Still fighting against telco's limiting other ISP

Christopher Browne cbbrowne-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org
Thu Sep 24 20:29:59 UTC 2009


On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 2:49 PM, Amanda Yilmaz <ayilmaz-e+AXbWqSrlAAvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> I'd love to write a letter of my own about this, ASAP.
>
> However, I may be limited in what I can do because I'm not a citizen of Canada yet, though I am a permanent resident (landed immigrant) and intend to apply for citizenship once I'm eligible, which should be next year.
>
> Before I start composing my letter, does anyone here know what the legal situation is for non-citizen residents who wish to contact MPs or other government officials urging them to act on a major issue such as this one?
>
> Is it okay to contact them, with the understanding that a letter from a non-citizen would obviously carry less weight? Or is it considered interference from an outsider, illegal and a deportable offence?
>
> Even if it's legal to contact them, I'm also concerned about marking myself as a troublemaker and inviting retaliation before I manage to obtain citizenship.
>
> To be clear about this, I'm not talking about misrepresenting myself as a citizen, since that would almost certainly be illegal, as well as dishonest. But I live here too, and I'd like to know what I can do to help on this issue.

I don't see there being *any* problem here, as long as you're not
actually going out to try to expressly cause trouble :-).

There's a relevant fundamental difference between Canada and the US;
in the US, it is something of a sin to be "unamerican"...  Since we're
not a big enough "player" to consider ourselves a world unto
ourselves, there's a considerable aspect of this that wouldn't
logically map over to being "UnCanadian".

The Toronto area has a stronger expression of this than the national
average, as there are *so* many fairly recent immigrants living here,
in most cases, entirely legitimately.   (You can contrast two ways...
Rural portions of Canada haven't got many residents that *aren't*
multigenerational citizens.  Contrast also with portions of the US
near the Mexican border, which regularly have large quantities of
illegal aliens, and as an attendant consequence, a not-surprising
amount of discomfort with aliens...)

If you participate in legitimate ways in the political process, and
put in the effort to make sure you do so in proper ways, then that is
hardly "branding yourself a troublemaker" - that is much more an
evidence that you are a "good risk" as a would-be citizen.

Writing to the local representative as "a concerned resident" fits
with that pretty well.
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