Ryan Taylor is a fair trade jeweler. No, it’s not an oxymoron. It’s just really not that common.

The standard business model in the mass-market jewelry business is to design your wares to appeal to the lowest common denominator, source and buy materials as cheap as possible (regardless of the long-term social impact), then sell the jewelry at the highest price point.

Ryan’s business model at The Fair Trade Jewelry Company reverses the unsustainable model.

Ryan sourced his materials. That’s not easy, considering there are only a handful of artisanal mines left in the world. His research lead him to the Choco rain forest in Columbia. He uses only certified Canadian diamonds for his engagement, bridal, and custom rings.

As he builds his business--literally renovating much of the Parliament Street store himself--he does it in an open, sustainable, and transparent way using the internet to open his workshop to the world.

Philanthropy runs to the core of his business, so much so that people volunteered to help him renovate his shop. His community of Cabbagetown loves him and he rains thousands of dollars on the Daily Bread Food Bank (along with his other HoHoTO cohorts) and War Child.

Why do I tell you all of this?

Because, Ryan didn’t vote in the Toronto-Centre by-election.

You might be getting a touch pissed off at our fair trade jeweler. Or maybe, like some some in Ryan’s online community, you are downright angry. You might be saying to yourself, “He is so socially conscious, so committed to his vision, so cute, so smart--but he didn’t vote? What’s wrong with him?”

Be careful before you write him off as a democratic laggard. Ryan is a highly engaged citizen. Politics isn’t engaging him. And this isn’t just Ryan. It’s the demographic that academic Richard Florida has defined as the “creative class”.

Perhaps the problem isn’t with Ryan. Perhaps the problem is with politics. The robust partisan pugilism turns off voters. The goal of some political strategies is to turn off voters--perhaps not entirely intentionally--but it’s most certainly the outcome of playing “wedge issues” and dividing to conquer a majority in the House. Negative ads work, but not on all people. Most often they work to keep voters home, depressed about the state of discourse in politics.

Jesse Hirsh’s work has informed my ideas and opinions about technology, politics, and how the intersection of both sits a deeply rooted orthodoxy. I’ve learned that you need to look past your own personal beliefs and long held “truths” to ask if there is a better way.

I’ve long been an advocate of voting reform. I prefer mixed-member proportional systems. I think they work more often that not. This isn’t going to happen anytime soon. Why not? Sadly, Ontario, PEI, and BC have all rejected voting reform. So this means people who want change in politics need to be open to incremental voting change.

In Australia they force you to vote.

Greece, Serbia, Ukraine, all have variations of “none of the above”.

A political party exists in the UK for the sole purpose of recording the votes of the disgusted.

The Globe’s Doug Saunders pointed me to trends coming from Switzerland and India showing lowering voter turnout as average income rises. Both, as he called them, “relatively successful democracies”.

This post is ostensibly about voting, but perhaps my real message is that we are informed by the people who surround us. Wherever they are.

If you want to know more about why Ryan didn’t vote, visit this post on his personal blog. Join in the conversation there by submitting a response to his query at the end of the post. Ryan is attending ChangeCamp Toronto armed with this human data from the creative class.

Breaking down my own personal orthodoxy I’ve reconsidered my own long held view on non-voters. I now understand why some people aren’t voting. But, the rights of a citizen come with obligations as well. Voting isn’t the only measure of a persons commitment to democratic society. It’s only one expression of it.

Just engage. Vote or don’t vote. Commit to engaging with your community.

Personally, I know that not voting isn’t an option for me. But. it might be a legitimate option for others. Who am I to judge?

Should people be forced to vote? Should people refuse their ballots, spoil their vote, or join a political party?

Toronto is collectively confused this morning as a rising political star with a week-old mayoral campaign has confirmed he had “an inappropriate relationship with a young woman.”

Adam Giambrone, seen above with partner Sarah McQuarrie, has apologized for his relationship with university student Kristen Lucas. He is no doubt mortified--but that won’t be enough to stop the questions about the future of his campaign.

This isn’t over by a long shot. Why? As evidenced by last week's casual outing of a Conservative Minister, it’s often the case that elected-people will simply refuse to comment on their “private lives”. As a result, the story simply goes away. It happens more than people would think.

However, when the private life and the public life collide there is bound to be an issue. Like with Maxime Bernier. His issues with Julie Couillard only became a full-fledged scandal when she went “public” about her time with the Minister, and in the course of those interviews she revealed that secret-level documents were left at her home for weeks.

