The Telecom Trotskyites

The Financial Post published an article about the latest proposed bill that is supposed to implement DMCA-like copyright laws in Canada. According to it, the bill never made it to the parliament, because the Industry Minister Jim Prentice, who was in charge, decided not to appear due to the activists lined up in front of his house. These protesters were made up of your standard nerds and led by Dr. Michael Geist, who believe that the DMCA has many negative aspects and they do not wish that they be present in the Canadian law. They believe that the law should be altered to complement the latest changes in technology and not oppose them. The article then goes on to call those protesters “trotskytes”, a term used to refer to strong supporters of Marxism and communism.

I believe that the article just degrades the “trotskytes” and does not bring any support to their claim. It just blabs about how we should stay the same and follow the USA way of life. Also it goes on to claim that “Harper Conservatives are running an all-new populist government, friend of the little guy and defender of consumerism”. Now that is where my issue lies with the article, because last time I checked, Canada is a democracy meaning that it is “a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them” (Source: Princeton WordNet) So what Harper is doing is perfectly right, he is following what the “little guy” or the common man wants and not what the few huge corporations want.

I think that the Financial Post should stop following the ancient principles that were created in the pre-Internet era, because the world is always changing. So why are they calling us communists? It could be because of what Bill posted on the VanLUG mailing list in response to the article: “Doesn’t even occur to them that we might be right….”

UPDATE: You might want to check out Richard Pitt’s response to the article to get a better idea what is wrong with the legislation.