There are a lot of great things about living in Canada. One of those things is that we don't have oppressive laws like the much maligned Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which the RIAA uses to sue students, barbers, single mothers and the paralyzed for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

If our Minister of Industry Jim Prentice gets his way, you can say goodbye to the good old days. Our neocon government is not satisfied with simply emulating our southern neighbours. We must be even more oppressive! We must remove fair use exceptions! Rip the latest BSS album that you bought from Rotate to your iPod, and you're a criminal!

Michael Geist, the creator of the 16k member plus facebook group Fair Copyright for Canada, sums up the issue quite eloquently:

"The Canadian government is about to introduce new copyright legislation that will be a complete sell-out to U.S. government and lobbyist demands. The new Canadian legislation will likely mirror the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act with strong anti-circumvention legislation that goes far beyond what is needed to comply with the World Intellectual Property Organization's Internet treaties. Moreover, it will not address the issues that concern millions of Canadians. For example, the Conservatives' promise to eliminate the private copying levy will likely be abandoned. There will be no flexible fair dealing. No parody exception. No time shifting exception. No device shifting exception. No expanded backup provision. Nothing that focuses on the issues of the ordinary Canadian.

Instead, the government will choose locks over learning, property over privacy, enforcement over education, (law)suits over security, lobbyists over librarians, and U.S. policy over a "Canadian-made" solution."

It's not all doom and gloom folks. Last time I checked, we still live in something which resembles a democracy. There are a lot of ways to fight this, but the dead easiest way is via an online form which emails your local member of parliament.

Step 1: find your member of parliament (all you need is your postal code)

Step 2: select your member of parliament and fill in the very short form

I emailed my dear Peggy Nash, and to my surprise, I had a reply from her assistant the next day! I'm not going to lie, it felt good! Kind of like that little rush I get every time I vote.

Give it a shot! You've got nothing to lose except your rights...

Photo from the blogTO Flickr pool, submitted by designwallah.