Maidens and Gentlepirates,
We are pleased to announce that as of April 12, 2010, the Pirate Party of Canada (PPCA) is officially eligible for Party Status.
After ten months of dedication and hard work, we have reached eligible status, which only leaves a 60-day “purgatory” period. After that, we will field candidates in subsequent federal elections, and begin the real work of a political party.
This day wouldn’t have arrived without you, the people of Canada. When we sent out the call for forms, you answered. Boy, did you answer. With the bare minimum of 250 forms being reached in such a short amount of time, we were shocked to see the confirmation forms all in within the space of a month. It goes to show that you, normal Canadians who really run the country, care about what goes on behind the scenes, in the dark, closed board rooms and at the negotiating tables of ACTA, the RIAA, and the CRTC. You’ve shown that we aren’t going to take the indignity of losing technological and cultural rights, so that record labels and big companies can further gouge us.
The PPCA couldn’t have reached this milestone without the help and support of a great team of our own dedicated volunteers. Everyone who has contributed in the PPCA core team deserves the highest accolades for everything they have done. I personally would like to thank a few people, whose contributions have made the greatest difference to our efforts. Firstly, Rob Britton (rob.s.brit) deserves our thanks, as he was the one who took a handful of internet nerds in the spring of last year, made a forum in June, and started the PPCA as we know it today, as well as serving as our first interim director. Secondly, Stephane Bakhos (Nuitari) deserves a million thanks, it was he who has been the physical and technological driving force of our movement, hosting the website and server, managing the money, making the payments, and many other everyday tasks most of us would never dream of taking on. He has single-handedly maintained the well-oiled machine of the movement. The most specific “thank you” goes to Jake Daynes, PPCA’s leader. Jake has taken on a titanic workload, and managed to bring leadership and organization to our group. He has been there to take part in all of our decisions, to deal with any problems, and to make sure that we were all on task and focused on what we were doing. Without these people this day would not have arrived.
We all know what is needed to keep Canada sustainable in this technological world – we need a world with net neutrality, a world where artists and inventors are free to create without the chains of mismanagement and executive privilege. We need to foster technological development in all fields of everyday life, in an open manner. We need to bring focus to the privacy of the individual while shedding light on the work that government does so that we can avoid hidden laws and treaties that attack Canadians.
Now is the time for the PPCA to begin our serious work in earnest. Our goals will now shift from mundane procedural tasks to real-world issues. If we don’t work to earn the trust of the hundreds of Canadians who have leant their support to our cause the future of Canada may remain in the hands of people whom we can’t hold accountable for their actions. Your further support, such as contributions of time and money, is necessary to continue the fight for responsible information management, representation, and citizen action.
We couldn’t have done it without you.
Congrats guys! Good luck to your party, and to yourselves.
Let’s do this thing…
Im game. Im with Andrew
Congratulations! Let’s keep changing the world!
Rick
Fantastic! Now lets get some candidates running and start making a difference. Target 1, high priority, seek and destroy : ACTA!
Awesome! Congratulations
We need a party like this more then ever these days.
Keep up the good work!
I welcome my pirate overloads to the north. yay pirates!
Congratulations, This is fantastic news.
Brilliant accomplishment guys! Congratulations. This could really help to bring IP reform forward as an important issue to Canadians.
I’m not sure that the name is going to win us any favors but the platform is solid and if targeted to the appropriate demographic we should be able to overtake the BQ easily
Let’s make a good run of it, and make it known that the old way of thinking about politics DOES NOT WORK for us. We value our rights for information!
I sure hope this is true. Seems too good to be. A political party that fights for freedom… what!?
I was surprised to see this announcement and very pleased to see this party in Canada. This brings us up to the level of more privacy-aware countries as Sweden, for example - at least it gives us a chance. Good sailing, PPCA!
Please update your donation page to indicate when you will be able to accept donations as a political party.
Congratulations from Germany!
who cares
Thank you!
Excellent news, I look forward to the next election and the wake-up call the tired old parties are going to receive. That, and finally not having to make a choice between the devil and his twin
Congrats guys, hope you can figure out how to steal some right wing voters from cons and libs rather than further split the left. not sure if this is possible.
I think I just found out who I’m voting for next federal election - heck, I just found out that I *am* voting at the next federal election! You better field some dudes in Montreal
Well done guys! I wish you luck in breaking the culture of corruption in our government, brought on by Big Business and government workers. It’s long pass time to bring true transparency and true accountability to government.
Terrible news. As if the Canadian left is not split enough already.
The First Past the Post system that we use in Canada practically ensures that no small party will get seats in the parliament. Just look at how the Greens fared in the last elections - almost 7% popular vote, zero seats.
In short, by creating yet another small party you further diminish the chances of *any* small party to get elected, ensuring we get stuck with ruling parties that are too big to care about anything other than their private interests.
Do us all a favour, talk to the Greens and hammer out a mutually acceptable platform. You are smart people, you can pull it off. As a bonus, you get to call yourself the Green Pirates.
Come to think of it, get the Libertarians aboard too.