Giambrone stands accused of staging the announcement of his partner to benefit his campaign (and attempting to keep an ongoing fling with Lucas), telling her about TTC fare increases and, as the Toronto Star reports, several more salacious details:

Giambrone told Lucas that he hoped they could continue seeing each other,and assured her, "I had to have someone political." In recent interviewswith the Star, Lucas said she's been involved with Giambrone sincelate 2008 and, on several occasions, had sex late at night on a couch in his City Hall office.

In short, watch out: it’s going to be a feeding frenzy. The private and public just collided.
Giambrone was already in for a rough ride. “Troubled” is the most frequent adjective attached to the Toronto Transit Authority--of which Giambrone is chair. The Toronto media, egged on by frustrated transit riders, have been sticking it to the troubled TTC’s service “issues” for a few weeks now.

But the real problems are right in the facts as presented in the Toronto Star. The two parties are kilometers apart. He says the relationship “consisted of text messages and conversations in public places only.” She says it was a year-long, intimate affair.

His campaign needs to sort out the truth, get him onto the most sympathetic TV set (with partner Sarah) and tell the whole story. All of it. The only real hope is being more human than the people who are gloating gleefully about the scandal.

Whether or not he can recover from this depends less on his team orsupporters and more on his partner’s reaction.

So, is this what you sign up for when you are elected? What do electors have the right to know? How much should a citizen need to know before casting a ballot? Please comment below.

Photo credit: Tsar Kasim

As Jack Layton battles prostate cancer he will continue to have his strong hand on the rudder of the New Democratic Party of Canada.

I’ve traveled the country with Layton, his stamina and personal endurance lives up to the legend and far outpaced my own. His daily workout regiment is not a product of spin - it’s a real and important part of his life.

Layton is a strong athlete. And a strong political strategist. He realized early on that opposition without proposition is useless and that to keep up his brutal pace - he had to be strict about what he ate, how he exercised and having his medical team regularly check him over.

As a strategist he knows New Democrats are strongest as a team when presenting reasonable, costed and measured changes to public policy.

Make no mistake, Layton has been the New Democrats’ single strongest asset for the past seven years. He may, on the rare occasion, step into controversy, but overall the party could not have found a stronger steward. The bilingual leader spends real time working; mastering his French, stressing always that he wants to learn how regular people would speak the language. It’s perhaps why he sounds more forthright in French some days. But it also speaks to how much attention to detail he has as a leader.

Rightly, many in Ottawa have been recently pointing to just how often Layton has been proven right in the long run. The war in Afghanistan, pensions for Canadian workers and the need to reform the auto industry stick out as three major issues where Layton’s pragmatic and affordable solutions were out ahead of the other political parties.

Layton is first out of the gate with solutions to issues.

Renegotiating an entire federal budget as he did in 2006 was no small feat. The way Layton and his finance critic Thomas Mulcair, have been able to push around the Finance Minister is unprecedented: on everything from ATM fees to bank fairness, the NDP calls for solutions have at least been responded to by the government. More than the Liberals can say.

Layton has taken the New Democrats from a side show in the House of Commons to the single largest influencer of public policy in Canada. Conservatives make the policy, Opposition Liberals oppose it and all the while Layton’s New Democrats tinker, change and massage bills to fit a social democratic ideal - or as close as it’s going to get.

As leader of one of the traditionally most unruly groups of Parliamentarians, Layton also performs extremely admirably. Deftly balancing the rural and urban split, the left and right divide and regional disparities. He leans on party elders to help chart his course; knowing it’s harder for the party to disagree with many of its’ luminaries at once.

The groundbreaking work with Greenpeace, the Canadian Autoworkers and New Democrats could have saved thousands of jobs in Southern Ontario. His first book could easily form the back bone for a proper public policy initiative to end homelessness and his second book highlights local solutions for climate change.

Some in official Ottawa may speculate that Layton’s illness may accelerate the pace of leadership preparations in the various camps eyeing the top job. They are right; but don’t expect a Liberal-leadership-race-style bloodbath of crossfire and spin in the media. Social democrats just don’t politic that way. We have too much respect for the people we elect to play those games.

The leader of our party has turned the New Democrats into a political force. And nothing - not even a bout with cancer - is going to dissuade Layton from his ultimate goal of seeing New Democrats govern the country.

A vibrant and energetic crowd filled Parliament Hill today where Shawn caught up with the CBC's Kady O'Malley to get her take on the protest and what it's like live-blogging these types of events.

O'Malley on the prorogation protest from Shawn Dearn on Vimeo.

