TorrentFreak

The place where breaking news, BitTorrent and copyright collide

Pirate Party Canada Set For Federal Approval

New Pirate Parties are popping up all around the world, putting copyright, censorship and privacy issues on the political agenda. The Canadian Pirate Party is eager to join in. They are currently seeking federal approval and need just a few more members to become registered as an official political party.

pp canadaThus far 2009 has been a great year for the Pirate Party movement. With more than 7 percent of the vote, the Swedish Pirate Party secured a seat in the European Parliament, and the Pirates in Germany entered the local Parliament a few weeks later.

These successes motivated supporters of the party’s ideals in other countries to become active as well. In the UK the Pirate Party was officially registered at the Electoral Commission in August and in other countries local parties are trying to achieve the same.

In Canada the Pirate Party is currently trying to get federal approval, in order to become recognized as an official party and get involved in Canadian politics. “The goal is to gain at least one seat in Parliament,” Pirate Party spokesman Jake Daynes told TorrentFreak.

“As soon as the party is officially registered with Elections Canada, we hope to gain a bit more of the mainstream media’s attention; let Canadians know we are out there and build a community,” Jake added.

Among other things the Canadian Pirates will push for copyright and patent reform, Net Neutrality and freedom of culture, Jake said. A detailed overview of their goals and solutions is available on the party’s website.

Canadians interested in helping the party to get federal approval should fill out the membership form listed on the site and send it in. The Pirates need another 140 paper forms (how old-fashioned) to be sent in to get approval from the authorities, so they can use some help.

Related Posts

Previous Post | Next Post

  • Anonymous

    first

  • blaa

    go canada

  • Anonymous

    3rd

    BLAME CANADA for helping to keep the internet free

  • No-name

    OH CANADA!!!!! :D

  • js

    Arrr matey

    we bez gettin strONG

  • Yep

    Net neutrality is the first step to world peace.. so get on the ball.

  • redmarine

    GO GO GO CANADA! We’re counting on you on the western front!

    We’ll hold our ground here in Europe while you guys slowly infiltrate the mother of all censorship, Hollywood!

  • BadWolf

    I’m a member since 4 weeks of this party^^

    FTW!

  • EVIL!!!

    what about the pirates in other countries? come on guys make a local party!

  • RIAAtarded

    I’m voting for the very first time in Canada, and I’m getting all of my friends to vote for the CPP as well.

    I urge everyone to come on board!

  • kottonface

    I’m glad to see that they are finally coming over here.

  • WTF!!!!

    go Canada…

    ANYONE KNOW THAT HOT SPOT SHIELD IS RUN BY TIME WARNER!?!! SOMEONE PLEASE RESPOND

    went to install and peer guardian blocked the install..went to Time Warner 207.250.236.107

  • Taylor

    They would have my vote.

  • Anonymous

    I also will use my first vote. For the pirate party.

  • The Bats

    Glad to see they’ve decided to stop charging for membership.

  • http://www.eZee.se www.eZee.se

    First there was one…

  • djnforce9

    Seems the registration site is down right now. Must be tons of other Canadians trying to sign up. Good :D

  • http://neuron2neuron.blogspot.com Ben Jones

    @ Sep 23, 2009 at 23:27 by WTF!!!!

    Sorry, but peerguardian saying so, doesn’t make it so. The lists it uses are notorious for being inaccurate and flat-out wrong.

  • Canadia

    If they ran a giant advertising blitz and everyone who downloads music voted for them they would win!

    Im votin for them!

  • no

    What’s the point of this? The Swedish pirate party was pointless, this is just a stupid idea.

  • no

    And it further adds fuel to the fire to the MPAA to make the issue’s of net neutrality a joke. Only an idiot would co-sign to this.

  • SirReal

    Success! This makes me so happy. It seems that you have to be 18 to become a member at this point. Oh well, I’ll get a lawn sign!

  • Jack

    its a great idea and will raise awareness but because of the election system(first past the post) they will never win a seat. ex. the green party has never won a seat even tho in the last election they got close to a million votes federally.

