they had to, Canada lost.

    /Votes left wing now, (mostly, but would switch for the correct party).
    //Expect the bill to come before Obama gets in, the game will change in unpredictable ways at that time so it’s coming soon.

  15. Parties
    Supposedly Reform took over the Regressive Conservatives. In reality the Regressive Conservatives co-opted Reform, and exterminate it. Which is really too bad. In one of the leadership debates Preston Manning said, “If you want change in Canada, you have to vote for either Reform or the New Democratic Party”. Well Preston, times change. Today if you want change, the only option is the Green Party, as the NDP appears to have become a Liberal Party recruiting organization.

  16. CDMCA, ACTA and Greek language reform
    “the government’s focus remains on how to communicate the bill, rather than on its substance”

    No, the government’s focus remains on how to smuggle American DMCA so that Canadians do not even notice.

    Speaking about ACTA leak, I noticed this in the “Guidelines and Suggested Amendments
    to the Greek Unicode Tables” by Yannis Haralambous:

    [ link ]

    On February 11, 1982, after midnight, the Greek Parlement ( that is, the 30 parlementaries that were present at that late hour) voted law 1228/1982, deprecating the use of breathings, grave and circumflex accent and mute iota. The way that law was presented at the Parlament is remarkably obscure: the title of the law is “Validation of the Presidential Act of 1981- 11- 11 about the inscription of pupils to Schools of General, Technical and Professional Education)”.

    And indeed, the first article of law 1228/1982 is the validation of a Presidential Act concerning pupils and schools. This article is 79 lines long. But, after that first completely innocent article, comes a second article, 9 lines long, saying:

    “After publication of this law, the accenting of the written Greek language
    will be done accordingly to the monotonic system.
    Presidential Decisions3 established by the minister of Education and Religious
    Matters, and the minister of Presidency will determine the nature of
    monotonic system, its rules and the details of its application to Education
    and Administration.”

    So, Canadians, take note about this. Prentice can try to sneak CDMCA overnight naming it something like ACTA!

    (and I thought before that the biggest mess with character sets was in Cyrillic…)