While not politically active I have always exercised my right to vote whether it's a municipal, provincial of federal election. Democracy and the right to vote is not something to take for granted, though many do. The alternative, as we've seen time and again around the world is scary.

About 20 years ago I did attend one Liberal function. It was membership drive for the party put on by the Paul Martin team. While I have a great respect for Paul Martin, the event I went to totally turned me off politics. But now at 47 I've decided to go to the convention and see what the party is made of and whether it can reinvent itself to become a party that will resonate with the public to help build our country further.

The process of becoming a delegate was educational. For the most part if you want to go to the convention and have followed the basic rules you'll get to go. That's good because we need more people involved. The organization process to become a delegate needs to be clearer though. I went into the process with little information at my disposal including crucial information I didn't know about.

What do I expect from the convention?

The convention will see the election of party officers, Young Liberals of Canada executives,
National Women's Liberal Commission executives, Aboriginal Peoples' Commission executives and Seniors' Liberal Commission executives. These are all important positions. However it is the election of party officers which will get the most attention and which will have an immediate and near term effect on the party.

I also believe that building the future of the party is critical so getting to know the candidates for the Young Liberals of Canada executives is important.

In looking over the program I see it's chalk full of events with hardly a moment to relax. That's good considering the brief amount of time everyone will be together. I'm looking forward to meeting new people, MP's I haven't met before and learning as much as possible.

What's important to me?

The list of issues that are important to me is a long but there are three key areas I feel are important and critical to all Canadians going forward.

1. The economy: While Canada has weathered the global storm better than most we are from safe. We need policies that will build on what we have today and for the future. To use a word that might seem overused, we need to innovate more. Innovation is keyword or buzz word that must mean more than talk. We need to innovate in technology, health care and other critical areas for our future.

2. Education: Canada is a leader in the field of education in some areas but basic education in elementary and high schools is suffering. It suffers from budget cuts, not enough teachers and perhaps a curriculum that needs updating. Post secondary education needs to be more accesible to students who want to go but can't because of funding limitations or caps on access. We also need more co-op schools. The University of Waterloo has one of the worlds leading co-op schools. We need more schools like this. We also need to produce more engineers. Without more engineers Canada could become a net importer of technology in the future. That can't be allowed to happen.

3. Heath Care costs and delivery: Access to health care is a privilege of citizenship in Canada and should remain so. However health care costs are eating away at our budgets and delivery of care in some areas is suffering. We don't want a U.S. style health care system in Canada. What we need is a comprehensive remake of our health care system. Many studies exist comparing various health care systems around the world. We need a roadmap of what needs to done and then execute the plan to make the necessary changes. This is not short term process. It must be well researched, planned and executed over many years. Our current system is not sustainable.

We need a new leader.

After the convention is over we'll have new national executives and leaders in place except the leader of the party who will take us into the next election. Selecting the next leader is critical to the party's future. Who will step up? Who will run? Who will we choose that will be able to not only converse with the public but resonate with them?

We need a strong leader, a younger leader. And by young I mean someone in their 40's or early 50's. They have to have enough experience but not be too old as to not connect with the younger voters. Whoever is selected must be able to articulate the platform of the party, be clear with the public and above all else must be able to resonate with the voters.

While the Conservative's won a majority in the last election it's important to note the percentage of votes each party received. The Conservatives received 39.62% of the vote, the NDP 30.63% and the Liberals 18.91%. A majority of Canadians did not vote for Conservative values so there's plenty of room for reversal of Liberal fortunes. But only if the party resonates with the voters. The Liberal Party lost its way, now it's time to find our way back.

I've heard that in effort to renew the party we might try U.S. style caucuses and primaries. It's an interesting concept and I'm willing to learn more. We need more Canadians engaged in the process. One advantage of this system could be more media exposure.

I'm looking forward to heading to our nations capital for the discourse of the party. See you there.

Note: If you're headed to the convention and are on Twitter you can follow this list I created of all of the candidates.

PS: I'll be at the Open Mic in Toronto where the National President candidates will be.

What started three years ago as an experiment by first only buying technical ebooks has transitioned to where I get 95% of my reading material in digital format.

Today I still subscribe to O'Reilly Safari Books Online service but on top of that I read newspapers online, all my fiction reading is in digital format as is most of my my non-fiction. There are exceptions however. My life long passion for space exploration has resulted in a nice collection of printed books many written by friends or colleagues. And when I come across a book I know I'll want for a long time, I buy the print version. As well there are some technical books which I just prefer in printed format. But other than those two areas the rest of my reading is digital.

Another form of printed material I used to get a lot of is magazines. Today I still have four printed magazine subscriptions but I'm going to switch those to digital as soon as I can.

This last switch from printed to digital magazines was facilitated by the long overdue tablet, and in my case, the purchase of an iPad. As a side note the iPad is just one device in the tablet market for those of you who think it is the market. Hence why I use the word tablet to describe the iPad.