It’s been a busy day. When I wasn’t freezing and tweeting at the Ottawa protest, I was tracking the crowd-counts from across Canada. With 32 communities that I could find tweeted reports on; I estimate that over 25,000 people rallied against the Prime Minister's decision to prorogue parliament. I’ve uploaded and embedded below a PDF with the community totals and my methodology. I'm hoping to continue to add to the list, please comment if you have numbers from cities not listed (or if you have a correction.) Update: as of Sunday at 8:00 am I have added 7 more communities; including New York City and St. Johns. I'm still looking for smaller communities to report. About twenty listed events could push it to over 30,000. Again, please comment with corrections or more information.

Estimated Crowd Attendance for #CAPP Rallies

To provide a visual look at today’s Ottawa protest, this is Gregory Pang’s shots of the demonstration today from Flickr.

And lastly, a quick look at the instant popularity of the #noprorogue hash tag on Twitter.

Joanna Smith was one of the first Canadian reporters to travel to Haiti after the devastation. Her compelling, graphic and raw accounts of the aftermath of the devastation of the earthquake are regularly featured on the Toronto Star’s front page. I'm very grateful she she took a few minutes to answer a few questions about reporting from Haiti.

Smith’s usual stomping grounds are the scrums of Parliament Hill, as she explains in this interview the decision to go to Haiti “came so quickly...I had not even really had the chance to see the images on television until I had already agreed to go and I was preparing for the trip.”

New communications tools have played a big part in her sharing and reporting her experiences on the ground. Her active and regular use of Twitter has steadily been gainly Smith attention and positive word-of-mouth online; she was followed by about 700 people pre-Haiti and now 2200. While Haitian wireless service is spotty and she cannot regularly see her readers comments via Twitter she says contacts have emailed her about the massive response, she also weights in on two quiet debates in media circles about ethics of disaster reporting.

Traveling with her is photographer Lucas Olenluk and Smith's parliamentary co-worker Allan Woods joined the team, riding along with a Canadian military aide flight.

Interview with Joanna Smith of the Toronto Star

Q: You have reported on deeply moving, emotional, brutal and hopeful moments in Haiti. How does the scene reconcile with the way you prepared yourself in your own mind as you made the trip to the ravaged areas; I suppose I'm asking - until you are there on the ground, can you even image how vast the destruction is?

Joanna Smith: It was nearly impossible for me to prepare mentally for the level of destruction before I got here, just as it remains extremely difficult to accurately convey what I am seeing in words.

The decision to send me here came so quickly. I knew there had been a devastating earthquake, but I had not even really had the chance to see the images on television until I had already agreed to go and I was preparing for the trip.

On the flight down I kept thinking: “This is going to be like Hurricane Katrina.” I didn’t cover that event at all. I read about it in the newspaper, heard it on the radio and watched it on television like most of the world. It was only several days into my assignment that I realized this was far, far worse in many different ways. You get used to a thing.

On the ground, everything is so much more immediate, obviously. I’m here. It is so difficult to describe the stench and even harder to understand how one gets used to it. I’ve stopped wearing my face mask, stopped noticing it on my clothes and stopped stepping around the garbage and just walking through it.

It feels surreal, as cliché a term as that may be when it comes to describing a disaster zone. I often feel detached, or as if I am on the set of a movie or in a wax museum. It is a very strange feeling to realize that you are seeing the things you are seeing and not breaking down into tears or getting sick. It’s a strange sensation to feel fine here, but something I am at the same time grateful for.

Q: You have been actively using Twitter to relay messages back home and around the world. You won't be surprised to find many of us are glued to your status updates. Two questions. First, Does this help ease your families anxiety about you being in a disaster area?

JS: Absolutely. My friends and family tell me they are checking my updates constantly just to make sure that I am safe and sound. My dad has joined Twitter. He sent me an email asking if I could see his “tweets” and put the word in quotation marks like that. It was adorable. He is following just one person and it is me. He was terrified when he heard about the aftershock. I did not respond to his concerned email right away, so he logged onto Twitter and said he exhaled deeply when he saw that I was safe. The father of my colleague, Toronto Star photographer Lucas Oleniuk, has also joined Twitter to follow my updates. The other day he sent Lucas a text message suggesting we go to Canadian Tire because I had tweeted about our truck getting a flat tire after rolling over a shard of glass or anything else that was lying in the street. I managed a short telephone call to my husband the other night when there was a period of good reception and he already knew everything I was up to that day. It’s been a great way to stay in touch.

And second , how are you finding getting instant/near-instant feedback from readers?

JS: I am actually unable to see the @ replies very often. When I have seen them, my reactions have been mixed.

