Fwd: Postal Codes and MP ridings

[Daniel Haran]

It's been fairly quiet in the past couple days... Here's a letter I
sent to my MP; feel free to adapt to send to yours :)

I'll let you know if I get a substantive response. Do we have
something like http://www.hearfromyourmp.com/ in Canada?

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Daniel Haran <[hidden email]>
Date: Feb 17, 2007 12:46 PM
Subject: Postal Codes and MP ridings
To: Michael Savage <[hidden email]>


Mr Savage,

Thank you for your prompt response to my letter for the Make Poverty
History Campaign; I appreciate your work on that file.

There is a connected issue I would like to address today.
makepovertyhistory.ca lets people know who their MP is based on postal
codes. The database that links postal codes to electoral ridings costs
a lot of money: $2,900 initially, $500 for updates.
http://www.statcan.ca/bsolc/english/bsolc?catno=92F0193X

Last election, each party had on its website a way to find out who
your MP was based on postal codes. It has become an essential tool for
parties to involve people in the political process: let them know who
their candidate is for the party, how to get in touch with their
campaign and donate money.

It should also be part of the toolkit of advocacy organizations.
Parties do not have to pay the $2,900, grassroots groups and
non-profits do. I believe this is an unacceptable tax on democracy,
and I ask that you work to make it freely available to all Canadians
in an open format.

Besides the cost to democracy, there are a couple other points worth
considering.

-Elections Canada is not a customer of this product. They also buy a
file from Canada Post, a crown corporation, duplicating the costs of
development.

-The elections.ca website results seem less accurate than those on the
parliament's website (which I hope was obtained from StatsCan rather
than duplicated).

You can verify this for yourself by searching for 'H1T4C6' on
http://www.elections.ca/scripts/pss/FindED.aspx

and comparing it to:
http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/people/house/PostalCode.asp?Language=E&txtPostalCode=H1T4C6

Is it one or one of five possible MP's?

Making this data freely available in an open format is a great way to
ensure citizens are given accurate information, to increase
participation in our democratic process and reduce bureaucratic
duplication.

I look forward to your reply, and am available to meet with you or
discuss if needed.

Daniel Haran.


--
Change the world one loan at a time - visit Kiva.org to find out how

[Robin Millette]

On 2/17/07, Daniel Haran <[hidden email]> wrote:

> I'll let you know if I get a substantive response. Do we have
> something like http://www.hearfromyourmp.com/ in Canada?

http://www.digital-copyright.ca/letters

--
Robin 'oqp' Millette : http://rym.waglo.com/

[Russell McOrmond-2]

Robin Millette wrote:
> On 2/17/07, Daniel Haran <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>> I'll let you know if I get a substantive response. Do we have
>> something like http://www.hearfromyourmp.com/ in Canada?
>
> http://www.digital-copyright.ca/letters

   I believe your suggestion is to take Daniel's letter, modify into a
simpler sample letter, and add it as one of the letters people can send
from the DCC website?

   I'm wondering what of Daniel's letter is the core message, or whether
it should be kept in its entirety?

--
  Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
  Please help us tell the Canadian Parliament to protect our property
  rights as owners of Information Technology. Sign the petition!
  http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/ict/

  "The government, lobbied by legacy copyright holders and hardware
   manufacturers, can pry my camcorder, computer, home theatre, or
   portable media player from my cold dead hands!"

[Hugh McGuire]

my suggestion is to use the wiki to make:

1.  statement/letter that people are comfortable with, 

2. get commitments to sign (from within & without civicaccess)

3. make a list of who it should go to

4. send it

there's a draft up here:

http://civicaccess.ca/wiki/PostalCodes

Just fyi, my limited experience with letters & politicians is that 10 personalized letters are much more powerful that 10 copies of the same letter signed by different people. 

 

On Feb 19, 2007, at 1:16 PM, Russell McOrmond wrote:

Robin Millette wrote:

On 2/17/07, Daniel Haran <[hidden email]> wrote:

I'll let you know if I get a substantive response. Do we have

something like http://www.hearfromyourmp.com/ in Canada?

http://www.digital-copyright.ca/letters

   I believe your suggestion is to take Daniel's letter, modify into a 

simpler sample letter, and add it as one of the letters people can send 

from the DCC website?

   I'm wondering what of Daniel's letter is the core message, or whether 

it should be kept in its entirety?

-- 

  Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>

  Please help us tell the Canadian Parliament to protect our property

  rights as owners of Information Technology. Sign the petition!

  http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/ict/

  "The government, lobbied by legacy copyright holders and hardware

   manufacturers, can pry my camcorder, computer, home theatre, or

   portable media player from my cold dead hands!"

