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Liberal Party of Canada Comes Out In Support of Net Neutrality 142

Posted by Soulskill from the free-tubes-eh dept.
bryxal writes "The Liberal Party of Canada, currently leading in most polls, has announced yesterday that it supports Net Neutrality, saying, 'Internet management should be neutral and not be permitted for anti-competitive behaviour, nor should it target certain websites, users, providers or legitimate software applications. We must protect the openness and freedom of the internet, and maintain competition to spur innovation, improve service levels and reduce costs to users.'"
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Liberal Party of Canada Comes Out In Support of Net Neutrality More

Liberal Party of Canada Comes Out In Support of Net Neutrality

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  • Now... (Score:5, Informative)

    by whisper_jeff ( 680366 ) on Saturday June 20, 2009 @01:12AM (#28399623)
    Now, if Ignatieff (leader of the Liberal party) would just get his ass in gear and get a new election called so that Harper can be shown the door we could get that network neutrality into action....

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Now, if Ignatieff could take back the 34 years he spent outside Canada, his self-admitted snobbery, and his comment that he was American, he might stand a chance.

      What's with the Liberals anyway? For their last leader, Stephane Dion, they looked around and said "who can we find with less of a personality than Harper?"

      Screw it, I'm in Alberta. It doesn't matter whom I vote for, the Conservatives will win here.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Gramie2 ( 411713 )

        You know, I even heard that that bastard John A. MacDonald wasn't born in Canada either. In fact, from his birth in 1815 until 1867, he didn't even live in Canada, but in some British colony somewhere!

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        "Now, if Ignatieff could take back the 34 years he spent outside Canada, his self-admitted snobbery, and his comment that he was American, he might stand a chance."

        If living in Britain has taught me anything, it's that you shouldn't be afraid of foreigners and politics, even if he clearly isn't actually a foreigner despite his comments.

        I say this because Europe has done a better job of governing Britain than Britain's own government has this last few years. We've had to depend on the European Court of Human

      • Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)

        by multisync ( 218450 )

        Now, if Ignatieff could take back the 34 years he spent outside Canada, his self-admitted snobbery, and his comment that he was American, he might stand a chance.

        He is "American." So am I. What continent did you think Canada was on?

        • Any Canadian referred to as American is usually damned quick with a correction. You'll notice basically no one refers to themselves by what *continent* they live on. Only when you're talking about the Other do you generalize in such a fashion. "He is European. She is Asian. They are African." By labelling himself American, he's just about shot his chances of being PM in the face, because it's a constant worry about how much US-ian Ass our government kisses, and most Canadians would rather not be "the 51st s

    • Re:Now... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by d_jedi ( 773213 ) on Saturday June 20, 2009 @03:45AM (#28400193)

      We do not need another election - 4 in 5 years? Give me a break!

      • What's wrong with more elections? I say the more the better and I can't really understand people who complain about having to vote too often.

        Seriously, it's better for us to get more opportunities to elect our government... right? Better than being stuck with a bad government for four or five years and not being able to do anything about it.

        And for those that don't know, voting in Canada is very easy. You can register at the polls (if you're not already registered) and there's only one ballot with a sing

        • Except for the massive costs involved in running an election. I think most tax payers would rather their money was spent on health care, education, road maintenance, or lower taxes than elections.

      • They may be a slight hassle, but it's the only way to get rid of Harper (coalition hijinx not withstanding).
      • I do not understand those who are upset when they get a say on how they are governed. I would GLADLY go to the polls every month to vote if I could. That would make governments truly accountable. If you don't want to vote, then don't - no one is forcing you to vote. Just because you may be happy having your life controlled by others doesn't mean the rest of us want to waive our right to choose our rulers. If people really think that taking 10 minutes off their life to cast a vote 4 times in 5 years is

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by d_jedi ( 773213 )

          It's not so much voting, per se.. it's that the business of actually governing the country shuts down during an election (all existing legislation dies on the order paper).. and then there's the massive cost ($300M I've heard cited) to boot.

          We need to allow the elected government to have a chance to actually implement some of the things they've promised to do. I don't think anyone is particularly happy with how Harper has governed so far, but personally, I'm not convinced we have a better alternative (the

    • No way man... if the Liberals call a new election less than a year after the last the general public will be mighty pissed. They will probably bide their time. Anyways, I think a lot of the time the opposition party is in the business of saying anything that will gain more votes for their side. Whenever they gain more power we will see if their words turn to actions.