First, It was surprising to see how many people were interested in my work. I joined Twitter about seven or eight months ago and have already found it an incredible reporting tool, but have not seen the kind of response I have seen in Haiti. Covering H1N1 and live-tweeting parliamentary committees is a different thing, obviously. I began tweeting from Miami and Santo Domingo to keep myself busy, honestly. Then I had no email reception after we crossed the border into Haiti and so, out of necessity, filed an entire story via Twitter and just kept it up throughout the first day. I had absolutely no idea the level of response I was getting back home until friends started emailing me about it. Now I guess it has become my thing while I am here and I am happy to contribute to covering this story in that way. The 140-character limit brings an immediacy to the reporting. It forces you to forego flowery adjectives in favour of simple language: verbs and nouns. I find that style of writing is leaking into the stories I file to the newspaper as well and I see that as an improvement in my writing. I can tell that readers are responding well to that and it is nice to hear from them.

Second, it can be frustrating when followers mistake me for a relief worker, take tweets out of context or expect far more from me than I can possibly provide. I find that whenever I tweet the name of a location, followers ask me to help search for people at a nearby location. I can do no such thing. I am just a journalist writing about what I see. I know there has also been a large number of people asking me and other media to spend more time at the Hotel Montana and asking for more details about what I have seen there.  People need to understand there is little I can do to help. Rescue teams are there full-time. Embassies are in charge of identifying bodies and contacting their families. I cannot do that. I am not a search-and-rescue team and I do not have the level of access to databases and other clues that embassies have to be able to identify someone. I could be wrong and really hurt a family needlessly. For example, I found a suitcase with business cards from a U.S. doctor. I refrained from tweeting the name. I found out days later she had already been rescued. I understand how frustrating a lack of information can be, but I cannot be an authoritative source of information when it comes to things like finding missing loved ones.

Q: There have been ongoing debates - albeit quiet - about the number of journalists in Haiti from Western nations and then the semantics/connotations around the words looting, scavenging and collecting food for the hungry. Will you weigh in on these briefly from your perspective?

JS: The first part of your question is a debate that I have not witnessed here in Haiti, although that is not to say it is not happening. Every Haitian I have spoken to has been glad the media is here to tell the story. They wish I was an aid worker who could bring them a bottle of water of course, but failing that they are gracious about my role as someone who is here to tell their story and hold the Canadian government and the international community to account. I am sure Haitians in Port-au-Prince would rather we were here than not here and their opinions are the only ones I really care about right now. The world can talk again about this point once the media, including myself, begin pulling out of Haiti.

As for looting vs. scavenging, this is a debate I have addressed, albeit briefly, with readers via Twitter. There is something about being on the ground here that makes all debates like that seem academic and a little ridiculous. I do not mean to be condescending. I have participated in such debates many times throughout my own life and I no doubt will continue to do so. Just consider this: the Haitians have not had such debates. They call it “pillage” and they still manage to see the nuance in the word. Just because it is looting does not mean it is wrong in these circumstances. At the same time, what about the person who runs up to the person who just “looted” or “scavenged” from an abandoned storefront and takes whatever they “looted” or “scavenged” away with the threat of violence, or actual violence? Is that “looting” or “scavenging” or “stealing”? Is that person any more or less desperate than the person who took it from the abandoned storefront? Are they more or less justified in their actions? Context is everything. Unfortunately, the 140-character limit on Twitter does not allow for much of it, so I have warned readers that I will likely use “looting” in that forum, whereas I will think more carefully about it for the newspaper version. I might have called the 15-year-old girl who was shot dead by police a looter at one point, but the harsher criticism should undoubtedly be reserved for the one, or the system behind that one, who fired the gun.

Here is an embed of Joanna Smith's most recent tweets. And, take a moment to donate to the Humanitarian Coalition or the Red Cross - they are going a great job on the ground.

Photo credits United National Development Agency; who have placed their images under Creative Commons. Bravo!

No Canadian Member of Parliament carries an iPhone.

No Canadian MP has a smart phone other than a Blackberry. [Update: Stephen Taylor suggests he knows two MPs that have non-Blackberry smart phones; "I know of at least 2 CPC MPs (one cabmin and one MP). Remember, two cellphones particularly useful when one is paid for by the taxpayer and one is for personal calls."] That is how strong the RIM brand is on the Hill. The ubiquitous Blackberry presence on Parliament Hill extends to virtually every member of the House of Commons and the National Press Gallery.  A few hold out MPs refuse the device all together, an iPod Touch  can be found here and there and a few journalists use both a Blackberry and iPhone.