_______________________________________________

CivicAccess-discuss mailing list

[hidden email]

http://civicaccess.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss_civicaccess.ca

[Russell McOrmond-2]

   In case this is what was suggested, I have created a test letter.

   http://www.digital-copyright.ca/letter5

   Please send feedback.  If the letter based on Daniel's letter is
considered good enough, I'll make this live (change the script to send
the letter to the actual MP rather than to me) and we can all use this
tool to get a letter out.

Russell McOrmond wrote:

> Robin Millette wrote:
>> On 2/17/07, Daniel Haran <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>
>>> I'll let you know if I get a substantive response. Do we have
>>> something like http://www.hearfromyourmp.com/ in Canada?
>>
>> http://www.digital-copyright.ca/letters
>
>   I believe your suggestion is to take Daniel's letter, modify into a
> simpler sample letter, and add it as one of the letters people can send
> from the DCC website?
>
>   I'm wondering what of Daniel's letter is the core message, or whether
> it should be kept in its entirety?
>

--
  Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
  Please help us tell the Canadian Parliament to protect our property
  rights as owners of Information Technology. Sign the petition!
  http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/ict/

  "The government, lobbied by legacy copyright holders and hardware
   manufacturers, can pry my camcorder, computer, home theatre, or
   portable media player from my cold dead hands!"

[Michael Lenczner]

I think we could improve upon the letter before it gets made live.

I tried to merge Daniel's and Hugh's letter.  It might have just
resulted in a version worse than both - because Hugh's was a public
call to action, and Daniel's was a specifc to send to an MP.

But maybe someone else will step in and make it better?

http://civicaccess.ca/wiki/PostalCodes

[Russell McOrmond-2]

Hugh McGuire wrote:
> Just fyi, my limited experience with letters & politicians is that 10
> personalized letters are much more powerful that 10 copies of the same
> letter signed by different people.

   Agreed.  We just need to also remember that 10 letters sent to a
variety of MPs is much better than interest groups just discussing an
issue among themselves ;-)

   Parliament tends to be unaware of our interests, often because we
don't attempt to express those interests.

--
  Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
  Please help us tell the Canadian Parliament to protect our property
  rights as owners of Information Technology. Sign the petition!
  http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/ict/

  "The government, lobbied by legacy copyright holders and hardware
   manufacturers, can pry my camcorder, computer, home theatre, or
   portable media player from my cold dead hands!"

[Hugh McGuire]

>
>    Agreed.  We just need to also remember that 10 letters sent to a
> variety of MPs is much better than interest groups just discussing an
> issue among themselves ;-)
i agree very strongly.

[Russell McOrmond-2]

Michael Lenczner wrote:
> I think we could improve upon the letter before it gets made live.
>
> I tried to merge Daniel's and Hugh's letter.  It might have just
> resulted in a version worse than both - because Hugh's was a public
> call to action, and Daniel's was a specifc to send to an MP.
>
> But maybe someone else will step in and make it better?
>
> http://civicaccess.ca/wiki/PostalCodes

   I believe the sample letter at
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/edid/letter5  has a benefit of being
focused as a letter from a constituent, and also discusses the issue of
accuracy which would be improved with public peer review.

   The letter above seems to be intended to form a letter from an
organization, rather than an individual constituent.  Both can be done,
as each has different advantages and disadvantages.

--
  Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
  Please help us tell the Canadian Parliament to protect our property
  rights as owners of Information Technology. Sign the petition!
  http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/ict/

  "The government, lobbied by legacy copyright holders and hardware
   manufacturers, can pry my camcorder, computer, home theatre, or
   portable media player from my cold dead hands!"

[Hugh McGuire]

>    The letter above seems to be intended to form a letter from an
> organization, rather than an individual constituent.  Both can be  
> done,
> as each has different advantages and disadvantages.

right there are two separate approaches here:
1. a letter or statement for which we could get, say, 100 co-signatories
2. sample letters that individuals can send

my pref would be to see us do 1 and 2, not either or.

[Phillip Smith]

I was in the process of writing my own letter and recalled a site  
that I came across recently that let me quickly and easily explain  
the potential of access to "civic data." I thought I'd share that  
site with the list in case it wasn't on your radar:

http://www.civicfootprint.org/

I'm wondering if it would be fun / useful to collect a list of sites  
that are making use of these data sets for future reference? I've  
been using a 'civicaccess' tag on del.icio.us for this and it seems  
that others have too (http://del.icio.us/tag/civicaccess)  ... maybe  
we could pull such a feed into the Wiki?

Best,

Phillip.

--
Phillip Smith,
Simplifier of Technology
Community Bandwidth