ReeferMadness

I think if you just re-read your own post out loud, maybe you'll see the problem. But your post captures the essence (and the issue) with attack ads far better than I could. Thanks

This is not at all the same. The Liberals didn't try to try to change the rules in their favour by burying some verbiage in an omnibus bill, they went to court. And in any case, this example is completely irrelevant. It's 25 years old. And whether the Liberals agree or not, it doesn't matter. I'm not a Liberal supporter.

You've bypassed the main point. Harper has succeeded in marginalizing the media by treating them like the enemy. Our supposedly responsible government is the most secretive since the 2nd world war.

Fair points. Chairman Harper has succeeded in neutering those institutions to such a degree that I completely forgot about them.

The links you've supplied are, at best, tangential to your assertions. You claim there are laws and instead of providing a link to those laws, you provide a link to an industry organization. The Canadian Broadcasting Standards Association establishes broadcasting standards, not laws. The second link is about CRTC weakening regulations about false news and has nothing to do with Sun Media or attack ads. Total non sequitur. Big corporations, media or otherwise, are still bound to make their shareholders their primary concern. Regulations don't change that essential fact.

And here's a question for you. The Conservatives have succeeded in making the free press much less relevant through the use of message control techniques. They limit access to the PM on an unprecedented scale, control what questions are asked and who asks them, and waste public money on advertisements that are naked propaganda. If you care about free press and its role, how do we keep governments from this type of blatant manipulation of the press?

That's a quaint notion. Corporations are legally obliged to behave in the best interests of their shareholders, not the public. So, if you expect media to behave in the best interests of the public, you either have to: 1. Have media owned by a large, benevolent private interest 2. Have the media customers (ie the public) hold them accountable 3. Disperse media voices through mechanisms like blogs and independent media However, the government has a duty to act in the best interests of the country, not their party. The Conservatives have repeatedly and grossly failed in this respect. In this case, they are tilting the rules to favour their chances of re-election. This is a much bigger scandal than the way the media is behaving.

The change is clearly designed to facilitate the Conservatives attack ad strategy. Since that strategy is much more a pillar of their strategy than the other parties, it is designed to give them an advantage. I think the reason the Conservatives chose to privilege the speech of political parties is that there are plenty of non-partisan creative groups out there (e.g. adbusters) that they consider their enemies. Attack ads are bad for democracy. They have an effect of turning people off and discouraging voter participation.

So, the media is behaving in their best interests and those of their shareholders. I don't see anything particularly shocking about that. They are big businesses and I have no control over what they do. What bothers me is that our government is making in rules according to the interests of the Conservative Party. That's unacceptable - they are supposed to be acting in the interests of the country. They are supposedly accountable to the people. What's wrong with the three suggestions that I've made about how to fix this?

There are none so blind as those who will not see......

I've no reason to doubt you when you say that the media companies are playing this to their own advantage. However, your framing of this as big media against the rest of us or even big media against the political parties is badly flawed. The Conservatives have no problem kowtowing to corporations on other issues. What's happening here is a transparent attempt to make a last minute rule change to the advantage of one party. I admire Michael Geist but focusing on media rights when the rules of democracy are being toyed with is just plain silly. If this is an honest attempt to deal with media rights, it's easy for the Conservatives to go at this honestly: 1. Put this in front of the house and debate it honestly. Don't bury it in an omnibus bill. 2. Make the law apply to everyone, not just privileging political parties 3. Introduce it at the beginning of their mandate, not less than a year before an election.

Really?? You really don't see the issue? Imagine you have a hockey league. In this hockey league, the people who won last time get to set all the rules of the game. I know that's a crazy way to run a league but that's what we have. Now, in this case, the league champions got there by building a team of the biggest, roughest, dirtiest players they could find. They specialize in intimidating and, where possible, injuring star players on opposing teams. With 3 months left in the season, they change the rules to eliminate major penalties and game misconducts. Penalties are now all 2 minutes. They claim they're doing this to improve the flow of the game. Obviously, you have no problem with this scenario. After all, it's the same rules for everyone. Now imagine that hockey actually mattered. Instead of being just a goofy game obsessed over by people who never grew up, it has direct and serious impacts on peoples lives. Now do you get it?

It certainly does do something. It ruins badly needed infrastructure, destroys homes, and kills and maims the local population. People might be less likely to say "we have to do something" if the bombs were landing in their backyards. Meh. Collateral damage, right? Not your problem. Just wave those pompoms.

Completely irrelevant. Bush's strikes killed far more civilian bystanders. I know most people here don't fuss over colored people in poor countries getting killed but the suddenly orphaned kids do. Bush created the massive clusterf*ck that Obama inherited. But anyway, who cares? I'm no fan of Obama either.

You've gotta wonder why Harper is so eager to rush to airstrikes in a campaign that is failing to achieve its aims. I guess he's our very own northern dubya.

