Facebook Unites Canadians to Fight Against Prorogation

"A lot of people at that rally hadn't been to a rally before,” said community activist Laurel Anne Daly about an anti-prorogation demonstration that took place in downtown Toronto on January 23. “There were old people walking with canes in the street,” she said.

People from all corners of the country- the politicians, the media, the young and the old- have banded together over the past couple months to demonstrate against Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s decision to prorogue parliament.
"People, I think, understand that it was an abuse of power," said Daly.

Facebook played a large roll in the organization of rallies across Canada.

A group created on Facebook called "Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament" informed people, united Canadians and encouraged nation-wide action.
Christopher White formed the group. He's a student at the University of Alberta, formed
There are now 224,920 members.

"This is the first time that many Canadians are getting involved," White wrote in an email regarding the mass participation of Canadians.

“That rally at Yonge and Dundas was packed. We were spilling out onto the street," Daly said. She has been attending rallies for more than 20 years, but she thinks this recent one Toronto was so successful because of the Facebook group.
Facebook made all information easy to access. The group kept Canadians informed about the issue and let everyone know about the different rallies that were taking place across the country.

"The co-ordination done by Facebook was superb," Daly said.

But Facebook can't take full credit for Canadians’ will to join the protests against Harper.
"It has only been possible because Canadians were willing to stand up and unite, take the issue off of Facebook and work towards achievable goals," White wrote.

"Facebook played a role in it," wrote White, "but I think it just tapped into an existing river of anger over the continued erosion of our democratic institution."

NFB's Screening Room Leading the Way for Canadian Content

The National Film Board of Canada's Screening Room launched last year, making Canadian films accessible to the world. But it's only a small portion of an already minute amount of Canadian content available on the web.

Michael Geist wrote about NFB in his article NFB Unreels Online Smash Hits.
"The NFB may never replace YouTube in the minds of most when it comes to Internet video," Geist wrote, "but a series of innovations have highlighted the benefits of an open distribution model and the potential for Canadian content to reach a global audience online."

Having a Canadian website, available to the entire world, showing intelligent, well-made and creative Canadian videos is great.

"There's a lack of Canadian content," says Willow Knoblauch, formerly the head of managing live videos on BlogTV.ca (now only available in the United States as blogtv.com).

Videos posted on sites like YouTube, MySpaceTV and BlogTV are often unintelligent or uploaded illegally by "excitable 14 year olds".

But YouTube and other user-generated-content sites can still include intelligent, innovative material. "For people that actually use it for what they're supposed to, it's a stepping stone to launch themselves into what they really want to do," says Knoblauch. That could be anything from acting to short films, animation or production. "It's a good platform for creative people."

So far, NFB's Screening Room seems like the best Canadian video site out there. Knoblauch thinks its a huge step in the right direction. "It's guaranteed, original, Canadian content."