PCM 2015-04-19 Minutes

Pirate Party of Vancouver Platform Consultation Meeting #1 April 19, 2015, 5pm- 8pm

''In attendance: Shawn V, Nate O, Matt H, Christo C, Cimreau C, Trevor W, James F ''

Facebook

 * Legislation against profiling and psychological manipulation/studies.
 * Tactics such as emotional manipulation could be abused.
 * Legislation to make it illegal to include consent to be experimented on in T&C
 * Questions/Debate on protecting personal data versus voluntary participation on private corporation’s servers

Censorship.

 * Nudity - @freethenipple
 * Legislation to uphold freedom of speech and promotion of controversial ideas.
 * Facebook takes down nudity more than violence
 * Facebook is known to be slow to act on neoreactionary racism, sexism, etc.

Google

 * Use of geolocation data, access to content of e-mails, access to web history concerns
 * Ties to the US government [alleged by WikiLeaks]
 * There’s a need for international collaboration to protect user privacy (servers are international)

File Sharing

 * Free access to by-law codes for professionals who need these codes in order to legally do their job. ie, electrical safety codes, plumbing safety codes, etc. (In BC it is noted by James that one has to pay $200 every few years for the updated copy)
 * Mincome is a better means to support artists more than the copyright lobby ever was
 * Debate over Mincome adjustments based on productivity of artist
 * don’t want to have bureaucratic criteria for “good art”
 * Discussion on Mincome adjustments based on productivity, volunteerism, etc.
 * Digitize the library system and make filesharing as we know it obsolete
 * The current ad revenue based model is a by-product of filesharing prohibition. We can make the pirate bay obsolete with 21st century libraries.

Rhetoric for File-Sharing

 * It has never been a guaranteed return on investment to fund a film.
 * Films are getting cheaper and cheaper to produce
 * Crowdfunding models and digital distribution are the future
 * Filesharing actually makes them need to make better films
 * Pirates are actually those who spend the most on content.
 * The fallacy of the 1 download = 1 lost sale does not stand up to scrutiny.
 * Industry has to stop crying about imaginary hypothetical profits and give us region-free, easy-to-pay access to content that people actually enjoy.
 * [Relevant Reading]

Transparent Information On Products

 * The price on the shelf should be the price at the till. (consumer advocacy!)
 * Taxation breakdown on receipts.
 * Information on taxation/budgets should be accessible to all citizens
 * Environmental data on impact of products
 * Scale of environmental harm could be displayed on products to inform the consumer.
 * Potential to have a government mandated database of relevant production information aboiut products
 * Food production process, where ingredients are from, production methods
 * Too much data to fit on a label, Possibly use something like QR codes?
 * Some debate over how feasible this is
 * It is joked that there was a day where the concept of nutritional information and ingredients would be seen as an impossible thing to mandate

Harm Reduction Laws

 * The War on Drugs Has Failed
 * Debate on legalization vs. decriminalization
 * Money spent on police force could be spent on health costs instead (It is suggested this was done in [Portugal])
 * Transparent chemical makeup of drug. ie, what is your cocaine cut with?
 * Debate over supply source of drugs.
 * Debate over total accessibility or limited accessibility of drugs.
 * Which drugs should be legalized or decriminalized, or medical
 * Necessary prescriptions or free access to adults.
 * The evidence shows that safe injection sites work
 * More safe injection sites across Canada would be better than not
 * Debate over increased medical burden for drug usage
 * Suggested that sin-taxes could subsidize health care to be cost-neutral

Evidence Based Policy

 * If a policy is not working, we need to course correct.
 * Need to clearly define “not working,” ie, short term losses should not override a course for long term gains. (ie, free post-secondary education.)
 * Maintain and/or increase funding for public research and climate science.
 * Give the public access to public research
 * Experiment with various forms of electoral reform before implementing.
 * Small scale experiments can show us how people feel about different systems
 * An open ended process of continual improvement by experimentation is best

Rehabilitative Justice

 * Punitive Justice is ineffective, high recidivism rates and increased criminality
 * Turns people in bad circumstances into lifetime criminals
 * Mandatory Minimum Sentences should be abolished

Cost Neutral Policies

 * Many of our policies can be made to be cost-neutral through smart taxation.
 * If it’s possible to make deep changes without necessarily increasing budgets that is desirable.

Crime & Poverty

 * Many laws and certain taxed products disproportionately affect low income and fixed income canadians.
 * Pay-to-play legal system
 * Drug war exacerbates community strife
 * Low income people tend towards addiction
 * Poor people statistically smoke more, heavier taxes on smoking is effectively another tax on the poor.
 * Jail time is often longer for poor people vs rich people
 * Relevant Reading
 * More Suggestions on Facebook April 20th, 2015

Political Reform

 * Evaluate cost barriers and accessibility in EC procedure
 * Amend the elections act to prevent the shutting out of low-income participation
 * Leave the FPTP system for MMP, AV, or something else

Transportation Reform
single network.
 * Cross-Canada Transit System (CCTS)
 * Light Rail that connects Vancouver to Montreal (or Coast-to-Coast)
 * All rail lines and bus routes will invariably connect to major Transit stops.
 * The futuristic dream would be to try to unite all public transit systems into a
 * Passenger could literally travel across Canada on CCTS.
 * Paid for by Land Value Tax (LVT) - process by which properties which will increase in value due to federally funded projects will be taxed to pay for the projects they are the beneficiaries of.
 * Justification of LVT - Land owners did not contribute to the increase in their land’s value, the federal government did. It’s a windfall gain for them that it makes sense to share.
 * Small towns could bid with a % of pledged LVT for a stop at their city, which would provide them with massive boosts to their tourism, businesses, and brand. This additional funding could fund operating costs and therefore decrease costs to consumers

Market Subsidisation Reform

 * Transfer Oil Subsidies to Green Industry.

Surveillance

 * First Nations Activists are the First Targeted by Gov’t Surveillance in Canada
 * Wikileaks cable
 * Muslim Canadians are disproportionately targeted under racist suspicions of extremism
 * There are chilling effects on activism if there is a belief they are being watched.
 * Relevant Reading
 * Concerns of potential political blackmail against revolutionary/uncorrupted Politicians

Crowd-Sourced Platform

 * Free exchange of good ideas, no matter party affiliations or membership.
 * Will not claim ‘ownership’ of policies or ideas.
 * No shame in taking other parties’ policies, nor resentment in them taking ours.
 * It would be good to release the raw data from all platform consultation (received e-mails, voicemails, meeting minutes) for evaluation and cherry picking in the future.
 * Potential for mini-platforms centred around issues (such as surveillance or occupy wall street issues) for us to distribute at relevant protests. Giving a legislative lens for solving injustice to the grassroots is ideal.