David de Burgh Graham (born 29 July 1981) is a Canadian politician and railway dispatcher who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for the riding of

Laurentides—Labelle Laurentides—Labelle is a federal electoral district in Quebec, Canada, that has been represented in the House of Commons of Canada since 2004. Geography The district is located north of Gatineau and northwest of Montreal, in the Quebec regi ...

from 2015 until his defeat in the 2019 federal election. A member of the

Liberal Party of Canada The Liberal Party of Canada (LPC; , ) is a federal political party in Canada. The party espouses the principles of liberalism,McCall, Christina; Stephen Clarkson"Liberal Party". ''The Canadian Encyclopedia''. and generally sits at the Centrism, ...

, he is also an important player in the

free software movement The free software movement is a social movement with the goal of obtaining and guaranteeing certain freedoms for user (computing), software users, namely the freedoms to run, study, modify, and share copies of software. Software which meets thes ...

Early life

Graham was born on 29 July 1981, and grew up in the

Laurentides The Laurentides (, ) is a region of Quebec. While it is often called the Laurentians in English, the region includes only part of the Laurentian Mountains. It has a total land area of and its population was 589,400 inhabitants as of the 2016 C ...

region. His great-grandfather was

Hirsch Wolofsky Hirsch (Harry) Wolofsky (1878–1949), was a Canadian Yiddish author, publisher/editor and business owner. Biography Wolofsky was born in Szydłowiec, Poland, into an Hasidic community. He received a traditional Jewish education until orphane ...

, the founder of

Keneder Adler ''Der Keneder Adler'' () was Canada's leading Yiddish newspaper from 1907 until 1977. Founded in Montreal by Hirsch Wolofsky, the ''Adler'' underpinned Yiddish cultural activity in the city for much of the 20th century. History After losing his ...

(Canadian Eagle), a Yiddish-language newspaper in Montreal. He is the great-great-nephew of

Leon Crestohl Leon David Crestohl, (May 7, 1900 – March 21, 1963) was a Canadian lawyer and politician. Born in Warsaw, Vistula Land (now Poland), the son of Rabbi Hyman Meyer Crestohl (1865–1928), he emigrated with his family to Canada in 1911 liv ...

, who served as the MP for Cartier from 1950 until his death in 1963. Judaism played an important part in his life. Graham attended Hebrew School as a child, and now considers himself a Reconstructionist Jew.

Free Software Movement

At 18 years of age, Graham was an editor for the websites of the

FLOSS Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term encompassing free ...

community DevChannel.org, freshmeat.net and later the news sites Newsforge.com and

Linux.com Linux.com is a website that is owned by the Linux Foundation, where the goal of the site is to provide information about open source technology, careers, best practices, and industry trends. It also acts as a hub for the Linux community. Linux ...

, controlled by the predecessors of

Geeknet Geeknet, Inc. is an American company that is a subsidiary of GameStop based in Fairfax County, Virginia. The company was formerly known as VA Research, VA Linux Systems, VA Software, and SourceForge, Inc. History VA Research VA Research was foun ...

. He was co-founder of the

Open and Free Technology Community The Open and Free Technology Community (OFTC) is an IRC network that provides collaboration services to members of the free software community in any part of the world. OFTC is an associated project of Software in the Public Interest, a non-prof ...

in late 2001 when OpenProjects.net split into OFTC and

Freenode Freenode, stylized as freenode and formerly known as Open Projects Network, is an IRC network which was previously used to discuss peer-directed projects. Their servers are accessible from the hostname , which load balances connections by u ...

where he was elected to four terms as president and remains as honorary adviser. In 2002, OFTC joined

Software in the Public Interest Software in the Public Interest, Inc. (SPI) is a US 501(c)(3) non-profit organization domiciled in New York State formed to help other organizations create and distribute free open-source software and open-source hardware. Anyone is eligible to ...

, and Graham was elected to the Board of Directors in January 2004.

Railfan

Graham is a noted

railfan A railfan, train fan, rail buff or train buff (American English), railway enthusiast, railway buff, anorak (British English), gunzel (Australian English), trainspotter (British English) or ferroequinologist is a person who is recreationally in ...

, whose photos have appeared in several publications. He is recognized as an expert in rail transportation and public transit and the Guelph Mercury newspaper named him among the "Top 40 Under 40" for his work in public transit.

Political career

Prior to his election, Graham worked as a political assistant for Liberal MP Scott Simms. In October 2015, he was elected to Parliament for the riding of

. As an MP, Graham was quick to start talking about

open source software Open-source software (OSS) is Software, computer software that is released under a Open-source license, license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and Software distribution, distribute the software an ...

in an official capacity. As a long-time Linux user, Graham was able to advocate for use of

free software Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

in government. Serving a rural riding, it was particularly important for Graham to promote

high-speed internet In telecommunications, broadband or high speed is the wide- bandwidth data transmission that exploits signals at a wide spread of frequencies or several different simultaneous frequencies, and is used in fast Internet access. The transmission m ...

. Graham is very aware of the importance of high-speed internet in supporting any digital-first agenda for this country. Graham has been a leader in promoting Rural Digital Infrastructure, including basic

cell phone A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that allows users to make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones ( landline phones). This radio ...

access which is missing from much of Canada. He has also promoted

co-operatives A cooperative (also known as co-operative, coöperative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomy, autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned a ...

as a viable solution for rural broadband. Graham was the first MP to use several references in Canada's Hansard including

grok ''Grok'' () is a neologism coined by the American writer Robert A. Heinlein for his 1961 science fiction novel '' Stranger in a Strange Land''. While the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' summarizes the meaning of ''grok'' as "to understand intuit ...

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

, and

Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an American international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1990 to promote Internet civil liberties. It provides funds for legal defense in court, ...

. As a

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

fan, Graham was the first to talk about

Arthur Dent Arthur Philip Dent is a fictional character and the hapless protagonist of the comic science fiction series ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' by Douglas Adams. In the radio, LP and television versions of the story, Arthur is played b ...

and

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' is a Science fiction comedy, comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Originally a The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio series), radio sitcom broadcast over two series on BBC ...

in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

. He also demonstrated a sense of humour with an

April Fools April Fools' Day or April Fool's Day (rarely called All Fools' Day) is an annual custom on the 1st of April consisting of practical jokes, hoaxes, and pranks. Jokesters often expose their actions by shouting "April Fool " at the recipient. Mas ...

joke discussing the

petition A petition is a request to do something, most commonly addressed to a government official or public entity. Petitions to a deity are a form of prayer called supplication. In the colloquial sense, a petition is a document addressed to an officia ...

to sell Montana to Canada for $1 trillion.https://bigthink.com/politics-current-affairs/petition-to-sell-montana-national-debt?rebelltitem=1

Electoral record

References

External links

*
Personal site
*
House of Commons profile

Open Parliament profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Graham, David de Burgh Liberal Party of Canada MPs Living people People from Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts Politicians from Laurentides Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Quebec Jewish Canadian politicians Canadian Sephardi Jews Canadian Reconstructionist Jews 1981 births 21st-century members of the House of Commons of Canada