Whose Arms Are We Using to Measure This Thing?

Scott H. Payne

February 28, 2011 | 3 Comments

Am I the only person whose head his shaking over this news? The CRTC has withdrawn a controversial proposal that would have given TV and radio stations more leeway to broadcast false or misleading news. Indeed, the broadcast regulator now says it never wanted the regulatory change in the first place and was only responding [...]

Week in Review

Jonathan McLeod

February 22, 2011 | No Comments

Family Day in Ontario means a late Week in Review. Anyway, here are some of the top posts from last week: Jonathan McLeod: Of Life and Death and a Week. Lindsay Watt: Pipes, The CRTC, Mexican Donkey Porn and UBB. (And cheers to Lindsay for working “Mexican Donkey Porn” into his first post with us!) [...]

Pipes, The CRTC, Mexican Donkey Porn and UBB

Lindsay Watt

February 20, 2011 | 1 Comment

What a couple of weeks. The CRTC casually announced that they would allow usage-based billing (UBB). Within days hundreds of thousands of Canadians signed a petition (even apathetic people like me-more on this later). Then Tony Clement’s twitter feed took charge and said that the decision would be reversed: So what’s going on here? Do [...]

Irony In Action

Scott H. Payne

February 16, 2011 | 2 Comments

It’s been quite the couple of weeks for the CRTC. First the controversy over usage-based billing, then the reversal of the government’s reversal of the body’s decision regarding WIND Mobile/Globalive, and now the uproar over proposed changes to the regulations surrounding the standards of broadcasting of false or misleading information. Seems like you can’t turn [...]

Week in Review

Jonathan McLeod

February 14, 2011 | No Comments

In the last seven days, we’ve talked about Tony Clement, pot, the CRTC, Egypt and Twitter. Here’s last week’s top five: Scott H. Payne: Tony Clement and Twitter Nick Taylor-Vaisey: Never has the status quo been so radical Jonathan McLeod: They’ll Call Me Freedom, Just Like a Wavin’ Flag Scott H. Payne: Ironic Points of [...]

Tony Clement and Twitter

Scott H. Payne

February 11, 2011 | 6 Comments

Twitter has become an increasingly vital tool for those who want to follow and comment on Canadian politics at a granular level. Despite the fact that tweets are limited by a 140 character allowance per tweet, there is a stunning amount of information exchanged in those short bursts of commentary. And the immediacy of that [...]

Never has the status quo been so radical

Nick Taylor-Vaisey

February 9, 2011 | 1 Comment

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is considering amendments to its regulations that lay out what licensed broadcasters can and cannot say on Canadian airwaves. Currently, CRTC regulations say that no licensee can broadcast “any false or misleading news”. If the regulation is updated according to the amendments on the table, no licensee will be [...]

Speech Warrior-ing

Jonathan McLeod

February 9, 2011 | No Comments

Here are a couple of quick-hits on some free speech-y news: Canadian Soapbox (via Dr. Dawg) brings us news that there are some people upset about Jimmy Carter’s book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid – not that the book, itself is news, nor the complaints about its accuracy. What is news is that some people are launching [...]

And Now Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming…

Jonathan McLeod

February 4, 2011 | 2 Comments

The ongoing circumcision debate is fun and all (see here, here and here), but I thought it might be time to move on to some other current events… like Usage-Based Billing! I do not like the idea of paying more for my internet service, nor do I like the idea of having caps on my [...]

This is not the conservative movement you’re looking for…

Scott H. Payne

February 3, 2011 | 9 Comments

Tony Clement has made it official, if the CRTC doesn’t back down on its controversial usage-based billing, the government will step in and reverse it for them. The move has some folks like Andrew Coyne riled. Coyne and Clement breathed new life into their much  watched Twitter battle royals, going a couple of rounds on [...]

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The Commons has brought together a diverse cross-section of unique and intelligent voices to generate meaningful debate and discussion. All contributors have made the solemn commitment to cultivate respectful, honest, vigorous, and open dialogue—and to promote that very kind of dialogue within the larger Canadian political discourse.