Thanks for Speaking Up

(cc to my own MP: the Hon. Mark Warawa, MP for Langley
and to the responding cabinet minister: the Hon. Tony Clement)

Hello Mr. Angus,

I was reading one of my usual sources of news, this morning and I came across this piece which included a link to an exchange between yourself and the Hon. Tony Clement. I wish my own MP had the fortitude to stand up to his own party on this issue. Failing that, I wish some other candidate who had the courage to speak up thus had a ghost of a hope of unseating him. You may not be my MP but on the subject of Copyright Law and the insidious ACTA-inspired legislation that keeps trying to get through the Canadian parliament (in the face of a mix of strong opposition and apathy) you are representing me and my interests, along with the interests of younger Canadians everywhere, just fine. Keep up the good work.

The derisive and dismissive way in which Mr. Clement referred to Michael Geist's columns in response, not dealing substantively with any of the issues Mr. Geist raises, reflects badly on the competence of the minister and on the openness of whatever process he claims to have pursued with Canadians.

I have little hope, ultimately, that this bill will be prevented from passing. On issue after issue, at level after level (provincially, federally and even municipally) I feel less and less that our forms of government are "by the people", that they are devolving into more and more autocracy, are more and more controlled by not-even-Canadian moneyed interests. I am pretty sure that the big legislative battles on this issue have to be fought and won elsewhere, ultimately, but how I wish it were otherwise. I can see my liberties slipping away one after another and I am sad that my children and grandchildren will be less free than my parents were and they won't even know what they're missing.

Keep up the good fight and inspire some of your colleagues, regardless of party affiliation to do the same.

Sincerely,


Arthur N. Klassen