    • Re:Now... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Locklin ( 1074657 ) on Saturday June 20, 2009 @08:45AM (#28401383) Homepage

      If he gets a minority, the NDP also supports net neutrality.

      http://www.ndp.ca/press/new-democrats-introduce-net-neutrality-bill [www.ndp.ca]

      For anyone interested in Canadian net neutrality, http://neutrality.ca/ [neutrality.ca] has regular updates.

      • My concern with the Liberals is they tend to be all over the place on these types of issues. Geist pointed out in his article [michaelgeist.ca] on the Conservatives' IP21C legislative package that it was very similar to a piece of proposed Liberal legislation that died on the order paper in 2005.

        They are desperate to get back in power, and will mimic the NDP and/or Conservatives on any given policy as need suites them if they think it will get them another vote.

        The encouraging thing about this is that it brings it more in to

  • You don't care until your Skype is blocked.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by moon3 ( 1530265 ) on Saturday June 20, 2009 @01:23AM (#28399673)
    Skype is actively blocked here in EU by many ISPs, because some big telcos and their ISP branches decided that Skype is eating too much into their pie. Skype is notorious low bandwidth app so claims of bandwidth concerns etc. are ill-founded. Canada is showing some sense and those EU drones in Brussels should do something, a constitutional amendment perhaps ?

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Meumeu ( 848638 )

      Skype is actively blocked here in EU by many ISPs, because some big telcos and their ISP branches decided that Skype is eating too much into their pie. Skype is notorious low bandwidth app so claims of bandwidth concerns etc. are ill-founded. Canada is showing some sense and those EU drones in Brussels should do something, a constitutional amendment perhaps ?

      To have a constitutional amendment, we would first need to have a constitution...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by moon3 ( 1530265 )
        We have a constitutions per state, but you are right, EU as a whole doesn't have one, because Irish and Czechs are still effectively blocking it.

        • We have a constitutions per state, but you are right, EU as a whole doesn't have one, because Irish and Czechs are still effectively blocking it.

          And thank goodness they are blocking the Lisbon CONstitution / Treaty, they are the only countries stopping the EU becoming the EUSSR in every way except name, Brussels becoming the new Moscow. Once enacted, that is it for European countries, a treaty that can amend itself - no further votes from the pesky electorate! It's bad enough the REAL decision makes in the EU are completely unelected by the people, and that national governments are just rubber stamps for Brussles edicts and laws. Now we'll have dict

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by theshowmecanuck ( 703852 )

      Skype in Canada doesn't provide you with a phone number (i.e.what they used to call 'Skype In'). We have the highest cell phone rates in the world or very close to it (some cell companies want you to pay long distance rates even if you are the one receiving the call!!!... granted some have stopped this practice but still...). The land area is so big, and the population density so small, you will find yourself talking long distance at least several times a week, just for personal business. In other words, lo

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ls671 ( 1122017 ) *

        Just go your own way to save: http://www.asterisk.org/ [asterisk.org]

        I installed asterisk and opened accounts with several business grade VOIP provider. You can reach me through an 1-800 number, I have local phone numbers in 3 major canadian cities and it costs me in average 30$ a month in total for my phone bills. I manage to almost eliminate that cost by reselling services to a few people.

        The call quality is "business grade" not "Skype grade" ;-)))

        Skype survives because it "borrows" bandwidth from its users, without thi

      • Why do you want a proprietary system? There are a lot of SIP providers in Canada (a quick Google turned up a site which lists around 200 of them). My provider (I think it's based in Germany, but operates in the UK and Germany) charges 1.5p/minute for calls to Canadian land lines or mobiles, but doesn't provide a Canadian phone number (you'd need a Canadian SIP gateway for that). And, as an added bonus, because it uses an open standard there are a large number of clients, including softphones and hardware
        • I don't care if it is proprietary, but it has to be 'for profit'. Otherwise there is not enough motivation for them to stay in business (provide service) in the long run. I don't count 'having good intentions' and such as good enough motivation. Not being able to eat, or pay the rent if your business goes under does count as good motivation. It also has to promise a certain level of security. I know we can't get around nosy governments now, but I do want assurance that everyone else will not be able to list

