[Advisors] CIRA elections -- member slate

michael gurstein gurstein at gmail.com
Sun, 19 Aug 2012 13:05:30 +0200


I agree James but I would guess that they would see this as getting involved
in "advocacy" which, given their current position would be rather a leap...
My sense is that for example, having them support research or more extensive
stakeholder forums (as they have begun to do) is way of potentially sidling
them into the broader issues.

M

-----Original Message-----
From: James Van Leeuwen [mailto:jvl@ventus.ca] 
Sent: Friday, August 17, 2012 10:15 AM
To: michael gurstein
Cc: 'Marita Moll'; 'Garth Graham'; 'TC Advisors'
Subject: Re: [Advisors] CIRA elections -- member slate

Neglected to add that the most concrete steps CIRA could take would be to
adopt advocacy positions in favour of net neutrality and community
broadband, given their importance to realizing the full economic and social
utility of .ca domains. 

An address facilitates economic and social engagement.

Net neutrality and community broadband do the same.

JvL




On 2012-08-17, at 1:47 AM, James Van Leeuwen <jvl@ventus.ca> wrote:

> I agree with Marita... the opportunity is to shape Kevin's position, not
endorse or condemn it.
> 
> Give him what he's asking for (ammunition) and send him into battle.
> 
> 
> This means concisely articulating TC's interests and objectives, and how
CIRA could help to advance them.
> 
> Pitching net neutrality in an economic development context offers the best
leverage against opposing forces.
> 
> CIRA can contribute to the problem (persisting disparities and growing
opportunity costs) or the solution (community broadband).
> 
> JvL
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 2012-08-17, at 1:15 AM, "michael gurstein" <gurstein@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> While I agree that many of the younger folks in this space don't have 
>> a community networking experience I think that there is also a breed 
>> of younger advocates who aren't completely immersed in seeing the net 
>> as exclusively a biz opportunity.  While there may be a (limited) 
>> overlap in interests between open source/civil liberty etc. folks and 
>> folks concerned with digital inclusion for example I think it would 
>> be a good idea to test out Kevin's position on the latter issues 
>> since for example one of the strongest recent advocates for "net 
>> neutrality" in the US is Ron Paul and his libertarian supporters.
>> 
>> I think the litmus test should be however, what sort of a role he 
>> sees for CIRA.  At the moment CIRA (like ICANN and a lot of such 
>> Internet tax
>> harvesters) have more money than they know what to do with.  In the 
>> case of CIRA the mandate has been understood extremely narrowly as 
>> being to promote first the technical well being and more recently the 
>> commercial well-being of the Net.  This is by no means the norm and 
>> other national governance bodies--I mentioned NZ, UK, and BR are 
>> acting in a rather more pro-active way in supporting social well 
>> being in a digital environment. (Bringing this to broader attention 
>> is the underlying purpose of the IGF Workshop I pointed to earlier.)
>> 
>> I think at a minimum we should expect Kevin to indicate what position 
>> he would advocate with respect to this issue.
>> 
>> Best,
>> 
>> MG
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: advisors-admin@tc.ca [mailto:advisors-admin@tc.ca] On Behalf Of 
>> Marita Moll
>> Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2012 8:14 PM
>> To: Garth Graham
>> Cc: TC Advisors
>> Subject: Re: [Advisors] CIRA elections -- member slate
>> 
>> Keep in mind that we are talking about a young new breed of Internet 
>> advocate who hasn't been around the pillar and post of community 
>> networking policy for all these many years.  I think this is an 
>> opportunity to educate and build new alliances.  God knows we don't have
a lot to lean on.
>> 
>> And thanks for the quote from CIF. I think I used it last year and 
>> forgot.   I will suggest he turn this back on them.  CIF itself has 
>> provided the rationale.  But how does this pan out in the actual day to 
>> day work of CIRA and the CIRA board.   That is the question I am trying 
>> to find some way of addressing
>> 
>> Marita
>> 
>> On 8/16/2012 12:31 PM, Garth Graham wrote:
>>> On 2012-08-15, at 8:58 AM, Marita Moll wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Tell me what you think about supporting him.  Perhaps there are 
>>>> some
>> things we would like to see added to this platform in return.
>>>> 
>>> 
>>>>> Original Message --------
>>>>> Subject:	Re: Thanks for sending some support
>>>>> Date:	Wed, 15 Aug 2012 11:36:03 -0700
>>>>> From:	Kevin McArthur<kevin@stormtide.ca>
>>>>> To:	Marita Moll<mmoll@ca.inter.net>
>>>>> 
>>>>> Yep, I'd be happy to. How did you see CIRA engaging on this? .. 
>>>>> Can you
>> help me understand what steps you were hoping to see CIRA take 
>> towards community driven broadband? When I talk about it as part of 
>> my campaign, I'd like to be really clear on some concrete steps CIRA 
>> can take towards facilitating and supporting this type of development.
>>>>> 
>>> Because of the dominance of a "market-based approach" to "telecom" 
>>> policy
>> in Canada, the relationship of the Internet's future to questions of 
>> social development policy has been eliminated from public policy 
>> discussion in Canada.  Lots of people are fully aware that they risk 
>> seriously pissing people off by making that point.  McArthur's "hard" 
>> question raises a red flag for me.  As a "public interest" candidate 
>> can/should he answer it himself and is he just fishing to see what we 
>> say?  Or is he making the point that our interests aren't 
>> sufficiently "registration" oriented to get us elected in that
constituency?
>>> 
>>> By saying as follows, CIRA itself seems to be a bit more open to "our"
>> issues and concerns than he is:
>>> 
>>>> The CIF process also revealed an emerging consensus that there is a 
>>>> need for a public forum where all stakeholders can help explore and 
>>>> articulate the public interest in the future development and use of 
>>>> the Internet in Canada - by considering its impacts; discussing the 
>>>> opportunities and challenges they present; identifying issues 
>>>> requiring action by stakeholders in government, the private sector, 
>>>> and civil society, and raising awareness of these issues among 
>>>> decision-makers and the general public in Canada and 
>>>> internationally."
>>>> http://cira.ca/assets/Documents/Publications/wp-InternetCIF-CanadaF
>>>> ut
>>>> ure.pdf
>>>> 
>>> I'd be more convinced if he answered along the lines of Mike's
>> "mechanisms" workshop at IGF.
>>> 
>>> Your question re Heather is important, because she's been able to 
>>> foster
>> discussions of the Internet's future in Canada more effectively than 
>> we have.  CIRA's forum initiative is important.  Without getting to 
>> the table at CIRA, TC lacks an important element that is implicit in 
>> our ICANN/ALAC/NARALO responsibilities to the Canadian constituency 
>> we claim we represent.
>>> 
>>> GG
>>> 
>>> 
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