  • Toqyo

    Only 300 sign ups needed?!?!

    Go sign up Canadians! Make this party more popular and save the internet tubes!!!

  • ANON

    this is awesome, maybe now i will go out and vote

  • ANON

    well i did my part, will be mailing this tomorrow, if you are canadian sign up and help this great cause

  • Anonymous

    So thats Sweden, Germany, Great Britain and now Canada. How are the Australians comming along and who else is close?

  • Keven

    Fellow Canadians, (and I know there are a lot of you) Think of this as two things:

    1. A chance to get off your ass and do something about this whole Copyright mess.

    2. A chance to inspire others to do the same.

    Look at what the DMCA’s done to America. DO you realty want that to happen to the most multicultural, most liberal, most “Whatever” country in the world? OR would you prefer us to end up like how the world should be, embracing chance, all of us collectively pushing society forward (as in true democratic theory?)

    I’m not calling for revolution, far from it, I’m calling for evolution. Evolution of the old system into a new one. It’s not 1992 anymore. Whether the Industry wants to admit it or not, things are changing, and we’re all at the head of the spear.

    If your willing to change Canada for the better, are over 18, and arn’t a troll on these comments, I ask you to sign up. If your too lazy to do that, I ask you, please vote PP. You’ve scene what the DRM-world is turning into, you dont wanna live like that, now do you?

    The Canadain pirate party may be small, (smaller than a few hundred people even), But how manny people read TF? Thousands. There are Canadians out there, and I ask you to sign with this party,or at the very least vote for them. if we all vote together, Canada will be ours to govern once more.

    “Ignatieff’s got nothing on us!”

  • Adam

    I’m sending it in.

  • Jimmy Reisen

    Wow imagine that, another one jumps on the bandwagon! Yee Haw

    RT
    http://www.online-privacy.us.tc

  • LMG

    Signed, sealed and delivered.

  • anon

    Trying to sign up, keep saying that I failed the VK anti-bot test.

  • Anonymous

    I smell arrrrevolution

  • yahooza

    the canadian maple leaf is copyrighted by the government of canada…just to let torrentfreak know…

    …look it up…

  • Spence

    Unfortunately it is not going to be easy for these guys to get a seat in the Canadian parliament by any stretch of the imagination. There is a quirk in the Canadian electoral system that makes it harder for third party groups to get into the parliament here. The way it works in Canada is that the country is divided into 308 areas called ridings based on population (about 100 000 people per riding, although some are less if they cover too large a land area) and in each riding the person that gets the highest percent of the vote there wins the seat. The result is often that the representation of our government is not proportional to the popular vote. For example our federal Green party has been around for a number of years and got 6.8% of the country’s popular vote yet failed to win a single seat in the House of Commons because the support is country wide and not concentrated into a single riding. The reality is that the pirate party can’t enter the Canadian parliament unless they find a way to really concentrate support in singular ridings over amassing a small, yet sizable percent of popular vote nationwide and the is simply not likely to happen.

  • Dave

    They will have my vote.

  • Alexey

    It is, pretty much, impossible for a fringe party to get a seat in Canada. In fact, both the Green party and the NDP have very good positions on copyright. If the Pirate Party takes votes away from them, then it will only reduce the representation of reason on copyright in the parliament.

  • george

    No, Canadians will remain enslaved by the first pass the post system and both majority and coalition being unmentionables in the federal government… I am going to watch paint dry.

    by yahooza
    “the canadian maple leaf is copyrighted by the government of canada…just to let torrentfreak know…”
    the maple leaf I often used by political parties inside Canada. Any why there is nothing wrong with using something copyrighted, just when such use is unliked by the rights holder and enforce by law.
    I know copyright is a monster to be kill, but at least understand it’s basic nature.

  • riaaTARD

    Let’s ROCK this bitch!!!!!

    Canuck pirates unite, sign up and vote NOW!

