I’ve posted this letter to the Fair Copyright Canada Ottawa Facebook group.

Bonjour,

I am a candidate to nominations for the Green Party of Canada in Ottawa-Vanier. I am an open source software advocate with a B.A.Sc. Software Engineering. If you wish to have a candidate in the next federal election in Ottawa that will strongly advocate for fair copyright reform and free culture, I encourage you to come at the nomination on March 3rd (coordinates below) and vote for me. The other candidate(s) to this nomination are not familiar with copyright policy.

Vision
My vision is one where we embrace free culture. By free culture I do not necessarily mean free as in free beer, but free as in freedom. Free from attempts of corporations at controlling it, free to participate in it and free to share it. One where our public institutions by default choose, promote and catalyze that freedom and that new business models (ex: Jamendo, YouTube, Flickr) can thrive.

My positions

• U.S. DMCA & Canada C-60: These laws are not about controlling content but controlling devices. They are not only a threat to open source technology, on which social justice & environmental organizations thrive, but also a threat to our ability to participate in our own culture. Even Canadian Internet security is at risk. I will oppose any attempt to criminalize reverse engineering.
• File sharing: I will oppose any attempt to criminalize file sharing. However, file sharing is a major point of contention between creators of the new economy and artists who prefer the old way of disseminating culture. Further discussion is required for both parties to be satisfied.
• Net Neutrality: On top of the Green Party’s position of “prohibiting Internet Service Providers from discriminating due to content while freeing them from liability for content transmitted through their systems”, I also think all ISPs should be encouraged (either by law or by financial incentive) to switch to IPv6. IPv4 was a reason Network Address Translation (NAT) was brought in. However, in the process, NAT made us second class citizens of the Internet (see “The Firewalled Consumer” section from this document).
• Open Source in Government: The Green Party wishes to facilitate the adoption of open source for small businesses as well as in government . I myself have been a regular attendee of Getting Open Source Logic Into Government

The nomination
Date: Monday March 3rd
Time: Registration at 19:00, meeting starts at 19:30
Location: Sandy Hill Community Center, 250 Somerset St. East (corner of Nelson)

Membership:

• Deadline: You must be a GPC member by Feburary 18th to vote at the nomination;
• Joining on-line
• Joining by phone: 1-866-868-3447;
• Joining in person: GPC office at 396 Cooper St. or contact me at julien.lamarche@gmail.com to fill out the forms.

Julien Lamarche
Candidate to nominations
Ottawa-Vanier, Green Party of Canada
http://www.julienlamarche.ca/
julien.lamarche@gmail.com