16 Jun 2022
Fox Creek, AB – January 20th
On January 15th at the Monthly General Meeting of the Pirate Party of Canada three more candidates were confirmed for the 2015 Federal Election. The candidates are Craig Nobbs for the riding of Langley-Aldergrove (BC), Kenneth Dyson for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce Westmount (QC), and James Wilson for Fundy Royal (NB). All three candidates are also committed to running in any by-elections that may occur in their ridings before 2015.
Craig Nobbs previously ran for the party in the Langley riding in the 2011 Federal Election. Kenneth Dyson is a researcher in the Department of Neuroscience at Université de Montréal. James Wilson is the current party leader and a recent graduate of Mount Allison University. They join three previously confirmed candidates: Travis McCrea, David Ascroft, and Robert McGrath.
“It is time to inject science and reason into the national discourse. Partisan politics has taken us to the brink of social, economic, and natural disaster. Instead of arguing over ideological differences, let us invest in finding the evidence so that we can have substantive, rational debates.”, says Kenneth Dyson, candidate for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce Westmount. The Pirate Party is committed to fielding the best team of candidates for 2015.
The Pirate Party of Canada is a federal political party focused on thoughtful information policy reform, genuine democracy, civil liberties, and the freedom of the Internet. You can find out more online at www.pirateparty.ca .
10 Jan 2022
Greetings fellow Pirates,
It is once again time to elect your officials for the year. Since we have had a lot of new people join us I thought an overview of how the process works might be helpful.
The elections take place over the months of January and February. The Political Council, responsible for policy development and political strategy, is elected in January. While the minimum size of the Council is five it is often larger as approval voting is used. From Section VII.2 of the Party Constitution: “Elections should be done on an approval basis. There should be a Yes option, a no option and an abstain option. The abstain option should be selected by default and should garner no effect on the approval percentage. 60% Approval garners a seat on the Political Council guaranteed. If there are not enough candidates with 60% approval then the top 5 candidates will make up the Political Council.” A note of importance: the Leader and Deputy Leader are elected from among the Political Council members in February. Those seeking to contest the leadership must win a seat on the Political Council to be eligible to run.
The Executive Board, which handles internal party communications and paperwork, is elected in February. It is comprised of the party’s officers: Leader, Deputy Leader, Secretary, President and Vice-President. As this is a leadership contest it falls under Elections Canada’s rules for campaign spending. All candidates are discouraged from spending on their campaigns as it is unneccessary. The party forums will be open for those wishing to present themselves and their vision for the party. The party will also allow candidates equal access to social media to present their cases to the members.
Nominations for the Political Council will be held at the January General Membership Meeting on the 15th. The election will be held shortly thereafter with a week set aside to vote. A membership email will be sent out announcing the start of voting.
Nominations for positions on the Executive Board will be held at the February General Membership Meeting (tentatively February 19th). with the process following the same format as the Political Council elections.
I Hope to see some strong candidates step forward.
16 Jun 2022
Toronto, ON – December 12
Conservative MP Joy Smith is drafting a private members bill to censor the internet in Canada. In her proposal, everyone’s internet access would have adult content filtered out by default and each individual would have to contact their service provider in order to opt out. Forcing each adult to put on record that they are interested in pornography further erodes our already tenuous basic privacy. Another major issue with this proposal is that software used for censorship is notoriously ineffective creating the potential for widespread collateral damage. In the UK version of this legislation, it was eventually revealed that not only pornography would be blocked by default but also websites that have violent content, web forums, content featuring smoking & alcohol, information on eating disorders and other material unrelated to pornography.
There are two main ways to go about web-blocking. Either you use specialized algorithms to automatically detect undesired material and block it or you have someone manually add websites to a blacklist. The first method creates the aforementioned collateral damage, the second is akin to trying to bail water out of a cruise ship with a thimble. Both are government interference in parenting and an extension of the nanny state.
“An epidemic of youngsters watching porn? Where are their parents while all this is going on? Better question: by what right does the government think it can replace the parents? The answer is it has no such right. If this MP wishes to propose a law about increasing education for parents regarding monitoring their children’s online habits I would fully support it. Afterall, such a law would also help with the issues of cyber-bullying and online luring. The current proposal, however, treats parents like oblivious children”, says James Wilson, Leader of the Pirate Party of Canada. The Pirate Party opposes internet censorship, however well meaning, and supports parents’ right to raise their children. The Pirate Party calls on Parliament to reject this bill as ill-informed and a threat to Canadian internet freedom. We also call on MP Joy Smith to release the letter she reportedly received from a 10-year old addicted to porn (minus identifying information) to prove said letter actually exists. [1]
The Pirate Party of Canada is a federal political party focused on thoughtful information policy reform, genuine democracy, civil liberties, and the freedom of the Internet. You can find out more online at www.pirateparty.ca .