  • JakeDaynes

    Come on everybody, we could use all the help we can get, and PPCA will also have a nice surprise for everybody(regardless of membership status or not) come Friday afternoon!

    Jake Daynes
    Marketing and Public Relations Director
    Proud Member of the Pirate Party of Canada

  • JakeDaynes

    A second note:

    To anybody failing the bot test, there is a . (period) at the end, I hope to have this resolved soon

    Jake Daynes
    Marketing and Public Relations Director
    Proud Member of the Pirate Party of Canada

  • Anonymous

    #37 yeah but do you really want to trust either of these parties to effectively govern…anything?

  • if this is at the bottom of the membership page …

    Jag ar ingen bott:

    whose party is it?

    Swedens? mascarading as canadian?

    I truly don’t know! I might sign up … I might not!

  • Anonymous

    hmm… the word “pirate” sounded a little too thugish don’t you think.

  • JakeDaynes

    @#43

    That is a simple bot check, it’s swedish for “I am not a bot”

    This is in no way saying we are Swedish, though truth be told I am studying it, and speak a fair bit now.

    Jake Daynes
    Marketing and Public Relations Director
    Proud Member of the Pirate Party of Canada

  • Aussie

    @9 EVIL!!!

    The Australian Pirate Party is taking a while to be getting it’s sea legs, we need 500+ memebers and are pretty much just growing by word of mouth so far. I’m hoping that the administration team can get together with some torrent news sites to spread the word to all Aussies!

  • Anonymous

    There is a movement for the creation of the Portuguese Pirate Party in Portugal too!

  • WTF!!!!

    @18 Ben Jones

    I gave you the IP address, look it up on whos dot com and it comes back as TWTC….HOTSPOT SHIELD IS RUN THROUGH TIME WARNER SERVERS and tracks all your activities

    I think this is worthy of an article here on TF

    hot spot shield will not install without pinging the TWTC servers

    BTW YOU ARE FULL OF SHIT Ben Jones and probably working with the corporations

  • lornyk5

    Sent mine in this morning!

    Finally something worth getting behind… IMO

  • Me

    @37 I voted for NDP solely for their fair use/net neutrality views in the last election… of course living in Alberta they lost by a factor of 10.

    Voting for the PPoC – in my case anyways – isn’t going to take representation away from them at all. What I hope it might do is make it clear that I wasn’t voting for them for education/art/environment/health care reasons, and get the Conservatives/Liberals to pay more attention to tech issues.

  • Anonymous

    As a Canadian I find this news very exciting. Will register today. Gotta buys stamp first tho ;)

  • Cujo

    Thanks Jake and all the guys who support our cause ,, I’ve been doing some PR work ,, and hope that all you guys get out and do the same ,, every voice counts! ;)

  • Bl00dyViking

    @ WTF!!!!
    Hotspot shield is adware driven. Of course it’s pinging TWTC servers, it’s looking for ads. That said, read the TOS. “We may disclose User information if required to do so by law, or in the good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with state and federal laws (such as U.S. Copyright law) or respond to a court order, judicial or other government subpoena, or warrant.”

    I can’t find anything linking the software company behind Hotspot Shield, AnchorFree, to Time Warner but that doesn’t mean anything.

  • ROLF

    GOGOGO Guys!!

    i wish the best!

    do >reverse graphitti<, just like the german party does…utterly cool advertising

    http://tinyurl.com/reverseg

  • Justin

    Great news, shit’s finally getting organized here… printing out the form and will send it in now!

  • Trelew

    I like the idea and all but as we have seen with the Green Party, one trick pony parties just don’t anywhere in Canada. The only exception is the Bloc and most them are ex-Liberals and PCs that have an overblown sense of entitlement.

    Like the Green Party they might get some reaction from main three parties but I don’t think it will be even a blip on the radar.

  • Dan

    Wicked – Yet another country where the people might get a say for once :D

  • Pingback: MakinMo's Tech Blog

  • BoSNiaN

    Registered, and mail in my form. Thanks to the founders for setting this all up, the key now is to SPREAD THE WORD. Print out a few forms, and get a few of your friends to fill them out, even mail it on their behalf if you think they are that lazy.

