Category: News

Imagine if 1,000 people were protesting on Parliament Hill today. That would certainly make the news, right? What if it was 40,000? Surely, politicians would be paying attention.

Well 40,000 would be the number of tweets that, in 2012, ridiculed the Conservative government’s proposed amendment to the Criminal Code of Canada: the Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act.

Don’t be fooled by the name, the bill had nothing to do with internet predators and everything to do with a government bent on getting into our hard drives without a warrant.

If you recall, this was the infamous bill that led Vic Toews to channel George W. Bush and declare that you could either stand with the government or “stand with the child pornographers.”

The bill was widely criticized and it gave birth to one of the funniest twitter hashtags in Canadian history: #tellviceverything. Basically, the twittersphere decided that if Vic Toews really wanted to know everything, it would tell Vic e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g… to the point of over-sharing.

And so Canadians started telling Vic about everything from going over the speed limit to their ovulation calendar. Even MPs joined in. Megan Leslie told Vic about her coffee-less morning due to the milk going bad. Justin Trudeau chimed in about his pressing need to pee.

At its height, the hashtag was used over 40,000 times.

Embarrassed, the government dropped the bill. Under this government, this may be the only bill to have ever been dropped in response to public outcry.

The recent #Idlenomore protests are another great example of the galvanizing force of an idea unleashed on Twitter. As activists, we can add momentum to these causes by spreading the word on Twitter.

These examples and others were discussed last week, during a 2-hour Twitter training session with the UNE’s national equity representatives. The five members are hoping to reach out to a broader audience using social media.

During the training, they were advised to keep an ear out for news shows that ask its audience share their views via twitter; it’s opportunities like these that give anyone the ability to grab the microphone of a major news show.

Many of these programs are increasingly reading tweets live on the air, as a means of engaging with their audience.

Tweets have the benefit of being short, and thus being quick to vet and quick to read. That’s why many news shows, that never had the call-in or talk-radio model, are going to Twitter for their viewer feedback.

Members were also encouraged to use Twitter as a news aggregator; following a dozen major news sites on Twitter means you can easily get all your news in one place. Another great tip is to follow some of your favourite journalists.

Some shameless self-promotion: another benefit of being on Twitter is that you’ll be able to tweet along with us during the UNE2014 convention!

Last year, the number of Canadians on Twitter grew by 80%. Are you part of the Canadians already on Twitter? Let us know in the comments below! Better yet, tweet us your thoughts at @my_UNE.

If you can’t win the battle of ideas, rig the game. That’s basically what conservatives are up to with their latest coup: the “Fair” Elections Act.

And to demonstrate their commitment to democracy, the Conservatives are dedicating several days to debate this very important bill…. Oh wait, no. That would be in an alternate universe that makes sense.

In actual fact: the Conservatives are rushing the bill through parliament and limiting debate.

The 252-page bill makes substantial changes to the Canada Elections Act; some of which have been called Orwellian.

For starters, the bill would muzzle the chief electoral officer – only allowing him to speak about “how and where to vote.”

During an interview with CBC Radio last weekend, Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand said the act would limit his ability “to provide information to the public.”

And Elections Canada would be stripped of its outreach activities: no more ads encouraging citizens to vote – because the Conservative government believes that a 60% voter turnout is good enough in this country and because Pierre Poilievre believes that “political candidates who are aspiring for office are far better at inspiring voters to get out and cast their ballot than are government bureaucracies.”

Then again, Poilievre (AKA “Skippy”) believes that the root cause of terrorism is terrorists….

But if you weren’t convinced that the Conservatives are trying to stack the deck in their favour, consider that they’re increasing donation and spending limits… because, as we know from looking at the U.S., getting more big money into politics really enhances our democracy.

The Act also borrows another Republican strategy; enacting stricter voter ID laws to disenfranchise low-income earners, students, the homeless and Aboriginal Peoples. The Conservatives are crying wolf over the issue of “vouching”, which enfranchises voters without the proper paper identification.

From Policy Debrief:

Minister Poilievre cites a study commissioned by Elections Canada, written by Harry Neufeld, which claims that the “irregularities” for vouching voting was around 25%.  Yet when one looks at the report, Neufeld is using the term “irregularities” in reference to electoral workers ‘irregularly’ applying policy, not confirmed cases of voter fraud by vouching.

But just like in the U.S., the Conservatives are going to use the widespread voter fraud bogeyman argument to make their case. Many Republican-controlled states have introduced strict voter-ID laws to “prevent voter fraud” – but really, the goal is to disenfranchise the economically-disadvantaged, students, blacks and Latinos; all of whom are likelier to vote Democratic. As many as 11% of American voters are without government-issued photo ID.

These new voter ID-laws have been heavily criticized; civil rights activist Reverend Al Sharpton has compared these laws to the Jim Crow-era poll taxes that prevented newly-enfranchised blacks from voting.

Pennsylvania and Arizona have seen their voter-ID laws overturned by the courts; Florida and Iowa launched costly investigations into the issue “widespread” voter fraud and turned up zip.

When the Brennan Institute studied voter fraud, they came up with fraud rates of 0.0002% in Wisconsin and 0.0006% in New Hampshire. Hardly a “widespread” problem.

The real threats to democracy take the form of well-orchestrated misinformation campaigns. During the 2012 presidential elections, voters in Florida, Indiana and Virginia received calls telling them to vote by phone.

These misinformation tactics aren’t all that different from what many Canadians experienced at the hands of “Mr. Pierre Poutine”. But does the so-called Fair Elections Act do anything to crack down on that type of voter suppression?

“With another election coming soon, Canadians still don’t know what really happened in 2011 or who was responsible,” wrote the Ottawa Citizen’s editorial board. “Mayrand has said that the Commissioner of Canada Elections should have the power to compel testimony; this bill does not create that.”

“The removal of investigative powers from Elections Canada is the most revealing change,” wrote the Ottawa Citizen’s editorial board.

The Council of Canadians has a petition on their website calling for a truly fair elections act here. The NDP also has its own petition calling on Parliament to reject Bill C-23.