Along with writing your MP, you could also get involved in the Canadian Pirate Party [pirateparty.ca].

a deceptive, plagiarized report on the digital economy that copied text from the International Intellectual Property Alliance (the primary movie, music, and software lobby in the U.S.) [michaelgeist.ca], at times without full attribution. The report itself was funded by copyright lobby groups (U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Canadian Anti-Counterfeiting Network, Copyright Collective of Canada which represents U.S. film production) along with the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation. The role of the Ontario government obviously raises questions about taxpayer dollars being used to pay for a report that simply recycles the language of a U.S. lobby group paper.

There are legal problems. First of all, the product would need to have labelling in French and English. Second, for telecomm products, the Canadian equivalent to the FCC needs to approve it. If there is media involved, then it has to have a certain % of Canadian content, by law. Then there's customs and duty.

These are not insurmountable problems, but most U.S. companies figure the market is too small (only 30 mil people) for them to bother putting in the extra effort.

The Prime Minister is not elected directly, he's simply the head of the party that got the most seats.

Currently the Conservatives are the government, but they don't hold a majority of seats in the house of Commons, so to get anything passed they need to convince at least some representatives of the other parties that it's a good idea.

The Conservatives were largely elected because of a happen-stance of how electoral boundaries are drawn. For instance, I myself live in the city but my electoral district includes a lot of rural area. The rural area tends to vote Conservative, so my own vote for _any_ other party is basically worthless.

Ontario: "We're the center of the universe! Bow before our awesomeness!"

(For those not in the know, Ontario is Canada's largest province, and contains around 30% of the country's population, making them a very important voting block).

Quebec: "You don't frighten us, English pig dogs. Go and boil your bottoms, you sons of a silly person."

(For those not in the know, Quebec was originally a colony of France. Quebec is a French-speaking province surrounded by English-speaking neighbors)

British Columbia: "Chill out dudes. You're harshing my buzz."

(For those not in the know, British Columbia is home to the best marijuana in North America. Residents tend to be granola munchers.)

Physical letters always work best. Email is always dismissed out of hand despite the use of it, even in parliament. I'll say this, politicians get worried when they drown in paper from the public.

Because NOBODY IS FUCKING LOSING ANY MONEY

I won't be buying your shitty album or paying to see your shitty movie. This is true if I download it or I don't download it.

End of discussion.

We have 35 year old P3s and some broken helicopters too!

As the founding provinces, Ontario and Quebec feel that they should get priority and the best picks of anything that the government dishes out.

As a latecomer to confederation who joined Canada because they were about to go bankrupt otherwise, British Columbia has as many ties to Washington State and Oregon as it does to Ontario and Quebec... basically, B.C. thinks it can survive well enough on its own thank you very much, and doesn't like having self-serving decrees out of Ontario govern how things are run west of the Rockies.

A lot of this comes down to the fact that combined, Ontario and Quebec hold the majority of the seats in parliament, so whatever they want to do, they can do, and protests from west-coast benchers don't carry much weight.

Of course, with the DMCA, EVERYONE abhors it, pretty much like the soon-to-be-invoked HST in Ontario and B.C.

Actually, there are many barriers to entry into the Canadian marketplace. Taxes, ownership restrictions, tariffs, operational regulations, etc. are all important considerations. In fact, for many products and services, entry into the Canadian marketplace faces more barriers than many other EU or Asian countries.

One of the first and most restrictive factors is the ownership and management restrictions. Take the wireless industry for example. A wireless carrier has to have at least 50% Canadian ownership in order to operate in Canada. This means that T-Mobile, for example, can't just waddle over across the border and start buying frequency, putting up towers, and offering a service. We've had a recent case where it was debated whether or not a certain wireless carrier (Wind Mobile [wikipedia.org]) actually met that ownership requirement. There's also a general requirement for all corporations that the Board of Directors is comprised of at least 25% Canadians (or a minimum of 1 Canadian if the Board has less than 4 Directors).

Many of our industries are much more tightly regulated than are your industries. As I've briefly mentioned [slashdot.org] in a previous comment, Canada really is more of a socialist country with a market framework. The skeletal infrastructure of our economy is based on market economics, but we flesh that out with quite a heavy load (comparative to America) of social regulations that protect consumers from power asymmetry that arises from market failure, e.g., information asymmetry, natural monopolies,etc..

