Michael Geist in today's Toronto Star:
Secret U.S. government cables show a stunning willingness by senior Canadian officials to appease American demands for a U.S.-style copyright law here.
The documents describe Canadian officials as encouraging American lobbying efforts. They also cite cabinet minister Maxime Bernier raising the possibility of showing U.S. officials a draft bill before tabling it in Parliament.
The cables, from the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa, even have a policy director for then industry minister Tony Clement suggesting it might help U.S. demands for a tough copyright law if Canada were placed among the worst offenders on an international piracy watch list. Days later, the U.S. placed Canada alongside China and Russia on the list.
Did Maxime Bernier not see a problem with allowing a foreign government to see and approve legislation before the people he's elected to represent get to see it?
Did Tony Clement and his policy director care whether there was any objective reason to have Canada placed on that "offenders" list? Did they not see a problem with encouraging a foreign government to condemn Canadian citizens to serve someone else's agenda?
Those are rhetorical questions, in case that's not obvious. It's becoming clearer by the day that the Harper Government™ doesn't represent us. They're putting the interests of foreign corporations above those of their own constituents.
The word you might be reaching for is Corporatocracy.
CONTEMPT doesn't even begin to describe these illegal actions. Sharing draft legislation with a foreign government should be considered espionage, no?
Now I'm torn. On the one hand, I'm as outraged as you are. On the other hand, imagining Maxime Bernier as an undercover operative makes me giggle.
Well, this doesn't remotely surprise me. If you'd asked me "Do you suppose the Harpercons consult with US officials about pending legislation and offer to do anything they want on policies such as copyright?" my answer would have been "Oh, yeah, I'm sure they do."
But it makes me sick to my stomach to remember that they're like this, it's obvious, and yet the Canadian public elected the bastards.
Sex sells. And so, apparently, does xenophobia.
I think a lot of people voted Conservative simply because they didn't see any other alternatives. One lady I talked to who voted Conservative did so more because she liked our local MP rather than Mr. "My Way Or The Highway", as she termed Harper, while a number of other people dislike Harper but vote for him simply because they feel he's the best option available.
As for "regulatory harmonization", I think there's a right way to go about it and a wrong way. The right way, in my mind, is having bureaucrats who are experts in any given area sit down with groups that are interested in a given area, and then hash out specific regulations that are then approved by their department's Ministers, who are authorized to issue or change specific regulations according to the laws passed in Parliament.
Harmonizing regulations on things like single-wide tires in the trucking industry, or provinces agreeing to recognize the training credentials issued in each others' jurisdictions, can be part of the normal political process and make things easier for businesses that work in multiple provinces, or workers who move from one province to another and try to get a job in their field.
What I don't like, though, are wide, sweeping negotiations that are done behind closed doors and under tight security. I distinctly remember Harper sneeringly dismissing peoples' concerns about the Security and Prosperity Partnership as simply being about harmonizing jellybean requirements.
That, of course, begs the question-why do high level CEOs and elected officials need to get involved, with all the tight security and extreme secrecy? If it's only about standardizing jellybeans, wouldn't it just be faster and more efficient to get some of our federal and provincial health bureaucrats to meet with their U.S. counterparts and representatives of the candy industry, and have them work out some regulatory changes that the elected ministers and secretaries can sign off on?
Otherwise, why blow so much taxpayer money on these high level meetings?