I see the usual crowd of apologists for Chairman Harper have showed up to proIvide the normal quota of BS and obfuscation. Let's break through the nonsense, shall we? I see 5 issues with this legislation: 1. It allows arbitrary and uncredited use of content. How you feel about that will depend on your views. Michael Geist, for example, doesn't find this particularly troubling. 2. It privileges political parties above the rest of us when it comes to freedom of speech. Nobody should feel good about this. 3. It will facilitate attack ads and sleazy advertising tactics such as partial clips or segments shown out of context. This will lower the level of discourse (just when you thought that wasn't possible), confuse voters and harm democratic choice. 4. It was buried in an omnibus bill. An honest government would have at least put it in front of parliament and explained their intent. Nobody ever accused Harper of being too honest. Which leads us to the most serious issue.... 5. Whatever the actual impact, it was clearly intended to provide an electoral advantage to the ruling party. This behaviour is beneath contempt and has no place in democracy.

I agree - you are failing. A sure sign of when people have run out of intelligent things to add is when they start to poke fun at my handle. Thanks for calling that out for us.

Is there no ethical boundary these people won't cross? Chairman Harper and his politburo are changing copyright laws to favour their chances of re-election. Allowing free use of media content in attack ads will clearly be of most benefit to the party that most uses attack ads. And gee, which party is that? And of course, instead of publicly debating these changes, they're slipped into a ridiculous omnibus bill. Democracy in this country is a travesty.

Your post had contents? I hadn't noticed.

Yes, that's our great weakness. We're just too peace loving. When we drop bombs that kill and orphan children it's just our way of projecting a gruff exterior so the whole world doesn't take advantage of our peace loving nature. When our governments support brutal dictators, that's just how we compensate for being too peace loving. And the colonialism and all the interference from world powers? Well, that's just peace-loving writ large. Whatever issues the people of that region have will ultimately only be resolved by them.

Did you really just refer to fatuous logic? Oh, the irony. I barely know where to start with this tripe but just let me make a few obvious points: 1. To prevent some hypothetical case of "outsize influence", you want us to continue to accept a situation where 37% of voters elect a party where power is centralized to the point where we have a virtual dictatorship. Tell me again about the horror of "outsize influence". 2. Israel is the bogeyman for the anti-PR crowd. Israel's problems are due to it being a magnet for religious fundamentalists coupled with a party list system with a very low threshold. It takes just 2% of the population to elect a representative. Most PR system start to elect around 5%. And Israel would be a mess under any system. 3. Extremists and wackjobs can be elected in any system. Rob Anders anyone? 4. FPTP accentuates regional differences which is a big problem in countries (like Canada) where there are deep regional divisions. For elections, the bloc received way too many seats due our broken electoral system. Need I go on?

A decade and a half of war on terror and the result is ISIS. Bomb these countries to try to get at ISIS and the result will be what exactly? I'm imagining ISIS leaders high-fiving each other when the announcements came. There is no better recruitment incentive than western jets bombing the crap out of a third world country to get at a handful of people.

yes, just like the last time there was an NDP/Liberal coalition. And we got CPP. Medicare, our Canadian flag and the student loan program. If that was going to hell in a hand basket, let's go again!

Well, Cybercoma this thread illustrates better than I ever could why neither New Brunswick nor anywhere else in Canada will get a. functioning system of voting anytime soon. Even when it does get raised as an issue to be voted on (and that alone takes a TON of work), established interests rise up and smother the idea with the exact same pig-headed, misleading, half-true (or less) excuses that all the Harperites here are coming up with. Then the voters get confused and scared and go with the devil they know. And just like this thread, FPTP gets a free ride in the debate. Proponents talk about how it should work in theory, glibly ignoring that in actuality, it really doesn't provide any meaningful representation at all. We harp on how FPTP delivers results that don't reflect the will of the voting public. This alone should be the kiss of death. But many of the other effects of FPTP are not well understood and rarely discussed. Things like gerrymandering. Tactical voting. Wedge issues. Excessive focus on swing ridings. Negative campaigning. Voter suppression tactics. Robocalls. Tendency towards two-party systems. Suppression of innovative ideas. Waste votes. Spoiler candidates and other voter manipulation schemes. At this point, a casual observer might be tempted to ask a reasonable question? If FPTP is so bad, why is it still around? The answer lies in the history of human injustice. FPTP is a form of systemic discrimination against minority constituencies - those that are part of a group large enough to matter but not large enough to gain a significant number of seats under FPTP (parties that command 5% - 20% of the popular vote). FPTP persists for the same basic reason that black slavery or apartheid or segregation policies or lack of universal suffrage persisted. The group that suffers the injustice isn't powerful enough to change the system and the group that is benefiting from the injustice will just rationalize the status quo. People are amazing at coming up with rationalizations as to why patently unjust systems are OK. The reason that we still have FPTP is that those who benefit don't really give a shit about the Federal Green or NDP supporters whose votes they are usurping. The history of human rights is clear. If votes are to count equitably, the victories will be won in the courts or in the streets. Trying to convince people they should voluntarily relinquish their unjust privilege is a waste of time.

Oh, I see. Instead of compromise, you prefer to see a system where Conservatives and Liberals alternate dictatorships. Makes me wonder how decisions are made in your household.