User:Zblewski/Sandbox

'''This is my own sandbox. Please respect it and do not edit it unless I ask. -- Z blewski  |talk  ''' 02:52, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

The Pirate Party of Canada (French: Parti Pirate du Canada), or PPCA, is an unregistered political party in Canada. The PPCA founding was in 2009 and modelled after the European Pirate Party of Sweden, which successfully won 1 seat in the 2009 European Parliament elections. The foundation of the PPCA resides on copyright reform and open government; as of March 2010, the PPCA is waiting on pending approval from Elections Canada to recieve official party status.

Founding and development
Pirate Party of Canada in its current form was founded in June of 2009 on the online boards of Pirate Party International by a handful of supporters. Soon after, the PPCA began its earnest community by founding a forum of its own. Membership registrations were soon accepted online, shortly after setting up the forums, and by September of 2009, the number of online registered members reached 1000. In the past year, there has been fair amount of media attention online regarding the entity of PPCA. Unlike most federal political parties in Canada, the PPCA has maintained a cultural and promotional tool in the form of a torrent tracker by the name of Canadian Pirate Tracker (CaPT), containing all-Canadian music, all licensed under Creative Commons, as a way to promote the PPCA's position on works being released online. University student and Nanaimo, British Columbia born Jake Daynes was appointed Interim Leader of the PPCA in October 2009 alongside an interim council.

Political positions
Like the Sweden Pirate Party - with some differences - the main goals of the Pirate Party are the establishment of copyright reform, patent reform, as well as open government. The majority of registered members oppose the actions of major telecommunications companies in Canada, as well as many recent decisions from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), and many aspects of the commission's operations. The Party calls for Net Neutrality in Canada, and remain open to levies on downloading in lieu of DRM and copyright infringement lawsuits. Like their Pirate counterparts worldwide, the PPCA is bloc-neutral on other issues, though there has been agreement on individual candidates having control over their issues and positions (that are outside the Party's realm) in their own ridings.