The new Canadian Heritage Minister had her election campaign funded by big entertainment companies, the very companies she's supposed to be overseeing in office.
In the last Canadian elections, we kicked out Sam Bulte, a Liberal Party candidate favored for the spot of Heritage Minister. Bulte had been funding her campaigns by raising huge sums from the entertainment and pharma companies, whom she was meant to be guarding. Naturally, her policies when in office stole from the public interest to deliver windfall profits to those companies.
Now it seems that her successor, Conservative Party Heritage Minister Bev Oda, became the focus of the entertainment industry's funding efforts as it became clear that Bulte would not be re-elected (Bulte went crazy when her election prospects weakened, screaming in all-candidates meetings about not being "intimidated by user-rights zealots and EFF members").
Unlike the US, Canada does not have a tradition of corporate funding of Parliamentary campaigns. Indeed, Michael Geist got many of the candidates in the last election to sign onto a pledge not to take campaign funding from industries that they are likely to end up overseeing once in office. This only makes sense — if you're taking a government paycheck to represent the public interest by overseeing an industry, that industry shouldn't be lining your pockets.
Canadian Heritage Minister Bev Oda did not take the pledge. According to data just released by Elections Canada, if she had, she would not hold her current position. During the campaign, Oda received contributions from many in the copyright lobby including Universal Music (tied for her third largest external contributor), the Canadian Motion Pictures Distributors Association, the Entertainment Software Alliance, the Canadian Music Publishers Association, and CRIA's own Graham Henderson. In addition, the broadcast lobby were also active supporters with Melinda Rogers (Ted's daughter), Gary Slaight, Phil Lind, Jay Switzer, and the Canadian Association of Broadcasters.
In all, a significant portion of Oda's external funding during the campaign came from the very groups that now seek support from Minister Oda on key policy issues. Further, it is striking that all the corporate and association donations came late in the campaign as the polls showed the Conservatives in the lead and after the Bulte story was generating public interest.
(Thanks, Michael!)
