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Canadian NDP Leader Praises P2P Communities
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sun Oct 12, 2008 09:45 AM
from the need-something-to-do-between-hockey-games dept.
from the need-something-to-do-between-hockey-games dept.
newtley writes "The New Democrats' Jack Layton has become the first leader of a major Canadian political party to acknowledge the importance of the Internet during a federal election. He's using YouTube to carry his message specifically to the online community, launching it on P2Pnet. 'We don't want to see hidden fees and gouging and service slow-downs all in the interests of promoting the objectives of certain large corporations,' Layton says."
Other party members have also spoken out against increased internet regulation. We've been following the Canadian net neutrality debate for quite some time.
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Net Neutrality Debate Intensifies In Canada 163 comments
MrShaggy tips us to news that the debate over Net Neutrality in Canada is coming to the forefront following the recent discovery that Bell Canada was throttling P2P traffic on the access it had sold to wholesalers. Michael Geist's blog notes a video recording of comments from a member of the Canadian government, as well as coverage from Canadian media. From Ars Technica:
"The Canadian government has in the past pushed the CRTC to deregulate the telecom industry, an approach still backed by Minister of Industry Jim Prentice. Prentice also wants to stay out of the current net neutrality debate, which would seem to be a de facto vote against the idea. He was asked in the House of Commons this week whether his government would do anything about the current Bell/Rogers traffic-shaping controversy. According to the Globe & Mail, Prentice said only that "we will continue to leave the matter between consumers on the one hand and Internet service providers on the other."
[+]
Canadian DMCA Proposal About To Die 186 comments
An anonymous reader writes "Like the previous Bill C-60 before it, the proposed Bill C-61 that would bring DMCA-like laws to Canada is poised to die on the order table, never to receive a vote, as the current minority government falls. An election call is expected in days. Everybody expects that some form of these laws will be back yet again (third time's a charm?). There are too many interests pushing for change to let it go. But here's a chance for Canadians to influence politicians about it in an election campaign, and hopefully strike a better balance. And for those of you in the rest of the world who are laboring under a DMCA-like copyright law, let's hear your stories about why such laws are a good or bad idea, and if bad, how you would amend the law to make it tolerable. With the polls probably on Oct. 14th, Canadians will be looking for a few good ideas."
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Wrong Tag (Score:4, Funny)
Need to include ' its a trap'..
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It is a trap and not a joke. The NDP have never left less government debt in their terms of office. Provinces like Saskatchewan have 11 billion dollars in debt. While that many not sound like much, they have less than 1 million people to support it. They love credit spending like no other.
Most experienced Canadians know NDP as socialists. Nationalization is a key plug of theirs.
Laytoon would say anything to get elected be he mean it or not. World readers need to know it is routine that Canadian cand
its a north american thing apparently (Score:2)
entire europe is on social democracy, and it already got past north america in terms of economy and life standard, - hell, in every aspect of life.
get this shit into your head -> in life EVERYthing needs BALANCE. without balance, everything flops. economy is not exempt from this basic rule.
'socialism boooooooooo' 'nationalization booooooooo' 'government intervention booooooooooo'
please, its 2008
Re:Wrong Tag (Score:5, Informative)
Except of course for the Alberta Progressive Conservative party, which reduced taxes, eliminated the deficit AND the provincial debt (it is now completely gone).
What the USA calls "right-wing" may not act like it at all, but in Canada generally fiscal conservatism means such, because we have an actual example of such that happened, not just theory like down south.
Parent
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They might have gotten rid of the monetary debt, but by how much did they damage their environment ? What would have happened to the debt if they would not have had Harper get rid of kyoto ?
Exploiting their petroleum sand like this, with almost no regulations, got them tons of money. Any other responsible governement should not have allowed that to go through.
Re:Wrong Tag (Score:4, Informative)
Oh yea, the Alberta Conservatives were, in their great, millions of years spanning foresight, entirely responsible for putting all that oil in all that sand in Alberta and then for driving global oil prices through the roof only so that they can rake in billions in royalties ... no?
But then again this is, and has always been, on par for the so-called "Conservatives" world-wide: take with great fanfare all credit for things you had absolutely nothing to do with, while at the same time trying to project blame for everything you've fucked up onto others.
Parent
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Try BC then. The BC Liberal party (made up entirely of former social credit conservatives) inherited a province from the NDP that was doing poorly economically yet managed to both put the economy back on track and balance the budget.
Re:Wrong Tag (Score:4, Informative)
Except of course for the Alberta Progressive Conservative party, which reduced taxes, eliminated the deficit AND the provincial debt (it is now completely gone).