Many of these regulations are restrictive enough such that a company may consider that an investment in complying with such regulations would not really be worth it for a shot at the comparatively smaller marketplace. Since American companies design products and their respective distribution plans with American regulations in mind, it would take a significant investment to create another roll-out plan for the Canadian marketplace. We only have 30-odd million people, 1/10 of the American population, and our buying power for non-essential items is generally lower because of the way our consumption taxes are structured*.

On the one hand, we don't get many of the new and sparkly fancy gadgets right away. But that's okay, I'm pretty patient for the most part. It's not that big of a deal. Companies big and successful enough will eventually bring their products over the border. On the other hand, we as consumers and taxpayers are protected from many of the perils that arise from market failure. The biggest recent example is the global financial crisis. While many global banks and companies required bailouts, our financial institutions continued to post modest profits and showed a remarkable ability [theglobeandmail.com] to quickly recover [reuters.com].

So yeah, there are many barriers to entry into the Canadian marketplace, mostly because of our traditional approach towards market economics that's more skewed towards the socialist side. But even though we may not get the latest cool gadgets or the cheapest deals, we're very well protected from many potential disasters that result from market failure. I wouldn't really call this a fault. I'm a patient guy. I can wait 3 more months for that iPad, or another 6 months for that HTC phone. Small price to pay, in my book.

* It's worth noting that our minimum wage is higher than in America, the last time I checked. The general minimum wage is $10.25 an hour in Ontario, and the average is over $9 across Canada (with only 2 provinces falling below $8.50). However, there are a few factors that influence buying power. The first is that non-essential items are almost always taxed higher throughout Canada. For example, groceries, utilities, etc. are exempt from the federal consumption tax. Alcoh

Her name is Sheila Copps and she was the first "Heritage Minister". She instituted policy that (among other things) raised the price of imported American print media - magazines are what come to mind - significantly. This was done in the name of protecting our Canadian Heritage from the influence of the big, bad USA.

Plenty more that cunt did to fuck us over, not insignificantly she was the catalyst behind the Liberal Party Infighting during Chretien's leadership and partially under Martin. It wasn't uncommon to hear insults hurled at Sheila during Question Period back in the day. She was a lippy hosebag who never should have been elected a second time. (everybody gets one up here)

The Prime Minister is not elected directly, he's simply the head of the party that got the most seats.

To clarify further, the prime minister can actually be any person at all (it's constitutionally questionable whether the prime minister even need be a Canadian citizen over 18 years of age). The Canadian system of government is very different from the American system, and few Canadians know how our system actually works (thanks to bombardment of American media and their electoral system).

The head of state is the Queen of Canada, Elizabeth II, who is also the Queen of England. Her duties are carried out by the Queen's representative in Canada, the Governor General (currently Michaëlle Jean), who is appointed by the Queen on the advice of the prime minister.

When elections are called in Canada (which happens every five years, or sooner if the government loses the confidence of the house), Canadians go to the polls and elect 308 representatives to the House of Commons -- one representative from each riding in the country, in a first-past-the-poll vote. While there are some independent members elected to the house, typically the members come from one of the four major political parties: the Conservatives (right-of-centre), the Liberals (central), the New Democratic Party (left-of-centre), or the Bloc Québécois (a Quebec-interest-only party). The Green Party (left-of-centre) has also nearly elected some members to the house, and briefly held a house seat after one member crossed the floor.

Once the 308 members have been elected to the house, the Governor General chooses someone to be the prime minister. That person will form a government by choosing people (here, I mean anyone he or she pleases from the general population) to be their ministers.

The newly formed government, with the prime minister chosen by the Governor General and ministers chosen by the prime minister, then faces a vote of confidence by the house. Here is where the elected representatives of Canada have their say: do they have confidence in the abilities of the newly formed government to lead the country? If they say no, the Governor General must either find a new prime minister and government that could hold the confidence of the house, or dissolve parliament and call a new election to find 308 new representatives.

So, in practice, in order to ensure that the chosen prime minister and government will have the confidence of the house, the Governor General will appoint the leader of the party with the most seats in parliament as the prime minister. But, with all that said, it's important to note that our system is very, very different from the American system in which a president is elected.

Second-longest now. A British sniper hit two Al-Qaeda members from around 150 feet further out [nypost.com].