i supported michael's candidacy to join cira's board, and prior to his election (there were significant numbers of votes cast) the difference in policy [...]
after his election i expect things to improve, increasing the policy
difference between the .ca and {.us|.pr} namespaces, which imho is a good thing.
The role that CIRA has played in the change of political attitude towards Canada's internet governance is truly negligible. Long before this broad policy shift CIRA was one one of the best run ccTLD operators, with an unabashedly thick WHOIS, personal privacy controls. residency requirements and open publishing of soon-to-be-expiring domains. All .ca registrants are eligible to vote in elections. CIRA policy has in fact changed very little in the last few years and had always been pretty good, so Geist's entry will not likely bring with it any seismic shifts there. Indeed, the changes referred to in the Star article have not one shred to do with domain names, which in the grand scheme of things are but a tiny part of the Internet-focused public interest. They relate mainly to different approaches to IP-related law, treaties, and most important ownership issues. The trend started in 2009 when the CRTC (the Canadian equivalent to the FCC) effectively relaxed foreign ownership limits on telcos, opening the door to some minimal -- but still welcome -- competition for the established homegrown ologopoly. This kind of foreign partnership hasn't existed in Canada since 2004, when Rogers bought out the one-third stake AT&T had in its mobile business. A more recent ownership-related issue was likely the catalyst for the Star story, after the CRTC blocked the attempt by Bell to acquire Astral Media. Even more surprising than the CRTC action was the refusal of the government to intervene. The contrast between the Canadian blocking of Bell/Astral and the American acceptance of Comcast/Universal is indeed striking. While these are all positive events, the influence of CIRA on them was nil. Far more a target of thanks/blame have been advocacy groups such as openmedia.ca, which has singularly proven that Internet petitions can indeed work. Michael has been an elequent speaker for the public interest, but to actually turn talk into policy change the words required the help of grassroots organizations such as OpenMedia, CIPPIC, and the community access networks such as those that Gareth and Darlene are involved with. This is about to be augmented by the formation of an English Canadian ISOC chapter to complement the existing one in Québec. - Evan