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Yesterday, the Canadian Conservative party tabled bill C-61, which is basically a Canadian version of the American Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This is NOT a piece of legislation that is representative of the wishes of the people of Canada or one that should be made law. As a Canadian citizen, you can help stop this from happening.

One of the elements of bill C-61 is to effectively make it illegal to bypass any Digital Rights Management, even for fair use purposes like transferring music to your iPod. This means that if C-61 becomes law, it will be illegal to transfer a DVD you own to your iPod, as all DVDs have a rudimentary DRM system called CSS. Even worse, it will be illegal to transfer a CD you have just purchased if it implements a basic DRM system (which some music CDs already do, and more likely will if this becomes law).

A democratic government is supposed to act on behalf of its people. We elect representatives so that they can act on our behalf to make decisions about how Canada should be run. This bill simply does not serve the best interests of Canadians as a whole.

I would like to encourage every Canadian who reads this to take action. At Copyright for Canadians, you can generate and send a letter to your MP and Jim Prentice stating that you, as a citizen of Canada, do not approve of this bill or the way that the Conservative government is attempting to sneak it through congress without encouraging public debate. Visit Copyright for Canadians at http://www.copyrightforcanadians.ca/action/firstlook.

For more information about C-61, please read Michael Geist’s post, The Canadian DMCA: A Betrayal.

By now, you’ve probably heard something of the network neutrality debate. To sum it up, until a few months ago the flow of data on the internet was unrestricted and free. Then companies like Bell and Rogers realized that they could save money be restricting the flow of information over their networks. Both those companies now throttle bittorrent traffic, claiming that by restricting the use of bittorrent on their networks, they allow every user to have a steady, fast internet connection.

Bell uses this exact argument to justify throttling bittorrent traffic, forcing all bittorrent downloads and uploads to a crawl regardless of their legality. Back in March, the CBC released an episode of a show called Canada’s Next Prime Minister via bittorrent on the mininova tracker. This is just one of the many legitimate and legal uses of bittorent today.

Alarmingly, users reported download times of up to 11 hours due to “traffic shaping” policies employed by Canadian ISPs. In the name of keeping their network “available to all users,” Bell and Rogers are successfully blocking those same users from receiving the download speeds which they pay for.

Yesterday, Bell launched a new video streaming service, offering television and movie rentals and downloads over internet streams. Just like bittorrent downloading, this type of distribution utilizes large amounts of bandwidth. Unsurprisingly, Bell has not seen fit to throttle its own television service.

This is a perfect example of what network neutrality advocates fear. Bell is using its position as one of the few ISPs in Canada to promote its own services by hindering the competition. These practices are abusive and should not be allowed to continue. As a paying customer of Bell, I should be able to use my internet connection for whatever I wish, not whatever Bell profits most from.

For more information about network neutrality, visit savetheinternet.com

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• Torrentfreak.com: Bell opens Video Download Store but Continues to Throttle Bittorrent
• CBC.com: ISPs Limit Access to CBC Download, Users Say
• Globeandmail.com: Bell’s Small-Screen Debut

As many likely already know, the TTC went on strike at midnight on Friday night, contradicting their previous promise to provide the public with 48 hours notice of any strike. According to interviews The Globe and Mail conducted with members of the TTC union, the new contract (which included a 3% per year wage increase AND a clause guaranteeing that if any other transit workers in the GTA received a better pay rate, the TTC would match it) was voted down because of concerns that it would allow the TTC to outsource maintenance work.

In essence, the public is now being held hostage because of concerns amongst the TTC union that maintenance workers could lose their jobs. This is preposterous. The Globe and Mail interviewed a TTC driver named Al Evans, who perfectly embodies what is wrong with this strike.

“No one’s told me anything about a strike,” he said, as he began to radio central command.

“I hope there isn’t one because it’s Friday night and people got to get home.”

Mr. Evans said he voted no to the agreement because he had friends who were maintenance workers, and it didn’t look out for their interests.

“I didn’t see anything wrong with the transit side of things, but I had to vote no because they’re contracting out the maintenance work,” he said. “That’s what a union is all about, you got to look out for your co-workers.”

According to TTC representatives, maintenance work is not being contracted out at all. In fact, work being done to new vehicles under warranty is often done by TTC employees and then billed to the manufacturer. So why vote down a contract that guarantees a competitive wage? Why a snap strike practically designed to strand people counting on the TTC to get home on a Friday night?

Union leader Bob Kinnear said he had no choice but to set aside a promise to give 48 hours notice of any job action given the threat posed to his members by “irrational members of the public.”

That promise was made a week before this strike was announced. Does Kinnear really believe that public opinion towards TTC employees has turned hostile in such a short period of time? (And if it has, isn’t that a strong sign that the TTC is doing something horribly wrong right now?)

The TTC went on strike on Friday night because politically, they could get away with it. Had they given the public 48 hours notice of a strike, they would have been forced to begin the strike on Monday morning. Instead, by beginning the strike when they did, union leaders have given the City of Toronto plenty of time to draw up back to work legislation forcing the end of the strike. By declaring a snap strike, the TTC was practically able to guarantee its workers that they would be earning a wage again come Monday morning.

A union’s right to strike is important in its ability to negotiate effectively, but this latest abuse is a horrible abuse of that right. Here in London, I am never more than a $10 cab ride from home. If London Transit were to announce a sudden strike, I would certainly be inconvenienced, but nothing more. Had I been in downtown Toronto when the strike began, I would have faced a $60-$70 cab fare in order to make it home.

Public transit in Toronto has reached a point where it is an essential service. Citizens pay through both taxes and skyrocketing fares for access to the TTC infrastructure, and many would be unable to arrive at work or school without it. This strike shows a complete lack of respect for the people of Toronto who pay the wages of every TTC employee. It is simply unacceptable for the TTC union to vote down a contract and declare a strike four hours later. If this disrespect continues, there is no reason why the people of Toronto would continue to support allowing the TTC the right to strike.

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