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I have to admit that when I first heard that Michael Chong was running for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) I thought: Oh, cute - a progressive conservative is running -- they'll squash him like a bug. I had an opportunity to hear Mr. Chong in person on Wednesday February 22 at an event hosted at the offices of OpenConcept (a business owned by long-time friend Michael Gifford).  There was about 30 guests there, and Mr. Chong's meet-and-greeting very quickly turned into a Q&A session. Most of what I heard I really liked.  Enough to decide to become a member of the party in order to vote in the leadership election in May (March 28 is the final date to become a member if you want to have your say).  I also made a $350 campaign contribution to Mr. Chong. I'll highlight three areas of policy he spoke about, the first being from that bulk of ideas I agreed with, then one area I am mostly with him but with some reservations, and one area I disagr...

One of the most critical discoveries that determined the form that  my business  and advocacy work would later take was the discovery of the  Free Software Foundation  and the GNU Project. While I do not have an exact date of when I joined the gnu.misc.discuss newsgroup, a  search on Google  indicates that my first posting was on Feb 11, 1992. The topic was:  Public Domain re-worked and re-released under GNU Public License? . It is interesting to go back and time and note that I have learned quite a bit about  software licenses  and  copyright law  since that time. I think my English and spelling have improved as well. (Re-post from 2003 article on Digital Copyright Canada . Most of my recent contributions have been to this blog)

A few partisan and multi-partisan groups including the NDP, Green Party (provincial and federal), and Fair Vote Canada have sent out announcements to their members about a "National Day of Action for Electoral Reform".  While I've been an active electoral reformer for many decades, I will be avoiding this event. Many of the reasons why were articulated in an earlier article on how Electoral Modernization is hard, but worth it .   It discussed how compromise and consideration of other viewpoints was critical to move forward. When Justin Trudeau and his election platform team  stated that , "We are committed to ensuring that 2015 will be the last federal election conducted under the first-past-the-post voting system" they likely envisioned a specific campaign.  On one side would be those who wanted to keep the current First Past the Post (FPTP) system either because it benefit them or they were simply resistant to any change.   On the other side would be a broad ...

I just finished season 1 of Van Helsing via Netflix Canada. Filmed in Vancouver with most cast members being Canadian, this is the type of Canadian content that makes me feel proud of Canadian talent.  There were so many familiar Canadian actors from other series out of Vancouver including Flash and Sanctuary, and it even had Amanda Tapping directing 4 episodes. Nomadic Pictures , the producer, operates out of Calgary. I'm excited to hear that season 2 has already been ordered, and that production starts next month.  My hope is that for future seasons that legal Internet distribution will be simultaneous with any broadcast-era distribution. The Wikipedia page for the series  suggests that some fortunate events happened for this to be released on Netflix Canada on December 23'rd (after the September 23 broadcast launch) rather than being tied up in broadcast-only licensing for much longer : Super Channel's ongoing bankruptcy proceedings. In earlier articles ( Ad ...

I can imagine a conversation between Russell McOrmond (1997) and Russell McOrmond (2017), and how that would go. Both of these individuals feel they have a good grasp of the problems with First Past the Post, and both feel they have properly analyzed the obvious solution to the obvious failure. These two individuals would likely hate each other :-) RM1997 would think RM2017 was arrogant for constantly bringing up the fact that he was 20 years senior, and in that last 20 years had: met many sitting MPs had long conversations with some sitting MPs - in constituency and parliamentary offices, as well as in the Government Lobby (that part of center block behind the curtains on the government side), the parliamentary restaurant, as well as private pubs and private homes. I've even been invited by sitting MPs to help represent Canada in front of policy delegations from other countries. attended many federal committee hearings (more than I care to count), and have been a witness in multip...

I received an email this morning from Amazon.ca titled "Your Prime membership now includes Prime Video", indicating that Amazon Prime Video has been launched in Canada. Like Youtube(Google) and Netflix, Amazon is an internet native company, so I wasn't surprised to see that Prime Video worked on most of my devices.  It plays from my desktop, Chromebook, and has an Android App.  Missing, and something people often complain about, is Chromecast support. Amazon has a competing Amazon Fire series of devices, but they are not being sold in Canada.  This is quite unfortunate that their ongoing rivalry with Google diminishes the utility of their service. Vertical integration isn't helpful, and it is inappropriate to expect everyone to have so many different incompatible devices plugged into their televisions. This service wasn't quite what I was expecting.  I thought Amazon Prime would be more like Google Play Movies and TV, offering per-movie, per-episode or per-season...

A  straw man  is a common form of  argument  and is an  informal fallacy  based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not advanced by that opponent. ( Wikipedia ) It is hard to engage in electoral reform conversations in Canada without having one of the two top straw-men thrown at you.  Which one you are thrown depends on which of the most common perspectives you hold. This is massive generalization, but Canadians could be divided into 3 groups. Everything is fine, leave it alone. Our voting system is broken, and the problem is a lack of proportionality (See Gallagher index ) Our voting system is broken, and the problem is plurality When it comes to choosing an electoral system, there are a number of interesting variations. People who believe that plurality is a feature, not a problem, in that it forces a "consensus" to form between the top two opposing visions of how to run the countr...