The rise of RIM

How did it happen? John Manley. It really is that simple. One MP made it all happen. Well, at least he got the ball rolling. At first, derided by his colleagues for toting around the device - then a bit larger than a pager and featured a signature orange key - soon all the Ministers wanted one.

Former Minister Manley was influenced by a few key factors:

1. It’s Canadian. Legislatures like buying Canadian. (and they spend a lot on RIM)
2. It was the tech boom in Ottawa; Manley was eager to be part of it. “Silicon Valley North” was snapping up Blackberrys.
3. It worked. And, it worked really well. The battery lasted for a week. The emails never got lost and the direct device-to-device contact (PIN) even lead to a new Ottawa verb “to PIN”.

It caught on in a big way. And soon enough all offices on the Hill were clamoring for the devices. Blackberry has a near total dominance on the political market. A quick check with friends in other legislatures across Canada reveals the same patterns - perhaps one or two vanguard reporters and MLA/MPPs but very few iPhone users.  Is it all really John Manley’s fault?

The Keyboard Question

Well, no. As, David Akin points to the most reasonable argument “against” the iPhone. The keyboard. Or, rather, the perceived lack of a keyboard.

(I note quickly here that David is one of the only reporters who is actively using an iPhone in his daily routine.)

I agree, but only to an extent. I also think it’s a bit like language. One of the most regular excuses I used to hear from Blackberry-resisters was “my fingers can’t use the tiny keyboard.” (I guarantee somewhere in the Senate there is an august fellow dribbling those same words. I digress.)

Think of it like this: it’s like the time your meager French vocabulary sudden multiplied when dropped into Gaspé and you found you knew more French than you thought. Same thing when I made the mistake and ordered one of those teeny tiny Blackberry’s with half the keys (yeah, made typing harder...but I learned.)

Certainly, the iPhone is not a Blackberry. It’s not engineered for only email. But then again, I don’t really think humans are made for email either. We like to talk to one another. Instructions are clearer when spoken. Perhaps slowing down the pace of email, the endless CC train and forcing MPs to talk to their staff a bit more (instead of just pointing them about by email) would make the Hill a more civil place to work.

Laura Payton of Embassy Magazine uses both and had this to say:

Getting an iPhone onto the Hill

Sure other platforms have been kicked around on occasion. NDP Whip Yvon Godin was one of the last hold outs when the House of Commons IT department yanked their pilot project of Handspring Treo.

It will only be so long before an MP demands an iPhone. What happens then? Here is a prediction:

• First, they would say no. They like to do that. If pressed; and persistently requested - many, many reasons will be proffered for why it's impossible;
• The iPhone would be viewed with great suspicion by a few specific bureaucratic branches of the House; Finance will worry (rightly) about cyclical replacement costs and (wrongly) about application costs;
• Information Services (ISSI), the division of the House of Commons responsible for all IT on the Hill is notorious at being slow to adopt new technology; much of this due to costs and security reasons; will balk at the request. A lot.
• So, a business case would need to be written. Memo drafted to the MPs that sit on the Board of Internal Economy to request approval of a pilot project - what’s this board you ask? It’s the all-party consensus based committee that allocates and makes all decisions related to the House of Commons administration. (I know! Shocking, MPs getting along to make decisions.) Catch is: you need to get one of the MPs on the board to bring the proposal to the board (and they will only do that with the support of their Caucus leadership).

Lets face it, since the mid 1980’s the House of Commons has responded to every change in mobile communications (pagers, giant cell phone, flip-phone craze, Blackberrys of all stripes.) And, it’s not like the addition of the cell phone and then the Blackberry didn’t cause a few headaches on the Hill. From the high-security models required by the Forces to the near constant cycle of replacements required for the clumsy or careless -  the administration has adapted. SO as I said, it's only a matter of time until an MP requests an iPhone. And, I'd guess she will eventually get it.

Next up in our Mobile tech series

On Monday in the Mobile technology series: Picking the best applications for reporting and politicking on the iPhone

Photo

After an unfortunate hosting issue earlier this week... MediaStyle.ca is back with the Mobile Tech series. Last week featured some community opinion on Foursquare - the geolocation game - and two very different opinions on the game from seasoned PR folk in Toronto. Tomorrow, I'm going to feature some great political iPhone applications and point to a few other mobile tech trends.

Globe and Mail columnist Doug Saunders gently chided me a few weeks back when I called out a line from his article on a failed mutiny of UK Labour MPs.

The insurrection was announced by text message. And, as Doug reminded me when I heralded this fact, well simply… that it is nothing new in Europe (where texting has been commonplace since the mid 1990’s.)

