Technology gets me to my meeting with esteemed internet law professor Michael Geist on time. But just barely. And not without making me momentarily miss the days when you hailed a cab with your arm.
After my Lyft driver cancels unexpectedly, I switch to Uber and wait another 10 minutes for a new driver to come to me. Happily, this one does, and I’m dropped off at The Happy Goat, on Ottawa’s Elgin Street, mere minutes before Geist himself arrives.
It is modern internet miracles like these that Geist, the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, has spent nearly three decades in academia studying.
Geist obliges my request to save us seats in the bustling café while I get us coffees — nonfat latte for him, hazelnut latte for me.
Regarding our chosen location, Geist later reminisces, “The first time I was in this coffee shop I met with someone pretty senior in [the current] government. They showed up with a piece of paper to jot some notes on.”
“On the back they’d printed out a blog post I’d written … saying this was the most anti-internet government in Canadian history,” he recalls with a laugh.