The purchase of a tablet has completed my change from the printed word to the digital word. And here's an interesting fact, I now subscribe to and read more magazines because they are available for my tablet. So publishers take heart. In fact of the seven magazines I read on my tablet five are new from the past year and of those I pay for five of them, the other two are free.

So what digital magazines am I reading on my tablet? In no particular order; The Economist, Space News, Journal of the ACM, BSD Magazine (free), Frontline Defence (free), Hacker Monthly and the IEEE Spectrum. Paid digital newspaper subscriptions I have include The Hill Times, Embassy and the Wall Street Journal.

Why did I make the switch from paper to digital reading?

Other than being an early technology adopter I did because it's convenient, cheaper and takes up less space. Let' look at my reasons in a little more detail as I think it reflects on greater ongoing human behavioural changes.

Convenience - I live in the what is referred to as the Western world and in a highly developed industrial/information economy with high standards of living. This has enabled me to own a computer for a long time. And because my job requires me to work on my computer for many hours and because I have a good internet connection it is convenient for me to read on my computer. Now that I own a tablet and because available software makes it easy to transfer content to my tablet I can also sit on my sofa and read my digital content comfortably.

Price - A lot of good publications are now free in digital format and supported by ads. This includes local newspapers for the most part, many magazines and even some books. Paid subscriptions are also usually cheaper than the print version. In other words, the price model currently favours the digital market. Some publications are switching from a free ad supported model to a pay model but I think for many of them they will ultimately fail at this. This includes the New York Times. However niche publications where available online free content is not readily available or of substantive quality will continue to succeed using the pay to read model. I subscribe to three newspaper of which at least one, the Wall Street Journal, I will not renew my subscription as alternatives sources exist that are just as good IMHO and are free.

Space - I like most people live in a city. In my case I live in downtown Toronto. So space comes with premium cost per square meter. In other words although my condo is not small, as it's about 111 square meters (1200 square feet), my wife and I are still challenged for space. I work from home, so what some might normally uses as a second bed room is in fact my office. So space for my printed books is limited. And while I still buy some printed books the available space I have is not growing. With my digital editions I'm only limited by either the size of my hard drives or available online storage. However both of these can be easily expanded on for a small amount of money.

Convenience, price and space affect not only me but most people and for many people for totally different reasons. Take Africa as an example. It' hard to lump a whole continent into an example so bear with me. I think it can be said that most African households don't have a computer as is the case in Canada. I can also safely say that most African's don't have reliable internet access at home. So convenience and price as I described for me does not reflect the average African household.

However while Africans lack what I take for granted, their digital transition is also taking place and in ways that are out innovating other parts of the world. Because infrastructure is so uneven in most African countries they've had to adopt to the digital world in different ways. This has meant that most Africans digest their digital content on mobile phones as opposed to the personal computer, let alone a tablet. Mobile phones are becoming ubiquitous in Africa.

So for them convenience and price means something totally different. Convenience is now in the form of access to digital content by mobile phone. Price is a reflection that printed books, especially educational printed books are expensive and hard to come by. Because of this the World Bank and others are testing ereader pilot projects.

And while the following example is not about ereading it goes to show how the adoption rate of mobile phones and how it has affected markets. This is from a Techcrunch article, The Future Ain't What it Used to Be; "Kenyans flocked to mobile-phone money transfer services, because they had no consumer banks: now M-Pesa, the largest, handles money equal to a mindboggling 10% of Kenya's GDP every year. (The US equivalent would be $1.4 trillion/year. By contrast, PayPal handles less than $100 billion/year worldwide, of which mobile-phone payments are but a small fraction.)"

The great thing about digital reading is that more content is available today than ever before. And while the printed word is on a slow decline, reading is on the increase. As a reader and publisher I've fully embraced the digital word. For me there is no turning back. For the next generation and future generations there is no choice.

Note: I'll be in Cape Town, South Africa in early October for the International Astronautical Congress where I'll be launching a new digital product for SpaceRef.

The space sector in Canada is not stable. Although revenues surpassed $3 billion in 2009 for the first time and the government boosted the Canadian Space Agency budget through $110 million in stimulus money, there are warning signs that things are not well with the commercial space sector.

Just yesterday SpaceRef Canada released a report by gour of Canada's top companies are critical of R&D funding. And last week, MDA, Canada's largest space company said in analysts call when reporting Q4 earnings for 2010 "We do not see a Canadian long-term space plan anywhere, and we are precluded from working in the United States except for small projects", yet another signal across the governments bow that it is not pleased.

So how is Canada to move forward in these murky waters? Well, the CSCA meeting should prove useful in discussing many of the issues.

My thanks to Bigelow Aerospace for providing these models. One will be on display in Vancouver, hopefully at the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre, when I can arrange it.