[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[Sheilbh]

Does this put pressure on Facebook to follow suit?  Facebook/Mets is already blocking links to news outlets, something google had not done.  Facebook without news is a less useful site, at least for me.

Of course they will.

The law is really similar to one passed in Australia. Google and Facebook threw their toys out of their prams, threatened to pull out (I think they did for a bit) and then ended up signing deals that gave an extra AUS$200 million to news publishers last year alone (allowing a massive spate of hiring reporters).

[crazy canuck]

Does this put pressure on Facebook to follow suit?  Facebook/Mets is already blocking links to news outlets, something google had not done.  Facebook without news is a less useful site, at least for me.

Of course they will.

The law is really similar to one passed in Australia. Google and Facebook threw their toys out of their prams, threatened to pull out (I think they did for a bit) and then ended up signing deals that gave an extra AUS$200 million to news publishers last year alone (allowing a massive spate of hiring reporters).

I hope it has the same effect here

[Sheilbh]

Yeah.

I mean in Australia about 80% of the media is Murdoch owned and he hates the tech companies so provided very helpful cover for a conservative Liberal government passing this

There it's basically a collective bargaining code with the goverment to enforce if they don't reach deals. The platforms then reach specific agreements with outlets in the framework of that code - I believe in total so far for Google they've done 60 deals with 183 masteheads (Facebook are, as ever, more shit).

And that means given thir incredible dominance, News International are the major beneficiary - but everyone else is still benefiting too. So ABC focused on expanding their regional and rural coverage hiring 57 new positions including reporters in 19 locations - 10 of which didn't previously have any. Guardian Australia increased headcount by 40 journalists plus 10 FTEs in commercial/business. Solstice Media which is a regional South Australia outlet was able to employ 3 more journalists, upgrade their website and video player, expand to Queensland and start a deal with a news broadcaster on jointly developing video content. SBS which is a broadcaster set up by the government specifically to focus on Australia's "multicultural and First Nations communities" have also been able to expand and engage more full time reporters (they're still working on a deal with Facebook so that's just the Google money).

I think if adopted more broadly it has the impact to be huge - but for some reason we only hear the threats and withdrawals of service and never about what then happened

[Barrister]

Yeah.

I mean in Australia about 80% of the media is Murdoch owned and he hates the tech companies so provided very helpful cover for a conservative Liberal government passing this

There it's basically a collective bargaining code with the goverment to enforce if they don't reach deals. The platforms then reach specific agreements with outlets in the framework of that code - I believe in total so far for Google they've done 60 deals with 183 masteheads (Facebook are, as ever, more shit).

And that means given thir incredible dominance, News International are the major beneficiary - but everyone else is still benefiting too. So ABC focused on expanding their regional and rural coverage hiring 57 new positions including reporters in 19 locations - 10 of which didn't previously have any. Guardian Australia increased headcount by 40 journalists plus 10 FTEs in commercial/business. Solstice Media which is a regional South Australia outlet was able to employ 3 more journalists, upgrade their website and video player, expand to Queensland and start a deal with a news broadcaster on jointly developing video content. SBS which is a broadcaster set up by the government specifically to focus on Australia's "multicultural and First Nations communities" have also been able to expand and engage more full time reporters (they're still working on a deal with Facebook so that's just the Google money).

I think if adopted more broadly it has the impact to be huge - but for some reason we only hear the threats and withdrawals of service and never about what then happened

So interestingly this has been done differently now with Google and Canada.  Google requested - and was granted - that they only have to negotiate with a single consortium of media outlets to negotiate a single contract, and not to have to negotiate with each individual outlet.

This program also appears to be in addition to the Canadian Periodical Fund which helps subsidize newspapers.

I mean, I do recognize that a thriving media and news service is essential to good public discourse.  I mean a decade ago we had full-time reporters from both local newspapers at the courthouse, plus a radio station.  Now there's nobody, and all kinds of stories go unreported.

But I worry about getting away from news being a little bit market driven also.  If a news outfit (be it digital, print, tv, or whatever) can get money without worrying about attracting customers that might be damaging as well.

