u/betterworldbuilder

Since I've been alive, it has been the Conservative Party willing to push through legislation appealing to "law and order" that gave more benefits to the government while surgically removing privacy from it's citizens. On Thursday, Liberal's said "hold my beer".

Bill C-22 has now passed the house and is headed to the senate, after debate was expedited and forcefully closed after only 25 hours of scrutiny that was only able to properly look at about a dozen clauses. Liberals complained the bill could take upwards of 2 years to fully and properly review at that pace (which would still be fully within their governing term), and have made many attempts to frame this as either a 'with law and order or with the criminals' binary.

In more specific summary, the Bill does two things. It allows the Prime Minister and cabinet (through the governor general) to pass regulations classifying Electronic Service Providers and regulations forcing them to retain user metadata for up to six months (previously one year before amendments), as well as obligate them to create systems to extract authorized data. This data cannot include content, social media activities, or browser history, but can include which other users a person is communicating with, as well as where and when these communications happen. This would require companies to build backdoor systems through encryption that the law could walk through, however it's important to note the difference between a locked door and a wall; criminals cannot pick the lock on a wall. Companies like Duckduckgo, Signal, and NordVPN have stated they may limit or fully remove service for Canadians if this legislation passes as written, and tech companies like Google and Apple have expressed concerns.

This is the second attempt liberals have made to break through privacy of Canadians, after their first attempt Bill C2 stalled out in the legislative process. I was in the middle of writing a piece about it before it stalled out and was never released, so in following the liberals footsteps I have expedited the release of this one.

Considering reddit has removed the polls format on desktop, we will be moving to a new poll system linked here. But let me know your thoughts: Do you support the passage of this bill as written, or does it require more amendments? Do you think the timeline was acceptable as is, that a 2028 timeline was too long? Let me know in the poll and the comments here.

edit to add u/Sketchedeyeswatchinu has also provided this link to a formal protest campaign hosted by open media, you can sign that petition here

No, I don't mean George Orwell's Animal Farm. I mean where do politicians go after they have served their term and moved on to greener pastures? According to a recent study, 59% of the US 115th Congress (2017-2019) that did not remain in office have already moved into lobbying and consulting gigs that pressure the federal government. Hell, one of them created her own lobbying firm BEFORE she had left congress! While she was still actively attempting to pass bills, she had created LJ strategies, a lobbying firm that anyone could pay to help influence the government.

In the most abstract of senses, lobbying could be perceived as good. The ACLU and the NRA are both of 501C4 status, which are groups registered and allowed to engage in political lobbying. I think it would be near impossible to moderate one and not the other while maintaining a content neutral stance, and so they must be grouped together when we picture lobbying. In this sense, it is important to remember that lobbying is simply someone unelected being paid for their engagement in the political process. Whether that person is a "bad guy" for arguing to give rights to asylum seekers or gun owners, it's the process through which that message passes through that must be moderated in order to not become tyrannical. I would also argue that full abolishment is not the answer either; especially now that the game is tilted away from the every man.

It's also important to understand why lobbying is important; from the perspective of the government, it is incredibly unlikely that whoever is elected within a specific office is expected to understand the minutia of important details in the policy they craft. Their job has always been about writing, understanding, and passing laws that most benefit their people, and they deal with hundreds of bills dealing with an extensive variety of topics. To expect every elected member to intricately understand each facet and repercussion of every law they seek to pass would be deeply unfair and further delay the passage of any legislation. So instead, they hire consultants and experts within different fields who understand specifically one section of the public sector or policy, and meet with them to get their direct input on certain legislation that they would be experts in. Rather than expect each lawmaker to be an expert in policing and it's training procedures and the repercussions of any policy passed about it, they can consult with one or many experts who have dedicated their life and time to understanding just policing, become informed on the topic, and write and pass laws based on that information. Mind you, most lobbyists are not good-hearted experts doing work for free, and almost always are representing the desires and views of a specific organization that hired them. A Black Lives Matter lobbyist will likely have different goals and perspectives to present than the Fraternal Order of Police, both of whom would be considered experts trying to sway political outcomes of policy crafted by lawmakers.