Why haven’t Canadian politicos integrated mobile/wireless technology into a new style of campaigning?  Two key reasons:

1) Cost: The current drawbacks are obvious: text message uptake/utilization in Canada is still well lower than in the UK and Europe. Canadian carriers often charge a lot for and add quotas to their text message plans. Text messaging is expensive compared to tried, tested an true technology.

2) Return on Investment: A few attempts at integrating SMS messages into campaigns have been undertaken in Canada - in 2004, 2006 and 2008 the Dominion Institute (in ’08 they partnered with Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association) to provide “access” to the federal political parties via text message. It worked, but only to a degree. The total number of messages received and answered was relatively low compared to other means of communicating with political parties.

The successful campaign financial equation is always “dollars spent per vote earned." This is why the next generation of mobile devices and technology should have Canadian politico’s salivating. Why? Image this scenario:

A young woman is walking down the street past her local candidates' office. The sign in the window reads: download my free iPhone application and learn more about me. So, she does. Now, this young woman is keenly interested in a few issues. She digs into the candidate bio and issues page. On one page - about organic farming - she hits a button that says “keep me updated on this issue”. So, the campaign does.

A day or two later, as she passes a local organic restaurant: her phone pings her - it’s a message from the campaign “We helped get the loan to start this organic restaurant. Would you like more info like this?” She hits yes, happy to know her candidate supports businesses with her values. This happens a few more times over the month long campaign.

And, then on election day her iPhone reminds her when to vote, helps her get there and when she arrives it asks: “Would you like to tell the campaign you voted?” She clicks yes and heads to the local organic grocer; meanwhile the campaign now knows in real time their relationship worked.

There are countless other scenarios I can think of where geolocation combined with applications on an iPhone/iTouch, cell phone and/or Blackberry applications (with push/ping features) and more interactive text messaging would prove useful - and even cost effective. I can even see an augmented reality application for communities to spot areas of improvement. Once political parties see costs come down on mobile tech - they can see the ROI go up and the cost per vote earned go down.

But, a few things need to happen first for Canadian politics to be truly mobile ready:

1. IT departments in legislatures (and city halls) need to allow their users to download Blackberry applications;
2. Political offices must budget for these mobile applications ($100-150 per employee equipped with a smartphone);
3. Investment in internal and proprietary political applications will speed up the overall adoption process;
4. Linking politicians directly to their social media channels; certainly political staff will want some control over these online communities - instead of managing them they should be encouraged to participate respectfully. Working to drop the cloak of secrecy and circumstance we place around our political leaders is key.

Photo credit.

The National Post has welcomed with open arms a public broadcaster and former marquee Globe & Mail columnist apparently smarting from being pushed out of his coveted Saturday spot.

Rex Murphy’s official debut in the Post was today. It looks like it was a foray into the right-leaning opinion pages that finally landed him in hot water with the new Globe management. The Cross Country Checkup host - and long-time CBC host and pundit - penned an A-section screed for the Financial Post, December 5th, on climate change.

Why isn’t Rex Murphy with the Globe?

It seems the article was only what “got the ball rolling” in the words of one insider. Less than commentary in a rival paper; several sources have suggested Globe and Mail Editor in Chief John Stackhouse was simply unimpressed with the increasingly esoteric opinions of this elder-statesman of Canadian opinion. One example widely cited is this CBC appearance (subsequently praised by Terrance Corcoran of the Post.)

So, “climate change denial” is widely rumored to have been the last straw. Perhaps sensing the loquacious Newfoundlander would prompt unneeded bad PR if sacked; I'm told Stackhouse offered to move him to Mondays. As evidenced by the quick decampment to the National Post, it seems that went over like a tonne of bricks with Murphy.

The move was announced this past Thursday by Peter Mansbridge on CBC’s the National, where Murphy still resides as one of the few opinion columnists left on television.

Editor of the Vancouver alternative weekly the Georgia Straight, Charlie Smith is pleased with the move.

“I don't know if Murphy jumped or if he was pushed by Stackhouse. Regardless, I'm looking forward to picking up a Saturday Globe and Mail without one of Murphy's typically ill-informed attacks on climate-change scientists.”

Well it looks as if the answer is: Rex Murphy was pushed a little and jumped.

Photo credit; Rex then & Rex now [CBC]

It all started innocently enough.

Your friend has joined a group “Canadians Against the Prorogation of Parliament.”

One-by-one my friends on Facebook were joining the group.

Soon enough an avalanche of media attention (the CBC National and the Toronto Star front page specifically) had contributed to over 60,000 Canadians signing up by this morning.