[Jacob]

It appears the Indian government was planning to assassinate a number of people they disliked, in Canada and the US.

Not a good look for them, I don't think.

U.S. indictment alleges multiple Indian assassination plots across North America
Indictment suggests there were plans to carry out 3 killings on Canadian territory


A newly unsealed U.S. criminal indictment has unleashed an unprecedented flood of details about an alleged plot connected to the Indian government to carry out multiple assassinations in North America.

Perhaps the most surprising allegation in the murder-for-hire indictment filed in New York state against Indian national Nikhil Gupta is a claim that there were plans to carry out three such killings on Canadian soil.

The indictment, made public Wednesday, accuses Gupta of attempting this year to arrange one killing in New York after receiving instructions from an Indian government employee.

While the charges involve an alleged scheme in New York City, U.S. prosecutors allege it's connected to a case that roiled Canada-India relations.

The indictment says an unnamed Indian government employee offered $100,000 for a contract hit on a Sikh separatist in New York and asked Gupta, 52, to arrange it.

The Indian government employee is not named in the indictment, but he is described as having held different roles, including intelligence, security management and in India's Central Reserve Police Force.

He allegedly provided Gupta with the target's home address, phone numbers, and details of his daily routine. The Indian government employee and Gupta allegedly spoke repeatedly and also met in New Delhi.

'Finish him brother'

As part of the deal, he allegedly offered Gupta a personal favour. The indictment describes Gupta as a drug and weapons trafficker and says the purported Indian government employee promised he could make criminal charges against him disappear.

He allegedly told Gupta he'd spoken with an undisclosed official about his ongoing criminal case and promised: "Nobody will ever bother you again." 

Gupta subsequently contacted someone he believed was a hitman without knowing he was an undercover officer with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, says the indictment.

"Finish him brother, finish him, don't take too much time," Gupta allegedly told one person involved in the plot — a DEA informant who introduced him to the undercover officer.

The indictment says Gupta told the would-be killer around June to carry out the assassination as quickly as possible — but not at a sensitive political moment.

The indictment alleges Gupta said he did not want the killing to happen around the time of a high-level U.S.-India political meeting. That period coincides with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit in June to Washington.

But things changed on June 18, when masked gunmen murdered Hardeep Singh Nijjar outside a Sikh temple in British Columbia, says the indictment.

Indictment mentions 3 'jobs' in Canada

The indictment alleges the Indian government employee said the killing had accelerated the timetable for the assassination in New York — "It's [a] priority now," he allegedly texted.

Gupta allegedly sent his supposed contract killer a video of Nijjar's body and told him to "do it quickly."

The indictment says Gupta told the police informant in an audio call that they had "four jobs" to finish before June 29 — one in New York and "three in Canada."

In fact, the Canadian killing allegedly came up multiple times.

Days before the Nijjar shooting, Gupta allegedly mentioned a "big target" in Canada during one phone call; he also allegedly sent a text message mentioning the need for a good team in Canada.

After Nijjar's shooting, he mentioned in a phone call that a different hitman had handled it: "We didn't give to [the undercover officer] this job, so some other guy did this job ... in Canada."

CBC News has reported that Canadian authorities amassed both human and signals intelligence before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dropped the bombshell allegation in the House of Commons in September that the Indian government was connected to Nijjar's killing.

That allegation triggered a diplomatic rift with India.

'Track record' of violence

Last week, The Financial Times reported that U.S. officials had filed a criminal indictment and thwarted a similar plot against Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a citizen of the U.S. and Canada.

Pannun is not named in the indictment unsealed Wednesday, but the facts of the case match the reporting in The Financial Times, and he has identified himself as the target.

In an interview with CBC News, he accused the Indian government of attempting to kill him and others, for pushing the idea of an independence referendum in Punjab.

"This indictment is about Narendra Modi – who has always used violence to suppress his criticism and dissenting political opinion," Pannun told CBC News.

In the view of the Indian government, North America has become a safe haven for violent separatists who are a danger to India, pointing to the Air India bombing that killed 329 people in 1985.

Wednesday's unsealing came months after the indictment was filed.