So, it feels apparent that lobbying cannot be fully abolished, so how should we go about regulating it? Well in Canada, lobbyists have a specific set of rules and requirements surrounding how to register as a lobbyist and how to conduct themselves once registered. This requires them to be open and transparent about who they work for, respect democratic institutions and conflict of interest rules, and to not provide any gifts, hospitality, or other services that would place any lobbied official in a position of obligation towards a lobbyist. These rules and the mechanisms through which they are enforced are laid out in The Lobbying Act. In the US, lobbying is much less regulated, and lobbyists are allowed to do something called transactional lobbying, which is where elected officials can be given money or other gifts directly to lawmakers in exchange for access and time to try and persuade lawmakers. Importantly, legally, these contributions cannot be used to "guarantee" a specific vote or action, and cannot be given directly to a candidate, instead being given through PACs with a limited amount to help elect or re-elect a candidate, or SuperPACs, which can spend an unlimited amount running ads to the public "informing" them on specific issues which coincidentally (but cannot directly for legal reasons,) align with a particular candidate and their perspectives.

So what should this information do to shape legislation? Well for one, I would argue that all forms of transactional lobbying should be made illegal, as any lawmaker given a benefit by a specific organization cannot be reasonably expected to remain impartial on that organizations views. Secondly, lobbyists can and should be petitioned by an independent commission in the government, which would stop lawmakers from choosing who to take meetings with and who to freeze out of discussions, as well allow unsolicited lobbyists to go through one place. But maybe there's something I missed, what do you think? Why would government function better or worse with your recommendations? Let me know in the comments and the corresponding poll.

One of the many, MANY things that Avi Lewis has platformed that make me think he's the superior candidate is electoral reform. And while public housing, public grocery stores, Taxing the rich with a wealth tax, health care reform, and actually addressing climate change are all amazing party positions, I think electoral reform NEEDS to be the top priority.

FairVote Canada and EKOS have both commissioned polling that shows people across the political spectrum favor electoral reform by at least 2:1, because Canadians know that FPTP just does not work as effectively as we need it to to have faith in government. We have not seen voter turnout above 70% since 1988, and since 2004 the liberals and conservatives have seen a higher share of seats than was won in the popular vote in all but one election. Meanwhile, NDP has consistently seen more than double it's share in the popular vote compared to seats in the house, and the green party even more so. Any party that isn't the big 2 are consistently locked out of power in the current system, unless you're Bloc, which has consistently received the same or less of the popular vote than the NDP while always dwarfing them in seats aside from 2011 and 2015.

As we also saw in the last federal election, strategic voting takes a massive toll on smaller parties, especially in Canada where the extreme left, far left, and center party (Green, NDP, and Liberal) all compete against the collective right, who still only barely remains competitive despite this advantage. NDP saw a crushing defeat as it's members abandoned them, partially because of Jagmeet but mostly due to the very real fears of seeing a Conservative majority government.

Since 2008, every winning party has received a benefit from non-representative voting, and under a system where the popular vote determines seats over districts two elections would have had a different winner. Conservatives actually would have won in 2019 and 2021 despite a 30 seat lead by liberals under FPTP, and as someone who dislikes conservatives strongly I still advocate for reform. That being said, it's clear that Conservatives, Liberals, and Bloc get the most benefit from FPTP as opposed to popular vote proportional representation, so they have very little incentive to fix the system.

Avi Lewis suggests a Citizens assembly to fix the problem; pick a random (but particular) cross section of citizens across Canada to become educated and eventually decide on new electoral rules and practices. This is an arduous but effective process to eliminate any party bias in creating new rules. However, I believe in a stronger and more effective voting system, and ultimately the system a Citizens assembly would arrive at, is a system similar to STAR voting.

In STAR voting, each voter scores ALL candidates on the ballot, and sums all scores across all ballots. Then, optionally, the top two candidates compete in an instant runoff, where all ballots are reconsidered as binary either for contender A or contender B. The second half discourages the minimal strategic voting that is able to pass through the first part of the system, and only fails in extremely polarized situations. Regardless of whether it's included or not however, being able to score every candidate as opposed to just picking your top candidate or ranking them in order gives significantly more depth and agency to each voters opinion.

I discuss it a little deeper in these tests conducted on a small sample size, but would love to conduct another test sample if there is enough and a variety of people to participate. Imagine, getting to show exactly how much you prefer the NDP candidate to a liberal candidate, while also clearly demonstrating the amount you prefer a liberal candidate to a conservative candidate.

Without voter reform, I fear the NDP will not be able to secure long lasting majorities in Canada, because the system is stacked against them. And without the power to enact our goals, everything else is just a dream. Voters across all parties clearly want to see voter reform, even if their party leaders know it will not benefit them. So Avi Lewis and other NDP members should more forwardly platform the goals and paths to voter reform.