[lp-ca-on] draft TPP by riding connection service

[Greg Knittl]

Hi,

At the meetup on April 24th Blaise, Bob and I discussed what we might do 
about the TPP. Since the TPP hearings seem to be limited to 12 speakers 
each, my thought was to visit our MPs in person. This is best done with 
a small group of constituents instead of individually. Most groups 
active on the TPP appear to be organized nationally or regionally. I 
would like to propose a service to connect people interested in meeting 
their MPs on the TPP. This might extend to meeting MPPs, municipal 
officials etc.

Here's a draft proposal for your comments. For example do you know any 
other efforts to already do this. Offers to help with the (bash) 
scripting. I'm thinking 1 SQLite table to hold the list. I have some 
bash script for sending emails from the command line that I used years 
ago. I don't have an immediate solution to automating the incoming mail 
but I'm sure it can be done. I am new to LibrePlanet Ontario but I have 
supported the Free Software Foundation for some time. I would be fine to 
do this as part of LibrePlanet Ontario or not. The TPP affects so many 
groups that it might be more effective for me to do this with no 
official involvement from LibrePlanet Ontario.

To share your email with others in your riding who want to act locally 
on the TPP send me an email with subject TPP riding or PTP 
circonscription and your federal riding in English or French. In my case 
that would be:
TPP riding Scarborough--Guildwood
or
PTP circonscription Scarborough--Guildwood

Please note I've cut and pasted the riding name from 
http://www.lop.parl.gc.ca/ParlInfo/compilations/houseofcommons/memberbypostalcode.aspx
That's it. I don't need your name to connect you and will not load it 
into the list. I will keep emails on file as proof of authorization so 
if you don't want me to have your name at all please remove it from your 
email. If you are joining by email I assume you have access to the 
internet and I expect you to look up your riding. When passing out paper 
contact sheets at TPP related events I will accept your postal code if 
you don't know your riding. I will retain the paper sheets as proof of 
authorization but only load the riding onto the list.

I will send an open address email to everyone in your riding from the 
list. It will be up to you to establish contact with each other by email 
and take whatever steps you deem necessary to set up a meeting with your 
MP.

Expected use of your email
- to send you the emails of other people who want to act on the TPP in 
your riding
- to email you about potential enhancements to the process such as 
decentralizing the list, setting up cross riding coordinators etc. any 
changes will be opt-in
- to email you about TPP resources related to acting in your riding e.g. 
People with TPP knowledge from outside your riding that are willing to 
attend your meetings, sample questions for your MP etc
- statistics. email counts by riding. For example people may want to 
know many others are active in their riding before signing up. I will 
also track the date I add your email to the list so there may be email 
counts by add date as well. If you let me know about your meetings I 
will at least keep track of the number of MP visits. I will share 
statistics with groups active on the TTP and use them to publicize the 
database. You should expect the statistics to be public.

My commitments:
- to remove your email from my active list at any time send me an email 
with subject line TPP remove or PTP retirer from the email you signed up 
with. I do expect to take backups and I will not guaranty removing your 
information from the backups.
- I will enforce only one riding per email.
- the expected uses do not include giving out the overall list to other 
groups active on the TPP. The expected uses do not include giving you 
the emails for nearby ridings or any emails I have for key MPs like 
Christina Freeland. At my discretion and if time permits the most I can 
do is send requests to the list on your behalf. My hope is that you will 
be able to network across ridings through existing TPP groups.
- to get your approval to use your email for anything beyond the 
expectations listed above.

Caveats
- I can not guaranty emails. They can be spoofed, It's easy to create 
multiple emails etc.
- Anyone that really wants to get your email from the list can create an 
email I don't already have and send me a sign up request for your riding.
- I expect other people in your riding to treat your email with respect 
but I can't guaranty that others in your riding will get your agreement 
to circulate your email beyond your riding. Lobbying your MP is a 
political process and it has to operate in public to some degree.
- The TPP affects many groups and I hope to cast a fairly wide net all 
across Canada. Take appropriate precautions when meeting people in real 
life.
- You are welcome to email me with feedback about your MP meetings, 
feedback on the process, questions, suspected abuse of the process etc. 
but I'm a finite resource and I can make no commitment to respond in any 
way. I'd be glad to share the work. I hope that others will collect 
emails for the list and feed them to me and even volunteer to maintain 
lists for one or more ridings in which case I would encourage new 
signups for those ridings to join the local lists.
- I reserve the right to remove emails from the list at my sole discretion

Tips and Hints

If meeting your MP seems intimidating then your MP would likely be fine 
with you bringing in a TPP active person from outside the riding. I 
intend to target groups that are active on the TPP so I expect people to 
reach back to the groups already active on the TPP to get any assistance 
they might need in preparing for the meeting. However, the TPP is huge 
and MPs have a lot of other issues on their plate. Even modest research 
on your part will likely allow you to educate your MP about aspects of 
the TPP they weren't aware of.

Consider the potential for follow-on meetings. You may want to structure 
questions for the meeting so that your MP promises to get back to you. 
There may be new people active in the riding after your initial meeting 
that want to visit their MP. There's lots to discuss!

to look up your riding: 
http://www.lop.parl.gc.ca/ParlInfo/compilations/houseofcommons/memberbypostalcode.aspx 


a few people and groups of the many active on the TPP in Canada:
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/
http://canadians.org/trade
https://act.openmedia.org/finalbattle

Greg