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[1] http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/12/09/conservative-mp-radical-feminist-and-evangelical-christian-come-together-to-block-online-porn-in-canada/
16 Jun 2022
Fox Creek, AB – December 12
The Pirate Party along with many others in Canada were excited to hear about MP Michael Chong’s bill to reform the party caucuses. After reading the text the party sent an email to Michael Chong’s office regarding a section of the language regarding requirements for EDAs (Electoral District Associations) to choose party candidates as it seemed this would block candidates if their party didn’t have an EDA in their riding. Michael Chong’s office replied:
“Michael is open to friendly amendments that would address this issue, although we understand that it only takes 4 members to form an EDA and the financial agent requirement can be done centrally or regionally. Michaels intention is only to take the requirement away from Party leaders not to make it more difficult for parties to run a candidate.”
In short the bill’s language implies that if a party lacks an EDA it will not be able to run a candidate but this was not his intention. While this is a relatively unimportant issue for the major parties it is a significant setback for smaller parties who may only have their candidate in a riding when an election is called. The result is a party potentially cannot run in as many ridings as would otherwise be the case. While founding an EDA sounds like a small issue, minor parties don’t need the extra paperwork. The simplest amendment to fix this issue would be to only apply the new rules to parties with representation in parliament.
“I’m sure people would be inclined to scoff at this problem. Afterall, who cares if a parties that collectively receive less than 1% of the vote are disadvantaged? This view is short-sighted. In living memory we have seen Progressive Conservatives reduced to a single digit seat count, the Bloc Quebecois implode, and both the Liberals and NDP swing widely in seat totals. I’m sure there were some EDAs that got de-registered through all that. This bill could potentially make party recoveries more difficult while at the same time making it harder for new parties to start. We also currently have the Green Party which has had to deregister some of its EDAs. It may have willing candidates to run a full slate next election but it is unclear if they would be able to do so with the proposed law in effect. Perhaps most damning is that it would limit democratic choice needlessly”, says James Wilson, Leader of the Pirate Party of Canada. The Pirate Party supports reducing the power of party leaders over their caucuses. The complete suppression of dissent is not healthy for Canadian democracy. However, making democracy easier in one part of Canadian politics while making it harder in another is not a positive step forward. Hopefully another member of Parliament will see that fixing this flaw is necessary and introduce an amendment. Perhaps, Elizabeth May as her Green Party most risks losing the gains they have made.
The Pirate Party of Canada is a federal political party focused on thoughtful information policy reform, genuine democracy, civil liberties, and the freedom of the Internet. You can find out more online at www.pirateparty.ca .
16 Jun 2022
Fox Creek, AB – December 5
The Combating Counterfeit Products Act (C-56) first introduced last March was re-introduced as Bill C-8 on October 28th. It is now at the committee stage having completed second reading when it was still C-56. The bill would implement the controversial features of ACTA which has failed to be ratified in Europe due to mass protests against it. However, reaction in Canada has been largely muted perhaps due to it receiving very little media coverage. This lack of media coverage may well be due to a narrow focus on the continuing Senate Scandal.
ACTA was originally designed as a treaty to fight the counterfeiting of medicines and safety equipment. But the provisions that would allow random searches of computers and cellphones at the border caused outrage in Europe. Content creators and border patrollers could become the arbitrators of what is and is not infringement, assuming the role best reserved for the courts. The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled against arbitrary searches of computer and cellphone content in the case R. v Vu. Normal search warrants of a house were ruled insufficient and a separate warrant is required. The court recognized possible abuses and ruled that these personal devices are “portals to an almost infinite amount of information.” Counterfeiting and infringement are related but very different issues and should not be treated the same.
“Conflating these two issues is troublesome. What’s next? Border guards confiscating my laptop if I decide to visit the US? They have taken the potentially harmful, but relatively small, issue of counterfeit merchandise and lumped it together with the widespread, but mostly harmless, issue of copyright infringement. Once again this government is trying to do too much in a single bill”, says James Wilson, Leader of the Pirate Party of Canada. The Pirate Party opposes tying Canadian Law to a treaty roundly rejected by most modern industrialized nations and calls on the government to reconsider. We also call on the Liberal Party to reconsider their stance which goes further than the Conservatives by proposing statutory damages with a mandatory minimum of $1,000 and a maximum of $100,000 in liability. Luckily the Liberal amendment proposing this was defeated in committee but it is disappointing to have seen it proposed at all.
The Pirate Party of Canada is a federal political party focused on thoughtful information policy reform, genuine democracy, civil liberties, and the freedom of the Internet. You can find out more online at www.pirateparty.ca .
