Sam bulte parkdale liberal

Canada’s election process allows voters to cast their ballots much earlier than actual election day. In the past this made it much easier for people that were going to be out of the country during the election to participate. The rules have been relaxed quite recently, so now it just means that people like me can vote when its more convenient – like on their way to the grocery store on a Saturday instead of ducking out of work on the actual day of the election.

While doing this year’s Candidate Investigation, wherein I use the internet to do a cursory search of the candidates in my area to find out which ones might actually Get It before I vote the way my Grandfather told me to. This time, I was quite disturbed to find out that the leading candidate  in my riding (district), Sam Bulte of the Liberal Party of Canada, is actually a shill for Big Copyright interests. She’s taken thousands of dollars from Canada’s equivalent of the MPAA and RIAA.

Michael Geist has a great summary:

Bulte's riding association received contributions during this period from the following groups:

What makes the thousands of dollars raised from these groups particularly noteworthy is that Bulte's riding association was the only one to receive such contributions.  In other words, at a time when the publishing, music, movie, and photographer industries and collectives were concerned with copyright reform, they chose to provide campaign contributions to just one Member of Parliament - Sam Bulte.

As always, BoingBoing provides a more succinct analysis [1,2];

Bulte -- who wrote a report advocating the most extreme copyright restrictions imaginable and championed the Canada's Bill C60 copyright law proposal -- receives funds from across the copyright industries. What's more, she's the only candidate in the country who is funded in this way…hoovering up giant corporate bucks while campaigning to deliver just the kind of copyright laws that will make crooks out of ordinary Canadians and line the pockets of massive, US-owned entertainment companies.

In an all candidates meeting last week, darling Sam had the temerity to refer to those that don’t like her brand of intellectual hypocrisy – outright theft from the Canadian public commons –  as “pro-user zealots”. In this same statement, she claims to be proud of her support of the creators of copyright. The artists, the same artists that are saying things like this,

The most important realization that any Canadian can make about this country’s music industry is that it is almost entirely beholden to foreign parent companies. Now, many of you might be labouring under the false assumption that the primary concern of Canada’s foremost corporate music giants is the promotion and support of domestic artists, but nothing could be further from the truth. Canadian companies exhaust the majority of their energies promoting large international acts, basically acting as little more than regional sales offices…

I’ve been saying this for years – this country needs to worry about developing Canadian talent and should not have to check with New York or Los Angeles to okay cheques over 5,000 dollars. The demise of Canadian music rests in its loss of identity and the willingness of the Canadian music industry and the Canadian people to allow it to be silently assimilated once and for all into the American corporate musical landscape…

At the end of their day, the entertainment industry is in the business of making money, not particularly ensuring that Canadian artists are championed. It would be nice if they stopped abusing that particular platform. As for Bulte, I suggest she consider whose interests she’s actually representing.

That came from Matthew Good’s blog. One of the poor voiceless artist that Sam is looking out for.

Sam Bulte proudly points out that she is the “Chair of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, including Chair of the Interim Report on Copyright Reform - February 2004-May 2004” on a resume she posted to her web site. I’ve always hoped that the agenda of our Heritage department includes just a little bit more than the issues that big business wants dealt with legislatively.

Don’t forget though that the Liberal Party of Canada seems to have a history of this type of behavior. Remember this little gem?

A political scandal involving the Public Works Ministry, a government effort called the Sponsorship Program, and allegations of corruption in the ruling Liberal Party has Canada abuzz with rumors of payoffs, Mob ties, and snap elections. For the last two years, Canadian politics has been gripped by the so-called “sponsorship scandal” tens of millions of dollars in government contracts which were funneled into advertizing firms closely connected with the Liberal government for little or no work.

Yup. The very same Liberals. Not exactly the type of representation that I want in Ottawa.

Remember, even Pro-user Zealots pay taxes - and we don’t want them stolen from us, and we certainly don’t want you to sell our heritage out to U.S. BigMedia.

So with that, this zealot is off to the ballot box to blow off some steam. Grandpa will be proud.

Remember, even Pro-user Zealots pay taxes - and we don’t want them stolen from us, and we certainly don’t want you to sell our heritage out to U.S. BigMedia.

So, this zealot is off to the ballot box to blow off some steam.