Monthly Archives: August 2007

Canadian Bloggers Threatened

August 17, 2007meta, the internetsChris Tindal

“The threat of lawsuits…might turn the Canadian political blogger into an endangered species.” The National, CBC, Thursday August 16th, 2007

The below news story aired on CBC The National last night, and takes a look at how the legal climate in Canada is already contributing to the “chilling” of free speech, and eventually may even force companies like Google and Wikipedia to block their sites in Canada. I’d elaborate on what I think of all this, but the last time I did that I got sued (a suit which I am currently defending). Michael Geist, one of the interviewees in the piece, is named on the same lawsuit as myself.

Friday Funny: Coal Edition

August 17, 2007energyChris Tindal

My brother sent this to me. While the US is being bombarded with pro-coal marketing, up here we’re getting the same from the Nuclear industry. I’d love to see an Ontario Nukes version of this video.

Where’s The “Yes To FPTP” Campaign?

August 14, 2007ontario referendum on mmpmmp, voting reformChris Tindal

The ballot question for the October 10th Ontario referendum on electoral reform will ask voters to choose between “The existing electoral system (First-Past-the-Post),” and “The alternative electoral system proposed by the Citizensâ€™ Assembly (Mixed Member Proportional).” A number of grassroots campaigns have sprung-up to argue that MMP is the best voting system for Ontario, including Vote For MMP, Equal Voice In Politics (women for MMP), Liberals for MMP, and more.

So, where’s the campaign to argue that FPTP (the current system) is the best for Ontario? It doesn’t exist. Instead, we get this, the “No MMP” campaign. Some of their criticisms are legitimate (no one ever said MMP was a perfect system), others are intentional distortions of the truth. (Isn’t there a word for when someone intentionally distorts the truth? I’m sure I’ll think of it later….) What the campaign doesn’t do, however–because it can’t–is defend or advocate for our current system, which the majority of Ontarians and Canadians acknowledge is no longer serving us well. If we actually had a province-wide discussion that pitted the merits of MMP against the merits of FPTP, MMP would win hands down. The “No MMP” folks know this, which is why they’re instead basing their campaign on fear of the unknown and misinformation.

By the way, who are the “No MMP” folks? We don’t know. While Vote For MMP and other progressive referendum campaigns are comprised of grassroots citizens and politicians of integrity from all political parties, the No MMP campaign has decided to remain anonymous (they announced their campaign through one unknown spokesperson, and have placed no detailed “contact” or “about” information on their site). How much credibility should they therefore be granted? Until they can demonstrate that they’re a legitimate group with at least some popular support and backing, next to none.

Update: Cam helpfully points out that the above sounds to him as if I’m saying that individuals who don’t support MMP lack credibility. That’s absolutely not my intention. (As I do mention above, some criticisms of MMP are legitimate.) I am, however, suggesting that we deserve to know what kind of support and membership the No MMP campaign has so that we can assess their credibility as an organization.

Power To Choose

August 10, 2007climate crisis, economy, energyChris Tindal

Below (and here) is a video of comments I made a few weeks back at an event called “Power To Choose,” sponsored by the WWF, Greenpeace, the Ontario Clean Air Alliance, Sierra Club of Canada, and the Pembina Institute. I’m honoured to have been one of the five initial presentations chosen for the web, along with people like NDP MPP Peter Tabuns and Gord Miller. Regular readers may notice similarities to two previous posts, The Triple E Crisis, Plus and My Canada Includes The Laws of Thermodynamics.