Telecommunities Canada
Annual General Meeting
2007-2008

Friday, February 22, 2008
5:00
Bidwell Room
Coast Plaza Hotel and Suites
Vancouver, B.C.

Present: 

Stephane Bernier,
Jesse Fiddler,
Garth Graham,
Michael Gurstein
Marita Moll,
David Murdoch
Gareth Shearman,
Mae Shearman,
Darlene Thompson,

Chair:  Gareth Shearman

1. Approval of minutes of the 2006/07 AGM

That the minutes of the 2006-07 AGM be approved.

Moved by Darlene Thompson; Seconded by Michael Gurstein
Carried

2. Financial Report

Gareth Shearman presented the interim report for the year ending March 31, 2007.  David Murdoch has presented all documents and they will be forwarded to the auditor shortly.

3. Appointment of Auditor

Stewart Boddy has acted as auditor for quite a number of years and it was moved that this continue to be the practice.

That Stewart Boddy continue to prepare the Financial Report.

Moved by Garth Graham; Seconded by David Murdoch
Carried

4. President’s report

Gareth thanked Darlene Thompson for organizing monthly teleconferences as this has really aided in moving things forward.

In the last year Telecommunities Canada was accredited as an ALS with ICANN and we are now a part of the NARALO.  PCNA has also now applied.  N-CAP and Communatique are also ALSs and Darlene Thompson is the Secretariat for the NARALO.  The issues in front of ICANN are very complex and there is a huge learning curve involved.  TC has a large role in the NARALO due to our sub-member involvement.  ICANN’s original rules would have prevented TC from joining as it is an “organization of organizations” but we were able to get that rule changed to allow both the parent and subsidiary organizations to join as ALSs.  TC was instrumental in the formation of the NARALO.

We have also been very involved in discussions around CAP and have been trying to organize interventions in this regard.  Facebook has been an interesting experiment.  We ran a seminar this morning on the Future of CAP and we will need to discuss the direction that we wish to take on this.

That the President’s report be accepted.

Moved by Marita Moll; Seconded by Michael Gurstein
Carried

5. Director’s reports

Michael:  There is a group called Public Voices run out of EPIC in the US and they are concerned about IT issues.  He has been asked to write a half a chapter for an intervention held at the OECD in Seoul, Korea in June on behalf of TC.

Michael:  Garth and Michael are both involved in the Internet Governance Forum.  The IGF came out the WSIS process.  Unfortunately, there is no funding for this and, therefore, limited participation can be achieved.

Moved by Jesse Fiddler; Seconded by Mae Shearman
Carried

6. Issues and directions

Ian has indicated that he will continue to work on the web site as part of his sabbatical.

Garth:  Michael made an interjection into the Internet Governance Caucus wherein he outlined some patterns on how groups are trading off issues.  On the same day, a similar idea came out in the ALAC list.  There seems to be a power play between ICANN and the IGF and the revised ALAC must not be missed in this play.  We need to continue influencing ALAC in order for it to become a middle ground.

Michael:  The problem with civil society participation in the IGF is that it becomes a battle of egos amongst a small group of people.  It is interesting that we now have groups represented through ALAC as this will be a way to get around that closed process.  Multiple stakeholders actually have stakes in the process and will take part in consensus building.

Marita:  We sponsored a session this morning on the Future of CAP and we need to look at the ideas that came from it and decide which, if any, we would like to move forward with.

Ideas:

• Try to be more open to partnerships with different organizations (federal departments such as HRSDC, private corporations, telcos, international partnerships).  How could we do this?  Should we do this?  We need to be very clear and focused on what we are looking for.  What exactly do we want out of them?  We need to re-visit the strategic plan to see where our direction forward is.  We can also take the work that came out of CanCAP and go forward with it.  If we were in the US, we would be funded through foundations and have a full time staff person to pursue such funding.  As we are in Canada, we are reliant on the government and have to access to this funding.  We need to be lobbying in the ICT area as we are one of the few that are correctly positioned to do so.  Partnering with a telco creates potential conflicts of interest whereas partnering with a foundation would not.  We could partner with a telco for such a thing as sending some of us to the Telecommunications Summit held yearly in June, or having a public meeting, on a strategy for digital inclusion.  Also, this takes a lot of time that none of us has.  This needs to be covered further on a conference call.
• Further ideas will be discussed on the next conference call.

7. Election of directors

We have vacancies and we have a nomination for Jessie Fiddler of K-Net to become a board member.  We have been unable to contact Tim Hazell in Alberta so assume he is no longer interested.

That Tim Hazell be removed as Director and Jesse Fiddler to be added.

Moved by Mike Gurstein; Seconded by Darlene Thompson
Carried

That the following list of directors be accepted:

Fred Campbell, Bev Collins, Chris Cope, Peter Frampton, Garth Graham, Michael Gurstein, Frederic Lazure Marita Moll, David Murdoch, Marie Prebushewski, Gareth Shearman, Darlene Thompson, Jesse Fiddler and Frederic Lazure.

Moved by Marita Moll; Seconded by Darlene Thompson
Carried

8. Adjournment

That the meeting be adjourned

Moved by Garth Graham; Seconded by Marita Moll
Carried