Alex: Considering that our members come from all parts of the political spectrum, we are doing everything in our utmost power to remain bloc-neutral. These are basic reforms which anybody can get behind, especially if they know the economic benefits of freeing the market for artists and inventors, rather than have large companies have the last say in draconian regulations. In addition, the Greens have tried to claim us as part of their movement in the past, and showed little to no effort in actually discussing any possibility of co-operation, but rather have dismissed us.
Way to go!
Count me IN for activism, donations, representation, etc!
Congrats from Austria!
Congratulations from the Pirate Party of Austria! We wish you good luck at the next elections.
Arrr… this be no party! This be a torrentz machine!
way to go guys you have acheved a big goal in a short amount of time, and this does show that canaidans want change.
I’ve notice more and more people are noticing the PPCA - the facebook page is skyrocketing over 250 members in a little more then a week
Pirate from Saskatchewan here!……arrrrrrghhhhh ‘we’ll fly the Jolly Roger on Regina’s mighty shore’
Congratulations Everybody,
I want to take a second to thank our core-team, our Directors, but most of all, Stephane Bakhos (Nuitari), without your support my friend, this would not have been possible.
Let’s get things started!
Sincerely,
Jake Daynes
Proud Leader of the Pirate Party of Canada
OK, where do I send my tax deductible contribution?
Wait Darrell - the party needs to officially register with election Canada in order for deductible contribution to take effect.
Alex wrote: April 14, 2022 at 2:56 pm : “Terrible news. As if the Canadian left is not split enough already.”
Alex, why would you assume the PPC is a party of the “left”? The only other folks I hear regularly talking about “intellectual property” as a government grant of monopoly privilege are the Austrian School Economists and other libertarian/free-market anarchists. On this issue I highly recommend all pirates read Stephan Kinsella’s brilliant ” AGAINST INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY” a PDF version of which you can download for free at http://mises.org/books/against.pdf
BTW: Congratulations PPCA on your newly achieved status. Best wishes for a hearty sail.
Mark D Hughes
Executive Director
Institute for the Study of Privacy Issues (ISPI)
PrivacyNews.com
Congratulations from Madrid (Spain)!
my only issue with voting for separate minor party’s is that with the already large division between party’s currently running, it creates an even bigger issue for which party gets to be pm.
The last election 40 some odd percent of Canadian’s didn’t even vote, giving the conservative party’s the upper hand.
On the last poll, I noticed that the majority of Canada, (in the 60%’s) didn’t support the conservatives. the votes were spread out through out the party’s. Sadly the conservatives still had the majority in the poll because of this.
By adding a separate party, for this one issue, like the marijuana party be aiding the conservatives for support votes?this is my one and only concern.
perhaps we need to also raise this as an issue with other party’s. : ) Get some more voices heard for what Canadian’s want to see regarding our future laws.!!
Freedom of sharing! <3
Congratulations!
Nice work, greetings from germany
Ahoi pirates in Canada,
congrats, join the movement and fight for a free internet and civil rights.
Worldwide.
Greets from bavaria, germany!
Greetings from Münster/Germany!
Congratulations!!
André
Congratulations!
There was a teenage pirate radio broadcaster who might be interested in this news, too.
He was transmitting on 91.9 FM in Ottawa south, during October 18th 2009 until January 20th 2010,
Keep up the good work.
Thanks.
To those worried about splitting up the leftist vote, do not worry. Nearly half of the electorate did not vote in the last election. Why? Well, for a number of reasons but the one I hear more often than not is a sense of apathy as both the Libs and the Cons feed out of the same hand,the corporate and economic elite. And the NDP has been futily trying to present themselves as a mainstream party, and the Greens has been trying to steal votes from the NDP. No-one is taking into account that there are all these votes out there that are not being used. All these voters who feel the traditional parties have failed them. These are whom the PPCA needs to direct its campaigning to. And here are some ideas to utilize in your campaign.
-Getting rid of the politicians ‘golden handshake’, why should they get a better pension plan than the average Canadian.
-Electoral reform, the first past the post elections in Canada are what keep the two major parties in canada in control and is an antiquated form of democracy, it also gives more power to a voter in Quebec or PEI more than a voter in Ontario. Proportional representation is the way to go
-more ways to vote;ie internet voting using 28 bit encryption, if it is safe for the banks to use then it should be safe for elections Canada, and allows the elderly to not have to leave home and the younger generations who can’t be bothered to go to a polling station would embrace voting online
A party that promotes these ideas will be the party that gets my vote.
[...] From their site: After ten months of dedication and hard work, we have reached eligible status, which only leaves a 60-day “purgatory” period. After that, we will field candidates in subsequent federal elections, and begin the real work of a political party. This day wouldn’t have arrived without you, the people of Canada. When we sent out the call for forms, you answered. Boy, did you answer. With the bare minimum of 250 forms being reached in such a short amount of time, we were shocked to see the confirmation forms all in within the space of a month. Sweden’s Pirate Party is the most successful in the world, it is currently the third-largest party in that country by membership and has two seats in the European parliament. [...]