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The intellectual property lobby can channel campaign money to the politicians and likely offer them connections for further contributions or future career opportunities. The copyleft lobby can't compete with that. This is why democracy isn't representing the will of the electorate on this and many other issues.

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Actually, it's not quite that simple in Canada.

Corporate contributions to political parties have been effectively cut off by the current Prime Minister (Harper), you can only do personal donations and only up to $1100 per person.

Harper had a lot of grassroots conservative support and the liberals had a lot of corporate support. The liberals were basically financially devastated and have had to build up from scratch (doing better now).

Still, the US has a strong pull with Harper, he looooves capitalism.

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