All Alberta did was elect two successive by the people representatives as our leaders. Yes, I live in Alberta. Neither Klein nor successor Stelmach are professional politicians, both came from the working class from their successful stints in real careers. That is, they are not in-the-pocket of vested interests behind the scenes. When Klein got in, he spent the first 6 months on a hack and burn of government waste and excess. Civil service people still scream at this government overhaul event as the provincial debt was increasing.
Alberta voters tend to be smarter and avoided the liberal left promise of stars, spending and statist government at our, taxpayers expense. People here know when a candidate promises something they intuitively think, how is it going to be paid for?
While some say it is oil, they are over stating the facts. Klein did this before oil was lucrative and only $20/barrel and the industry was barely hanging on. And in lucrative times, the government piggy banked the increased revenue money which reduces taxes in a sound sustainable way.
It does not take long to turn around a out of control government, just a decent, honest, practical politician with lots of power that isn't doing the job for self ego. Even on Klein's last days, he would sit down with normal people and say hello.
What the USA calls "right-wing" may not act like it at all, but in Canada generally fiscal conservatism means such, because we have an actual example of such that happened, not just theory like down south.
We will see in the next few weeks. Canada's currency took a wild dip as the government is ailing out the banks too. Fiat currency management is on both sides of the border, they are not overlooking the Bank of Canada's propensity to create fiat money.
Parent
Re:Wrong Tag (Score:5, Funny)
It's not polite to refer to King Ralph as a monkey, even if drunk.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
$11 Billion divided among 1 Million people is more like $11,000 per person.
The example he is using is for the debt created in one province by a provincial political party. The equivalent of the debt of a state in the U.S. - is it really common in the U.S. to see state debt at $11,000/person?
The left of center governments in Canada typically create huge debt while the right of center governments create smaller debt. The previous left of center federal government (known as the "Liberals") ran up a huge d
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Absolutely true. I would also offer up the example of the BC NDP party, and the unbelievably poor state in which they left this province. The NDP are fundamentally corrupt because of their close ties to the trade unions.
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Brain? (Score:2, Funny)
Strewth! A politician with a brain? Somebody vote for him, please!
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Most of his plans are completely idealistic and borderline delusional.
I don't know about that - although I haven't read anything in-depth, the cursory readings seem OK. Can you provide some examples?
The leader is also a scummy politician.
On this, I wholeheartedly agree with you. While well-spoken, he's a sociopath who refuses to accept responsibility for his own actions, and tries to take credit for the work of others (besides being prone to hyperbole.)
Examples: The last election was triggered when the NDP (led by Layton) voted non-confidence against a Liberal finance bill. The election happened over the holid
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We don't have a great choice of leaders at all in this election:
Harper: uncharismatic, suspiciously socially conservative
Elizabeth May: an American(!) and devout Christian
Dion: seems weak, plus the Liberals are corrupt and need a time-out
Layton: commented that Punjabi should be made Canada's third official language - enough said
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Dion: seems weak, plus the Liberals are corrupt and need a time-out
This is the problem I have with Canadians. The Chretien Liberals were definitely corrupt, and definitely needed a time-out. So what did we, the Canadian people, do to punish them for their corruption? We inflicted Stephen Harper on ourselves -- not to mention such gems as Stockwell Day, Jason Kenney, and Maxime Bernier (at least he's out of the picture now).
Today's Liberal party is mostly devoid of the people who were involved in the Sponsorship scandal. Sure, Dion seems a little weak, but have you seen Ste
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Oh please - the French press didn't crucify Joe Clark for his lousy French? Even the English papers typically prefaced any mention of his French with "awkward" or "clumsy". And Dion doesn't appear all that bright to me - his "Green Shift" is a ridiculous policy - and in a widely distributed clip of his appearance on ATV, he didn't understand
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On this, I wholeheartedly agree with you. While well-spoken, he's a sociopath who refuses to accept responsibility for his own actions, and tries to take credit for the work of others (besides being prone to hyperbole.)
Sociopath? Maybe... he does kind of make my skin crawl when I watch him speak... there's definitely something off about about him.
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Layton i
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Again with the co-op smear. The way a housing co-op works is high income residents pay much higher rent so that low income residents don't have to pay as much. That way, it doesn't have to be subsidized by government at all. Either you don't understand how a housing co-op works or don't care. This smear was discredited more than a decade ago. When raised now it just illustrates the ignorance of the person who is repeating it.
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OMG - get your tv fixed! It's filtering out all those NDP ads attacking other parties! It must have also filtered out the televised debates where the NDP leader was attacking the Conservative leader!
The funny thing is that watching the debates the only leader who looked like a real competitor to Mr. Harper was Mr. Duceppe, who was passionate and obviously intelligent. It's too bad his party is based on breaking up Canada into two independent countries.