          • All of the SIP providers that operate SIP to POTS gateways are for-profit (that I know of - and I'm sure I'd have heard if there were some that weren't). They make their money by charging for their service. If you want to talk to someone else with a configured SIP client you can talk directly, if you want to talk to someone on a phone then you connect to their bridge and they route the call. If you set up something like Asterisk then you can have it automatically select a different gateway for different

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Locklin ( 1074657 )

        Skype isn't the answer to low-cost phone. Standards complient (SIP) Voip is. Acanac has unlimited calling in North America and a Canadian number for 10 bucks a month. Unlimitel has an a-la-carte model for $2.50 a month.

        Standards compliant SIP means you can use a cheap voip ATA and a regular phone instead of a computer.

        • Neither Acanac or Unlimitel offer a phone number outside of certain large cities. For example, there is no phone number offered in Saskatchewan at all.

          Do you really want to make everyone who calls you dial a long distance number in a different city or province (or pay 5c per minute for incoming 1-800 calls) to contact you?

          • Neither Acanac or Unlimitel offer a phone number outside of certain large cities.

            Neither does Skype. The benefit of standards compliance is that you can buy a generic voip ata router and connect it to whatever supplier offers local numbers or the cheapest service.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jopsen ( 885607 )

      ... those EU drones in Brussels should do something, a constitutional amendment perhaps ?

      I hope not... Then we'd have to make a constitutional amendment for every type of communication network that is invented in the future...
      - But I'd like to see some regulations too...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by moon3 ( 1530265 )
        NN is meant for the Internet information network, there is a clear distinction between this kind of open network and narrow interest networks like XBox-Live or Skype with their own internal rules.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by SigILL ( 6475 )

      Skype is actively blocked here in EU by many ISPs, because some big telcos and their ISP branches decided that Skype is eating too much into their pie.

      Could you give an example? It's most certainly not the case here in the Netherlands, and there would be a huge outcry if this were so. The European Commission is pretty strict on anti-competitive measures, especially those by the former state monopolies.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ls671 ( 1122017 ) *

      Skype does eat your bandwidth even when you are not talking over it, it is a well known fact. Your computer might be used by Skype as a gateway for other people talking together which could not reach each other otherwise. I have a 1GB a month cap on an EVDO wireless connection and I would just about eat it all just by letting skype always on 24/7, even without ever talking to anybody.

      Knowing this, I could understand the total cost of Skype might be non-negligible for ISPs.

      Of course, it's kind of net non-neu

    • Skype is notorious low bandwidth app so claims of bandwidth concerns etc. are ill-founded

      No it isn't. Skype, if it decides that you have a non-NAT'd connection, or is able to find some forwarded ports, can produce enough traffic to saturate a consumer connection (or, could a couple of years ago when I had a housemate running Skype).

  • If you want more information about the Liberal Party of Canada, just visit their web site [liberal.ca].

    The "liberal" in "Liberal Party" has the traditional American meaning and is not used in the European sense. In Europe, a "liberal" is one who favors market liberalization: lower taxes, less regulation, and longer work hours. For example, France's Nicolas Sarkozy was accused of being a "liberal" when he ran in the presidential election.

    • Lower taxes and less regulation, sure, but you cannot call a liberal (in the traditional US sense, or libertarian today) somebody who thinks that it's a matter for the government to decide what the work hours should be in private businesses.

      • Classic liberal != libertarian.

        Besides, "liberal" isn't binary. There's a whole range of opinions that falls into that category, and most of them are not extreme (while not regulating work hours is definitely very fringe by today measures).

        And, of course, the Liberal Party of Canada - which is one of the major parties - is not extreme on any issues.

    • Historically, the Liberal party started out as a classically liberal party, but it has been many decades since it has behafved even REMOTELY liberal.

      The LPC does what is politically expedient, and has no principles AT ALL. Policy and philosophy are shaped solely by opinion polls and the direction of the leader of the day. It is for that reason that I don't hold much promise at all that switching parties would help further the cause of net neutrality. How trustworthy are the Liberals, and can you believe

  • Legitimate Software Applications (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ModernGeek ( 601932 ) on Saturday June 20, 2009 @01:53AM (#28399787)
    I wonder who gets to decide what a "Legitimate Software Application" is?

