A view of the CN Tower and the Toronto skyline, as you fly into the city. Photo by Micah L. Sifry
I’ve just come back from two days in Toronto attending and speaking at MESH, which bills itself as “Canada’s web conference,” a tagline that, judging from the big and enthusiastic crowd at the Allstream Centre, seems altogether merited. This was my second time at MESH, and it has doubled in size since 2009, when I was last there. The conference is the brain-child of five friends–Matthew Ingram, Stuart MacDonald, Rob Hyndman, Mark Evans and Mike McDerment–each of whom have day jobs in media, marketing, and law-related fields and who deftly manage to the weave the various threads of their personal interests and passions into a smart and engaging two day event. Plus, the food is great, and you’re in Toronto, one of the funkier cities in North America.
Canada is at an interesting moment right now. The centrist Liberal Party, which has long dominated national politics, took a huge blow in this month’s parliamentary elections, dropping from 77 seats to just 34. The Conservatives now have a governing majority of 166 seats, up from 143, which means that lots of proposed legislation that used to be snarled up in parliamentary maneuvering–including contentious questions about copyright, internet freedom, privacy and national security–are likely to actually pass. And the New Democratic Party, a progressive grouping that used to play third fiddle in the parliament, won a surprising number of seats (103, up from 37) and now is the official opposition party, with a surge of younger elected parliamentarians including several college students. And all of this is happening just as for social media goes mainstream–creating a mix of openings for activists and politicians alike, as well as a lot of consternation from older traditionalists in the government and media who wonder what is happening to decorum and gatekeeping.
Canada is home to some real standouts from the “personal democracy” perspective. The Citizen Lab, which does absolutely vital work supporting online dissident movements combatting oppressive regimes worldwide, is based here, and their founder and head researcher, Ron Diebert, gave a sobering keynote at MESH about the emergence of “Repression 2.0” as those regimes take the measure of the uprisings of the last year and recalibrate their repressive tactics in cyberspace. (Read
May 27, 2011