Hollywood's Canadian MP claims she's no dirtier than the rest
Sam Bulte, a Canadian Liberal Member of Parliament, has been exposed
in the national media for funding her campaign with large cash
contributions from the entertainment industry and subsequently
delivering Draconian, American-style copyright laws while in office.
Last week, I blogged about Bulte's unique, US-style campaign, wherein
Bulte rewards her corporate contributors by making laws that extend
their monopolies and undermine the public interest.
Now the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Canadian Press and the
Toronto Star have all picked up the story. Bulte has cynically
responded by arguing that her actions are just business-as-usual for
Canadian politicians, and that nothing unusual has taken place.
Michael Geist, the Toronto Star columnist and legal scholar who broke
the story, has responded with an extensive rebuttal of Bulte's claim,
showing that Bulte is far and away the worst offender in Parliament:
[A]nother review of Elections Canada data reveals that in 2004
there were a total of five contributions to riding assocations from
Canada's major banks (one of the five went to Bulte). Simply put,
everyone is not doing it (for what it is worth, the 2004 riding
association data reveals no contributions from Canada's leading
trucking association, the Canadian Trucking Alliance).
The Toronto Star article raises the unfortunate spectre of Bulte
attacking me personally, arguing that I believe that everything should
be free (anyone who has read my work knows that is not the case) and
then asking "seriously, who is he funded by?" The article answers that
question by pointing to the grant I received to help launch the
Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic. I am very proud
of CIPPIC's work along with the other peer-reviewed work and grants
that I have received and I believe that it is wrong to attack an
academic in this way (is Granatstein next?).
--------------
Good. Grief.
I'm going to stop looking into these stories from now on.
It's depressing.
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