New Democrats? (Score:3, Informative)
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Haven't you ever seen a TV ad with Jack Layton?
He generally finishes up his little talks with "Vote for Change, Vote for the New Democrats"
Jack Layton (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been a Liberal party supporter my entire life. It ended the day the walked out on the omnibus crime bill vote to prevent the government from falling.
I always like Jack Layton but I didn't spend much time reviewing his party, their voting record, or his speeches. After I decided to avoid the Liberals last year (or earlier this year.. can't remember) I started doing some real research. And I have to say, he is the first politician (at that level) I've actually admired. He speaks with a level of candor and immense credibility that is so rare.
He seems to genuinely care about his fellow man, and want to solve conflicts rather than fan the flames.
In short, he's precisely the opposite of this neocon wannabe we currently have running the country. Jack, if you happen to be reading this (and it wouldn't surprise me) you've got my vote. :)
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I too am a long-time liberal (but just because we have a liberal MP and MPPs) and love Jack Layton.
I don't like the NDP (sorry, too socialist for me) but he is an honest, hard-working man. I never liked him before because during the debates in the last elections he was constantly going on "Oh vote NDP we're different we're better!" etc. While watching the french debates (I was planning on watching Joe Biden beat up Palin) though he changed for the better; although he's no Duceppe in terms of slamming everyo
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Re:Jack Layton (Score:4, Informative)
Bollocks. He lived in a mixed income co-operative housing unit that uses the higher rent charged to high-income earners to subsidize the costs of the lower-income units. It was not government subsidized housing. In fact, the housing unit would have failed financially if there were no higher income earners living there. You clearly have no understanding of how mixed incoming cooperative housing actually works, or you're just trying to toss an already much-discredited 15 year old smear with no basis in reality.
Parent
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No, it isn't, and even if it was, that's not justification.
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He seems to genuinely care about his fellow man, and wants to solve conflicts rather than fan the flames.
Jack is nothing more than a walking soundbite. I lost any respect I had for him last election when he made a big show of handing a coin to a pan handler. As someone who has actually worked with street people I can tell you that the absolute worst thing you can do for them is give them money.
And if he really was about solving conflicts he would not be so eager to accuse his opponents of "hidden agenda
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The economy would have done well with or without him
As evidenced by the fact that it's clear, particularly after the debate, that his economic policies are to just let things kinda tick along and let whatever happens happen.
I agree about May, though. I think she was one of the best performing politicians in the debate (specifically the English language debate, which is the one I watched). Layton, by contrast, spent the entire time doing his best to paint Harper as the spawn of the devil, and neglected to
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As evidenced by the fact that it's clear, particularly after the debate, that his economic policies are to just let things kinda tick along and let whatever happens happen.
Part of letting things tick along is letting the Bank Of Canada do its job the way it is intended to do - such as putting out a 0.5% drop in the bank rate which was coordinated with the equivalent entities in other countries doing the same.
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Not a chance - she was rude, hectoring, and constantly interrupting Harper. Harper, in contrast, was polite, and calm. I thought the purpose of a debate was to give one person the right to speak at any time, and since I was on my debating team at high school, I know whereof I speak. The three wannabes were all terrible. Duceppe actually impressed me; it's too bad he wants to break up the country.
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For those of you with short memories, the last time that the NDP had any real power (at least in Ontario) was with Bob Ray and they ran the province into the ground.
Don't be fooled by a party full of idiots that happen to have the correct viewpoint on one issue. The last thing that Canada needs is the NDP in charge.
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I started doing some real research. And I have to say, he is the first politician (at that level) I've actually admired.
Then either your research is poor, or you're easily swayed by emotion rather than logic.
He speaks with a level of candor and immense credibility that is so rare.
Credibility?!?! OK, you really haven't done any research. He's prone to hyperbole ("Harper wants to quit his job as PM") and can't accept responsibility for his own actions. ("It's not my fault - the Liberals *made* me do it!")
want to solve conflicts rather than fan the flames.
Oh, come on. All he's ever done is fan the flames!
What's with the P2Pnet logo? (Score:2, Funny)
Regulation (Score:2, Informative)
That's goo, but I'd never vote NDP (Score:5, Insightful)
They're just to left-wing wacky on too many issues to be in power. I like them as a solid opposition though, they keep things relatively honest.
I've been voting Conservative since I started making good money.....but their copyright stance is just stupid and American. I may vote Green this time.
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I'm likely voting NDP not because I want them to form a government, but because I want them to be the opposition.
The opposition is there to hold the government accountable for its actions, and sadly, the Liberals have done a terrible job of that lately.
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And let's not talk about what Mike Harris actually did to this province. My brain has still blocked that particular memory to protect itself.
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