Perhaps beseige is too strong a word. Pirates limp into federal election may be a better fitting headline. Two pirates in fact; James Wilson and Daniel Mlodecki of the Pirate Party have entered the federal election. They aim to commandeer the New Brunswick ridings of Fundy Royal and Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe respectively.
The Pirate Party of Canada is a little fringe party that came to be in October 2009. Not the first of its kind, the party is modelled on pirate parties in Europe. Their aim is simple, if not limited. The majority of the pirate platform centers on internet issues and calling for an end to copyright. The Pirates aim to restore internet privacy, more accessibility to government data, more government transparency, and a less centralized government. If this sounds familiar it is because these are all issues near and dear to the hearts of the Green Party of Canada. However, the Pirate Party feels that the Greens are not pushing these specific issues hard enough (focusing instead on environmental issues).
Certainly, some of these goals are noble but others are problematic. The Pirate stance on copyright and patents, for one, raises a number of compicated legal questions. Free movies and music would obviously benefit the customer but to the detriment of the artist. However, loosening of patents would also make it easier for corporations to share medical research, findings, and formulas thus potentially lowering the price of costly medicines and advancing better cures ad treatments.
The party itself also seems plagued with problems. James Wilson’s candidate page has not been updated since before the Autumn of 2014 when he was living in Alberta. There have also been six leaders since the party was founded just six years ago. The ten candidates who ran in 2011 also faced tough numbers at the polls; none garnered much more than 1% of the vote in any given riding.
Still, Wilson and Mlodecki are pushing ahead under the Pirate banner. Wilson is a former leader of the Pirate Party and a graduate of Mount Allison University. He will be running against Conservative incumbent Rob Moore and four others in a riding expected to remain blue after October 19th. Mlodecki studied business at the University of Western Ontario and runs the popular Moncton bar- Navigator’s Pub. Mlodecki is facing tough opponents from the four major parties.
politiconb 