Around June 30, Gupta was arrested in the Czech Republic, at the request of the United States. He faces two counts of murder for hire.

Canadian ministers respond

There have not been charges laid in Canada over Nijjar's killing.

Asked about the case Wednesday, Canada's public safety minister expressed confidence in the criminal process. Dominic LeBlanc also said Canadian and American officials have been co-operating closely.

"I have every confidence ... that the RCMP are doing the rigorous, important work that we expect of them," he told reporters in Ottawa.

"We're going to let them conclude their investigation."

Canada's foreign minister was asked a related question Wednesday: Why had U.S. authorities managed to thwart a purported assassination, when Canada had not?

Mélanie Joly said she would not comment on a U.S. criminal case but added she expected more from India, which has expelled dozens of Canadian diplomats.

"Clearly, we expect more co-operation on their part. And more engagement on their part," Joly said from Brussels, where she was attending a NATO meeting.

Trudeau echoed the sentiment.

"The news coming out of the United States further underscores what we've been talking about from the very beginning: which is India needs to take this seriously," Trudeau told reporters.

"The Indian government needs to work with us to ensure that we're getting to the bottom of this. This is not something that anyone can take lightly."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-unseals-indictment-sikh-killings-1.7043428

[Jacob]

Yeah.

I mean in Australia about 80% of the media is Murdoch owned and he hates the tech companies so provided very helpful cover for a conservative Liberal government passing this

There it's basically a collective bargaining code with the goverment to enforce if they don't reach deals. The platforms then reach specific agreements with outlets in the framework of that code - I believe in total so far for Google they've done 60 deals with 183 masteheads (Facebook are, as ever, more shit).

And that means given thir incredible dominance, News International are the major beneficiary - but everyone else is still benefiting too. So ABC focused on expanding their regional and rural coverage hiring 57 new positions including reporters in 19 locations - 10 of which didn't previously have any. Guardian Australia increased headcount by 40 journalists plus 10 FTEs in commercial/business. Solstice Media which is a regional South Australia outlet was able to employ 3 more journalists, upgrade their website and video player, expand to Queensland and start a deal with a news broadcaster on jointly developing video content. SBS which is a broadcaster set up by the government specifically to focus on Australia's "multicultural and First Nations communities" have also been able to expand and engage more full time reporters (they're still working on a deal with Facebook so that's just the Google money).

I think if adopted more broadly it has the impact to be huge - but for some reason we only hear the threats and withdrawals of service and never about what then happened

This is great news. We'll see if the other big ones follow, but at this point this seems like a success for Trudeau.

[Sheilbh]

So interestingly this has been done differently now with Google and Canada.  Google requested - and was granted - that they only have to negotiate with a single consortium of media outlets to negotiate a single contract, and not to have to negotiate with each individual outlet.

This program also appears to be in addition to the Canadian Periodical Fund which helps subsidize newspapers.

I mean, I do recognize that a thriving media and news service is essential to good public discourse.  I mean a decade ago we had full-time reporters from both local newspapers at the courthouse, plus a radio station.  Now there's nobody, and all kinds of stories go unreported.

But I worry about getting away from news being a little bit market driven also.  If a news outfit (be it digital, print, tv, or whatever) can get money without worrying about attracting customers that might be damaging as well.

I suspect Google learned that lesson from Australia where they had to negotiate their contract with each of the companies - within the context of collective bargaining agreement and subject to fallback of state action if they couldn't reach agreements. I imagine it ended up costing them more than they'd wanted - I vbelieve News International Australia were boasting that the platform deals earned them nine figure numbers more in their first year after, I imagine, some fairly robust negotiations

I agree broadly with your point though - but I think there is a space for public service broadcasting especially. But I think those agreements were basically like giant licensing agreements, so Google pays more for companies that are more widely read. Which is why in Australia it reinforces Murdoch power - but the point wasn't really to re-distribute wealth and power within the media, as much as ensure the people who produce content consume on the internet get a fair shake from the people who make money out of it.