    It does NOT mean they are now obligated to vote for them, it just acknowledges that a decent amount of Canadian citizens are interested in establishing this as an official political party…

  • RoestVrijStaal

    Go Pirate Pary Canada!
    With a new copyright-law in making, at least one seat is a must!

  • RoestVrijStaal

    Typo: Pary – > Party

  • Pingback: The Technology Blog: Pirate Party Canada Set For Federal Approval

  • Youtou

    Dammmm I will Love to be a member but i only turn 18 in may ……

  • MRAWS EHT

    cool

  • PunPryde

    OMG FINALLY WOOOOOOOOOOOT!!! Im voting pirate in the next election.

  • Gabeux

    GO CANADA.

    Poor thing here in Brazil people are just 10+ years late.
    Even if copyright isn’t an issue yet (we have too many already anyway), freedom of speech was always hunted down in Brazil.

    Some politics have started to notice the power da’interwebs has, and I guess in 3~10 years they will start trying to ban it somehow.

    I’m 18 and on College, much to learn yet. Maybe someday I can help.

    Good luck, mateys

  • darkling

    This isn’t going to help anything. Canada is not suited to fringe parties, all this will do is taking votes away from the parties that are not the Conservative coalition so they stay in power next time.

    Boo, Pirate Party of Canada. Fuck off, we don’t need another group splintering our already broken political system.

  • mikesparrrow

    how do we start a local party? anybody? Are there any steps?

  • Pingback: Pirate Party Canada Starts a BitTorrent Tracker | We R Pirates

  • Pingback: Pirate Party Canada Starts a BitTorrent Tracker – FUCK THE RIAA

  • Pingback: Pirate Party Canada Starts a BitTorrent Tracker | InstantIdiocy

  • Pingback: Pirate Party Canada Starts a BitTorrent Tracker - Awesome Techs

  • Pingback: Pirate Party Canada-TorrentFreak « FACT – Freedom Against Censorship Thailand

  • Pingback: The-Benefits-Of-a-Home-Treadmill-in-Arizona-2-10995.html | Weight Loss Diet Information

  • Pingback: Partido Pirata Alemão conquista 2% dos votos nas eleições legislativas | Remixtures

  • Pingback: Pirate Party Canada Starts a BitTorrent Tracker @ blog.idtorrent.org

  • Anonymous

    I sent in my registration yesterday. It’s on its way to Quebec via snail mail as of writing this.

  • Pingback: El Partido Pirata de Canadá comienza un rastreador de BitTorrent

  • Pingback: Pirate Party Canada Starts a BitTorrent Tracker | TorrentFreak

  • BTGuard - BitTorrent Anonymously

NewsBits

Even more news...

  • Pirate Bay Founder Gottfrid Svartholm on Freedom of Speech

    Freedom of speech is a highly valued commodity, but should people be allowed to say whatever...

  • Blu-ray Anti-Piracy Tech Stops Discs and Promotes Purchases

    An anti-piracy system present in all official Blu-ray players since 2012 has received a fresh update...

  • Foxtel Breeds Pirates by Locking Up Game of Thrones

    One of the main reasons why people turn to piracy is the lack of legal alternatives....

  • UK Student Admits Breaching Sony Copyrights With Leak of PS3 SDK

    Last year an Internet user known as El Nomeo leaked version 3.70 of Sony’s Playstation3 SDK...

  • Pirates Can Be Identified Despite Sharing IP Addresses, ISP Claims

    Carrier-Grade Network Address Translation is a network mechanism through which many Internet subscribers can share the...

MostDiscussed

Below are TorrentFreak's most discussed articles of the past month. Join the discussion if you like.

CopyQuote

Left Quote

“The Pirate Bay has been one of the most important movements in Sweden for freedom of speech, working against corruption and censorship.

Peter Sunde Left Quote

PopularArticles

A selection of some TorrentFreak's classics dug up from our archives.