Yesterday saw another avalanche: of opinions on political blogs (and twitter) about the Star article, the CBC piece and “impact” of this Facebook group about the efficacy of online activism overall. This post is my attempt at bring at capturing some of the ideas and highlight a few interesting contributions to the debate surrounding “social media activism.”

The Opinions

In classic National Post style the editorial, titled “The Toronto Star and the Interweb” they mock.

Of course, the National Post isn’t alone in thinking the Canadians Against Prorogation of Parliament is just online hot air. Maclean’s columnist Andrew Coyne wrote:

“Certainly there’s no evidence the public is up in arms about it, notwithstanding the Star’s typically tendentious headline. Smug Tory types whose response to every principled objection is “nobody cares” are, unfortunately, right: the 35,000 plus who have subscribed to that facebook page are indicative of very little: most, I would bet, are opposition partisans. Were their situations reversed, they would be saying the same things the Tories are. I wish it were otherwise, but that is what politics has become in this country.”

And, as to be expected even Conservatives who understand online actions like blogger Stephen Taylor spent much of yesterday reminding people on his blog and Twitter that:

“...the anti-coalition Facebook group soared to over 125,000 in a week. To be fair, this week has been slow while last year’s coalition story was the busiest week we’ve had in Ottawa in years and there were many other non-Facebook stories to report!”

A side note; Aaron Wherry of Maclean’s cleverly replied;

“@stephen_taylor So if this one gets to 127,000 members will you accept its legitimacy?”

http://twitter.com/aaronwherry/status/7414083435

While I obviously don’t agree with all of the points these mainly Conservative voices raise. Similar notes of caution are being sounded by more moderate voices as well.

For instance, yesterday AM as the Twitter conversation heated up; Joe Boughner - well-known social media smartie in Ottawa -  was quick to get a blog post out explaining his views on situation that was unfolding.

“While the growth of this group in such a short time is impressive, I’m kind of left wondering what’s next. As my brilliant wife noted on Twitter, maybe the fact that the group itself is a story makes this a success. In the biz that’d be considered earned media, the ultimate goal of any outreach strategy.

But, as I’ve blogged before, how much traction does a protest have when it’s so easy to be part of it? Is joining the group the end of the action taken by those 25k? What percentage of them will actually take the next step and write to their MP or attend a rally?”

National columnist Paul Wells put forward his post “Money (or action?) where your mouth is” and referenced Joe’s post; he made the interesting point that if the hoard joining Facebook groups donated even a little money to the Liberals or New Democrats - say even half of them - this might be worth something.

Ryerson University professor and political pundit Greg Elmer suggests an entirely different approach and tactics, “a selective boycott”, as he explains:

“Much of the banter has debated the merits of joining groups as a form of political action or public opinion. I would suggest, however, that a much more meaningful protest (apart from collecting $ to fund events and campaigns against such acts and politicians) would be to “de-friend” or otherwise remove oneself en masse from existing pages on Facebook.

The must read post on this subject belongs to Jesse Hirsh, freelance CBC technology correspondent and long-time tech user and thinker.  He suggests:

“A crisis like this presents an opportunity to expand the democratic process and include more people in politics as a whole. However, it's hard not to snicker at the fact that joining a Facebook group to show opposition to something has become the ultimate cliche. While such a group does raise awareness and cross over into mainstream media with front page headlines, I am not alone in wondering whether it actually accomplishes anything.”

The reason I like Jesse is that he gives actionable advice. In particular he talks about how the framing of the prorogation is playing into the perception of democracy in Canada and how comedy should be employed.

As Hirsh points out;

“The key is to avoid the media's perpetual attempt to frame these political actions as protest, and instead transcend all boundaries until the power to set the agenda is achieved. At that point you are no longer protesting, but much closer to governing.”

Jesse is pleading with people to take the action off the social networking site Facebook and speak out not in protest or opposition - but from a place of knowledge and contribute to the debate. He writes:

“From all sorts of voices saying all sorts of things, that together unite into a single message, that we are the people, we will not go away, and we demand a government by the people for the people.”

Media fundamentals at play here:

1. Media is self-perpetuating: that is to say that with every story on the National; every front page of the Toronto Star the creators of the group will be exposed to more journalists - naturally making them sought out for interviews; the group will continue to grow
2. Media likes to measure things. Some think numbers and polls are notoriously misinterpreted and oddly reported. Get a few people in a room with a pile of polling data and watch how readings of the information come out. So it’s no wonder that there would be debate on what social media metrics mean to public policy/political reporting.
3. Media need to report. Nothing is going to make the Prime Minister recall Parliament; but in the mean time reporters on Parliament Hill need to report on something - and in the early stages of there being little Parlaimentary activty - it’s natural to look for opposition. They found it on Facebook. where will they find it next?

