News

Tweeting the Election Results: The Canada Elections Act and Social Media

Twitter has been buzzing for the past day over an Elections Canada reminder that the Canada Elections Act restricts transmitting election results when the polls remain open in parts of the country and that the restrictions apply in all media, including broadcasting, the Internet and social media. The specific provision […]

April 21, 2011 — 8 comments — News

Digital Locks Emerge As Election Issue in Battleground Riding

Digital locks emerged as one of the first issues discussed last night in one of Canada’s most hotly contested ridings. An all-candidates debate in Kitchener -Waterloo, home of RIM and one of the closest ridings in the 2008 election, moved quickly to a discussion of digital locks and the “PlayBook […]

April 20, 2011 — 57 comments — News

Comparing the Political Parties on Arts Policy

The Canadian Conference of the Arts has posted an excellent summary of political party views on arts and culture issues, including copyright. The CCA received responses from all parties other than the Conservatives. It confirms that the NDP support new culture contributions payments from over-the-top services such as Netflix and […]

April 20, 2011 — 2 comments — News

Liberals on C-32’s Digital Lock Rules

Liberal Marc Garneau, who served on the C-32 committee and as the party’s Industry critic, issued a tweet last night that provided the clearest statement yet on the Liberal support for reform to the digital lock rules. Garneau stated: “Liberals believe Copyright Bill C-32 must be amended to allow digital […]

April 20, 2011 — 2 comments — News

OECD Broadband Rankings: Canada Ranks 28th out of 33 Countries Based on Bell, Rogers & Shaw Data

The OECD published its latest comparative broadband Internet data last week, confirming yet again that Canadian consumers pay more for less when it comes to Internet access. While some will undoubtedly claim that the OECD methodology is faulty, it should be noted that the data is provided to OECD member governments before publication. For this survey, the OECD focused on three of Canada’s largest ISPs – Bell, Shaw, and Rogers – covering 18 of their offerings at a range of speeds and pricing points.

The focus should be on the numbers, which tell a discouraging tale. Among the findings on price of Internet services (all as of September 2010):

Speed	Rank
Overall	28th out of 33
Below 2.5 Mbps	17th out of 24
Between 2.5 an 15 Mbps	28th out of 33
Between 15 and 30 Mbps	29th out of 33
Over 45 Mbps	23rd out of 28