The Unsung Heroes of The Pro-Internet Movement

We want to take a moment to note some of the unsung heroes of the pro-Internet movement. OpenMedia.ca truly operates as a fluid network of collaborating organizations and people. This makes us efficient and effective—it's why we can punch above our weight and push back against big telecom conglomerates who can outspend us (many times over). We'd be sunk without the various people and organizations in the pro-Internet community. With the highly technical, high-stakes CRTC Internet metering hearing under our belt, now is a good time to give thanks and recognize some of our most important collaborators.

We want to take a moment to note some of the unsung heroes of the pro-Internet movement. OpenMedia.ca truly operates as a fluid network of collaborating organizations and people. This makes us efficient and effective—it's why we can punch above our weight and push back against big telecom conglomerates who can outspend us (many times over). We'd be sunk without the various people and organizations in the pro-Internet community. With the highly technical, high-stakes CRTC Internet metering hearing under our belt, now is a good time to give thanks and recognize some of our most important collaborators.

Tamir Israel of CIPPIC

As with our landmark intervention at the Net Neutrality (Internet openness) hearing, our lawyers at CIPPIC took the lead on our policy work for the UBB hearing. With his painstaking attention to detail, staff lawyer Tamir Israel did an amazing job at the hearing, and brought in input from pricing expert and mathematician Andrew Odlyzko. When in campaign mode, OpenMedia.ca staff keep pretty inhumane office hours, but Tamir is always available to give input and answer last-minute questions.

Tamir (and CIPPIC in general) regularly provide OpenMedia.ca with legal and policy advice and often help us produce key educational and research materials like our Stop The Meter FAQ and our report on Internet openness, Casting an Open Net. Tamir doesn't just help out with Internet metering, however, he's also consistently engaged in our Net Neutrality work (CIPPIC helped us start the SaveOurNet.ca coalition), and has taken an active role in developing background and policy materials for our Stop Online Spying campaign. Tamir and CIPPIC are consistently doing the intensive—and often thankless—policy work necessary to keep the Internet open and affordable. Thanks Tamir and CIPPIC!

John Lawford of PIAC

PIAC is another under-appreciated public interest organization. For many years, John Lawford has been a key, and often lone, consumer voice in the mix at CRTC and parliamentary proceedings. John's grounded input and deep knowledge of the policy-making process have been truly essential at key moments in our campaigns. At OpenMedia.ca, we spend most of our time providing tools and information for public engagement while John helps us see the intricacies and bigger picture overall of policy developments in Ottawa. For years, John has been keeping the public interest voice alive, day-in and day-out.

When we visit Ottawa, we are inspired by the passion and diligence of these two organizations. They deserve much more recognition then they receive. In many ways, OpenMedia.ca's work is to rally people behind the good policy work being done by groups like CIPPIC and PIAC. It's not that their ideas are not being put forward without OpenMedia, it's that the PR machine of the Big Telecom lobby too often muddies the waters, so the voices of the pro-Internet community help in backing up this policy work.

Other longtime collaborators like Chris Parsons, Kevin McArthur, and a whole community of people have helped with our work time and again in various areas, including Casting an Open Net.

We also have some new key policy collaborators with our Stop Online Spying campaign, including the BCCLA, the CCLA, and BCFIPA.

Other notable mentions include:

• Andrew Moore, Mark Coatsworth, Claude Hénault, Munly Leong (World Broadband Foundation), Jatinder Bhullar, and others who took time to present or send a message to the CRTC.
• Several indie ISPs, most notably Teksavvy and Acanac, who trusted our work enough to encourage their customers to join our campaign.
• The many active contributors on Twitter, Facebook, and reddit who have developed resources and consistently provided key input for our work.
• Those who have made videos, and joined us in online or offline outreach with fellow Canadians.
• The over 525,000 of you that have taken part in one of our online actions (like Stop The Meter) this year.

It's our voices together that have power.

Thank you!

Steve Anderson

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Our work in advancing an open, affordable Internet is only just beginning, so we hope you'll all continue to support our work, and help us by providing key input at this pivotal moment: http://openmedia.ca/engage

Keep up the pressure on the CRTC by signing the Stop The Meter petition HERE

Stand up for free expression and privacy by signing the Stop Online Spying petition HERE.