What does this mean for people who want to take Jesse’s advice? Well, the above fundamentals clearly signal a Parliamentary Press Gallery willing to give people an opportunity for people who oppose prorogation to create, collaborate and demonstrate why this undemocratic move by Harper should be remembered during the next election.

But, as Jesse points out: we do not need to do this from a position of protest in the traditional way. We can’t yell and scream Parliament back open, but we can reason and argue Harper out of his job.

My contribution

So, what is my contribution to all this going to be? I’m not entirely sure just yet but I'm going to engage in some open-source research on the role of online activism, Facebook and social networks. I don't think we are anywhere near fully understanding how Facebook groups (and more broadly online activism) fit into the Canadian political context. I do believe that people need an entry to the political process. Four in every ten Canadians are non voters. So, if your sister asking you to join a group opposing prorogation leads a non-voter to vote, or the disengaged to re-engage - isn’t that worth something?

In the next few days I’m going to start this research project into the question of political activity on Facebook - I’m happily taking contributors, co-researchers and partner to help me look at the questions and reality of “Slacktivism vs. First Step to Action.”

So, what do you think? Please leave a comment - or if you have a contribution to make to the project let me know.

Journalists across Canada celebrated the unanimous Supreme Court of Canada ruling granting a new defence for libel - “Responsible Journalism” or “Responsible Communications.”

It’s obvious why established news organizations - with legal teams, corporate support and money - would find this ruling immediately useful - but, I think many Canadian bloggers and communications advisors were left scratching their heads as to what it meant for them.

As one lawyer for the Ottawa Citizen said, "It will be interesting to see how these communications advisers now are going to advise their clients. I don't think you can say 'no comment' anymore."

Hopefully this post helps sort through some of the implications for bloggers and communicators.

This new defence protects publishers from judgment if they have reasonably attempted to secure the information and facts needed prior to publication of the story - and still end up making a mistake that results in legal action.

In other words - more simply - if a reporter does her homework (due diligence) and makes every effort to “get it right” - but still ends up making a mistake that she get sued for - this defence will protect the reporter (and publisher) from losing in court.

Now, as noted Canadian legal academic Michael Geist says on his blog (emphasis mine):

“In a big win for new media and bloggers, it concludes that the defence applies broadly… This is crucial decision for all publishers both big and small. It represents a major win for freedom of expression in Canada and should remove some of the libel chill that arises far too frequently.”

What kind of due diligence would you have to put in to avail yourself of this defence ? Well, helpfully the court lays it all out.

A. The publication is on a matter of public interest

and:

B.  The publisher was diligent in trying to verify the allegation, having regard to:

(a)   the seriousness of the allegation;

(b)   the public importance of the matter;

(c)   the urgency of the matter;

(d)   the status and reliability of the source;

(e)   whether the plaintiff's side of the story was sought and accurately reported;

(f)    whether the inclusion of the defamatory statement was justifiable;

(g)   whether the defamatory statement’s public interest lay in the fact that it was made rather than its truth (“reportage”); and

(h)   any other relevant circumstances.

Here are a few possible implications in relations to blogging:

1. Freedom of Speech could be bolstered online; many cease and desist letters are combatted daily using “fair use” doctrine in the US; I can see how bloggers (with access to legal help) could push back against libel chill in the same way traditional media will now be able to - the path will be blazed by the traditional media; but expect bloggers to point to precedent once it’s established
2. Bloggers may move forward with more provocative or investigative work; knowing that they have less to fear if they make an error and they are sued for it; a defence exists to defend against judgment
3. Bloggers could feel more emboldened with Supreme Court protection to phone up a subject of a controversial story and ask them to confirm or deny facts;

The bottom line for bloggers seems to be “Blog Responsibly”. The Supremes’ new libel defence says if you make a small mistake - it’s OK - just as long as you really were being responsible and the matter is in the public interest.

In my estimation, much more immediate than implications for bloggers is what this ruling means for public relations firms, political communications advisors and lawyers advising clients in media situations.

Canadian Press reported Ottawa Citizen lawyer Richard Dearden as saying the ruling will increase journalist standards because "you have to be responsible."

"You can't phone at midnight and the presses are going to roll two minutes later and (say) well, we couldn't reach that person. That won't be responsible. But if you've given them fair opportunity to respond and they choose not to, that's up to them, you've done your job."

The bottom line for public relations professionals seems to be: have another lawyer or two on standby. You may need their advice soon.

Read the full ruling here.