I think it also helps create a business model that doesn't rely on either putting up paywalls which is bad for a democraatic society or aggressive personalised advertising strategies that are bad for people's rights over their identity, but also often really bad from a user experience too. You don't need to go all in on those options if you've got the platform payments you can then do some less intrusive/less disruptive advertising (which advertisers also often prefer) and maybe have a think about your paywall approach.

I wonder if AI will be the redistributive bit as, I suspect, eventually there'll be something similar for scraping content for AI models and some form of AI license, which I imagine will favour the more quality outlets?

[HVC]

It appears the Indian government was planning to assassinate a number of people they disliked, in Canada and the US.

Not a good look for them, I don't think.

I always shake my head when people mention India as a viable alternative to China for manufacturing and trade. You're jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Capitalism never learns.

[Jacob]

Recently the Provincial government in BC (NDP) have been passing a handful of initiatives to address the housing crisis. Generally, zoning rules are set by municipalities but that authority had been delegated to them by the Province.

From memory, recent legislation:

• A law allowing multifamily dwellings on lots previously zoned for single family homes. There are some exceptions, but it's pretty broad ranging. That said, I saw some back of napkin calculations that this won't result in a massive spate of multifamily units being built, as the economics don't quite work out right now in terms of interest, land cost, and expected sale value. Still, it makes it easier.
• Put some reasonably strict regulations on AirBnB rentals, essentially banning owning separate units for AirBnB rental. It remains to be seen how effective it is, but it's been enough that AirBnB operators have been complaining.
• Recently they passed legislation about automatic permission for build height based on proximity to Skytrain stations. It was a few weeks ago, but it seems to already have prompted action.

They've been talking about other initiatives, including a proposed law to make permitting faster than it is and support municipalities for added infrastructure costs.

It's not the kind of thing that's going to be solved overnight, or even in a few years, but it seems like the NDP is taking significant and sensible action.

[Grey Fox]

Yesterday, 560k Union member were on strike. The biggest numbers in Quebec's history. It will probably grow again before christmas.

I saw some footage on that, but with sound off. What are the issues? What's the likely path the the conflict will take?

An Update.

While most workers have gone back to work, the union representing my kids school board is on an unlimited general strike my kids haven't been to school in 10 days. I expect they will only go back in January after the Christmas break. After the 6 months break of 2020, now this. The first year of CEGEP will be hard on this generation.


The unions want, of course, more money and better working conditions. I mainly know what the school system employees want. More money, especially when compared to the RoC teachers and a claw back versus 2021 & 2022's inflation. Teaching employees would like to be able to do some work from home. The main ask from the government towards teachers is to move, nationally instead of per school boards, the moment they get assigned a class or their new school year role. The teachers are especially against that being negotiated now. Mainly because if it gets move to earlier in the summer than the current late august, the not-permanent ones (the main number) won't be eligible for EI over the said summer.

[Grey Fox]

The Canadian Human Rights Commission is saying dumb shit like they are Amnesty International.

https://montrealgazette.com/news/quebec/national-assembly-votes-to-defend-christmas-from-canadian-rights-commission

Saying that our statutory days are systemic discrimination.

Interestingly, the language used in english is a lot less inflammatory than in french.

Not a quote, only me venting in french :

Parlez d'intolérance religieuse comme si seulement le christianisme est un problème, c'est calissement myopique de la part de nos amis du RoC, encore. La problématique anti-féministe de l'islame et des courant orthodoxe juifs est encore une fois passez sous le silence du multiculturalisme canadien.

[Jacob]

Who said the stuff you quoted in French?

[Grey Fox]

Who said the stuff you quoted in French?

  Me, sorry I was venting & didn't realized it would sound like a quote.

[Jacob]

Who said the stuff you quoted in French?

  Me, sorry I was venting & didn't realized it would sound like a quote.

All good 

I thought it was the Human Rights Watch stuff in French, because you said it was more inflammatory than the English version (which I got from the article)... but that didn't quite make sense to me.

I think there's definitely an interesting discussion to be had about multiculturalism, feminism, religion, and how those things interact in Canada (including Quebec).

[Admiral Yi]

Calissment?  Scarfishly?  You guys crack me up.