Today the Canadian Copyright Reform bill will go before parliament. Among other things it would ban file sharing, severely restrict the use of P2P services through throttling, and make the unlocking of cell phones illegal, essentially making about 90% of the population below 30 criminals over night.

by designwallah

Here it is, folks, at long last: Industry Canada Minister Jim Prentice is about to introduce his Canadian version of America’s disastrous Digital Millennium Copyright Act tomorrow. In so doing, he is violating his own party’s promise to seek public consultation on all treaty accession bills, he’s ignoring the cries of rightsholders, industry, educators, artists, librarians, citizens’ rights groups, legal scholars and pretty much everyone with a stake in this, except the US Trade Representative and the US Ambassador, who, apparently, have had ample opportunity to chat with the Minister and give him his marching orders. via BoingBoing

In protest of this I emailed my MP, signed up on the Facebook group, and sent a letter to Harper, Prentence and Verner via this CCER form.

I would much rather have an election than have my rights continue to be infringed upon by huge corporations that already cause us to pay too much for music, internet, television, and cellular phone services. There is nothing in the Canadian Copyright Reform bill that in any way helps the general population, all it does is further entrench in law the ludidic and mafia-like practices of the communications and music industry.

Canada used to be a leader in communications technology and now we’re paying more for worse service because of the semi-monopolistic practices of companies like Bell and Rogers.

Does the Canadian government take a greater interest in securing the out-dated business plans of huge corporations than it does in securing the freedoms of its population?