    • Re:Legitimate Software Applications (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Bob9113 ( 14996 ) on Saturday June 20, 2009 @03:05AM (#28400051) Homepage

      I wonder who gets to decide what a "Legitimate Software Application" is?

      I was going to post the same thing. Sorry my mod points are on cooldown. Well said.

      Corollary questions: Who decides how to distinguish between the data stream of a legitimate app and the data stream of an illegitimate app? What if they use an identical data stream? What level of false positive blocking is OK? False negative passing?

      Corporate networks can filter at the protocol and packet level because they are independent networks whose need for security exceeds their need for liberty. Society-level networks require the opposite priority order to maximize societal profit. Tell your politician.

  • Everything they say and do is opposite the conservatives. They don't care, they are just doing their jobs.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by chdig ( 1050302 )
      To quote the Liberal's press release on their position:
      "Net Neutrality refers to the principle that internet traffic management should not selectively target certain websites, users or legitimate internet applications."

      I'll put $50 on the table to wager that Bell's 30KBps limit on bittorrent downloading will miraculously escape any "Net Neutrality" legislation the Liberals table when they get into power.

      Any takers?

      --
      What's really at risk? The definition of net neutrality itself.

  • For those of you... (Score:3, Funny)

    by samexner ( 1316083 ) on Saturday June 20, 2009 @02:05AM (#28399825)
    For those of you thinking of moving to canada, remember this:
    If you die in Canada, you die in real life! http://xkcd.com/180/ [xkcd.com]

  • Not necessarily what Canadians are hoping for. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Jason Pollock ( 45537 ) on Saturday June 20, 2009 @02:13AM (#28399869) Homepage

    Bell Canada is in hot water with their wholesale ISP customers because they are throttling the bandwidth from the cabinets/COs upstream. However, they are throttling both their own retail subscribers _and_ these ISP resellers. Personally, I see this as a commercial issue between the ISPs and Bell. The ISPs should have SLAs that document precisely how much bandwidth they are allowed to peak at.

    However, ISPs, instead of negotiating, running their own wire, or buying their own DSLAMs have gone lobbying. They tried the regulator, who told them to get lost. They've managed to convince a lot of customers that Bell is being anti-competitive and against "Net Neutrality" by throttling. Remember, Bell applies the same shaping to their own customers.

    So, everyone is hoping that this means that the Liberals are against this throttling. However, I can't see how it would have any bearing on that, since all subscribers are throttled the same.

    Net Neutrality is a complex issue - where are you allowed to throttle, how are you allowed to throttle, are you allowed QoS, preferential feeds over a common connection, preferential feeds over independent connections. What's the difference between a VPN on one wire and a separate wire? Are you allowed to host local mirrors of high traffic sites? Are you allowed to charge fees for that hosting? If you're a VoIP provider as well as the ISP, are you allowed to provide preferential services? If you offer DTV, how about then? What makes a cable TV provider able to give preferential treatment to cable TV channels, but an ISP can't do it for Internet TV?

    This was purely a publicity stunt without any real substance behind it. Particularly since Canada has a minority government and could be voted down at any point in time. Heck, they managed to get mentioned on slashdot - talk about hitting the target market!

    I saw the same thing in New Zealand. During the election, the opposition minister was quoting as saying that the copyright legislation was stupid, and that he didn't know why he voted for it. As soon as they got in, NZ had S92A, three strikes and you're disconnected without appeal or evidence.

    • Re:Not necessarily what Canadians are hoping for. (Score:4, Informative)

      by sedmonds ( 94908 ) on Saturday June 20, 2009 @02:43AM (#28399979) Homepage

      The ISPs should have SLAs that document precisely how much bandwidth they are allowed to peak at.

      They thought they did. They had contracted backhaul aggregation to their peering point at 151 Front St. One tariff covers the copper between end users and the CO, another tariff covers backhaul from COs to peering locations. The backhaul tariff resulted in Gig-E links from the Bell cloud. ISP looks at how much bandwidth they need, contract for that amount, plus error margin, plus expected growth. Peak requirement happens to occur during the hours Bell throttles. ISP is already tied into multi-year contracts for aggregated bandwidth that no longer matches their actual requirements.

      The ideal world where third party providers can get customer concentrations high enough to create a business case for colocating DSLAMs and having their own backhaul or peering at each CO, or even at a meaningful number of COs, simply doesn't exist. Nevermind that many, many customers either cannot get dsl from a CO (only available through remotes, which Bell doesn't have to provide access to), or CO connections are available at embarassingly low sync rates.

    • The fact that all subscribers are throttled is a red herring. This is still anti-competitive behaviour, as it removes a significant point of competitive differentiation between Bell and the independent ISPs. Bell saw it as 'unfair' that the other ISPs could offer unthrottled connections, but they were the ones who decided to throttle their own customers! Bell was beginning to lose customers after they implemented throttling in Fall 2007, so they began throttling everyone over Easter weekend 2008. Withou

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by yamfry ( 1533879 )
        I'd like to add to that conflict of interest: Bell VoIP, Bell Video Download store, Bell's experimental fiber optic lines that they are thus far refusing to lease.

    • They are purchasing DSLAM equipment (see here for one example http://community.acanac.com/acanac/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=7023 [acanac.com] ).

      I believe Acanac and Teksavvy are sharing the investment, but it's still a massive, long term investment.

      If Bell was only allowed to wholesale, they wouldn't be doing this. They are doing it because the small providers were taking customers by advertising un-throttled service.

      • DSLAMs are neither expensive nor long-term.

        They are US$20/port, and available in small configurations (20 ports).

        So, it costs them US$600 to buy a DSLAM, which pays for itself from _one_ subscriber rather quickly.

  • The Liberal Party is notorious for promising things in Opposition that they have no intention of following through with. Ultimately the Liberals will promise cash to the poor Provinces that will come out of the pockets of the rich Provinces, return to power and forget about Net Neutrality.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MichaelSmith ( 789609 )
      Same here in Australia. One new Government created a distinction between "core promises" and "non-core promises". Simple as that.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jbr439 ( 214107 )

        At least you get "core promises". We just get "promises" that aren't worth the paper they're written on.

    • That sounds like most parties to me. One offsetting what the other has to say just to get the support of those blindly against another party.

      The sad thing is that it hampers real progress since it's nothing more than who has what to sell this week. Party politics is a trap to keep the simpletons inline.
  • Having had my nose pushed into actual regulatory politics over the last seven years, I'd like to add a cautionary note.

    Don't be surprised that the first truly large forms of Internet censorship on a large scale occur because of net neutrality legislation. Ironic.

    Right now, the government is not responsible for Internet content to any real extent. A net neutrality law essentially says 'Government, you make things right about that content stuff'. At first, this will be a good thing. "No censorship" it wil

  • "Internet management should be neutral and not be permitted for anti-competitive behaviour, nor should it target certain websites, users, providers or legitimate software applications."

    Well put.

    I would add, though.

    - If the network is privately funded, not backed by public concession or right of way, this should not apply if the TOS of are clear about it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mashiki ( 184564 )

      The Liberals are the same guys who have been saying: "We need EI(employment insurance) reform, need it now, now, now!" But were the ones who forced the EI reform through to get the system as it is, but are now unhappy with it. Seriously, this stuff is politics 101 in order to get votes.

      Want to change the way things work in Canada? Get them to change how the CRTC operates.

  • CRTC (Score:2, Informative)

    by javacowboy ( 222023 )

    The CRTC regulates communications in Canada and it's an arm's length agency. That is to say that the federal cabinet can't control its decisions. The Conservatives tried to force them to deregulate VOIP. The CRTC disobeyed the order. There was nothing the cabinet could do.

    How do the Liberals expect to get around this fact?

  • While in Opposition, the Liberal Party of Canada campaigned against:
    - wage and price controls
    - increased gas tax
    - against the FTA (Free Trade Agreement)
    - against the GST (Good and Services Tax)

    Once elected the LPC did a 180% on each of those issues. The LPC has a history of saying what it thinks will get it elected and then doing whatever it wants to do (not that other parties are blameless on this). So I wouldn't put too much stock in this unless a senior member of the LPC said it was a matter of integrity

  • To get net neutrality you need new regulations and more bureaucrats to enforce them and more bureaucrats to wipe the first gang's noses. What else would you expect from the Liberals?

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