Bill C-28 (Historical)

An Act to promote the efficiency and adaptability of the Canadian economy by regulating certain activities that discourage reliance on electronic means of carrying out commercial activities, and to amend the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act, the Competition Act, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and the Telecommunications Act

This enactment establishes a regulatory framework to promote the efficiency and adaptability of the Canadian economy by regulating certain activities that discourage reliance on electronic means of carrying out commercial activities.
It enacts An Act to promote the efficiency and adaptability of the Canadian economy by regulating certain activities that discourage reliance on electronic means of carrying out commercial activities, and to amend the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act, the Competition Act, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and the Telecommunications Act, which prohibits the sending of commercial electronic messages without the prior consent of the recipient and provides rules governing the sending of those types of messages, including a mechanism for the withdrawal of consent. It also prohibits other practices that discourage reliance on electronic means of carrying out commercial activities, such as those relating to the alteration of data transmissions and the unauthorized installation of computer programs. In addition, that Act provides for the imposition of administrative monetary penalties by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, after taking into account specified factors. It also provides for a private right of action that enables a person affected by an act or omission that constitutes a contravention under that Act to obtain an amount equal to the actual amount of the loss or damage suffered, or expenses incurred, and statutory damages for the contravention.
This enactment amends the Competition Act to prohibit false or misleading commercial representations made electronically.
It also amends the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act to prohibit the collection of personal information by means of unauthorized access to computer systems, and the unauthorized compiling of lists of electronic addresses.
Finally, it makes related amendments to the Competition Act, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act and the Telecommunications Act.

Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Unfortunately, we do not have time to hear any more comments.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Richmond—Arthabaska.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-28, which has a slightly misleading title because I do not know if we will really be able to eliminate spam. It is called the “fighting Internet and wireless spam act”. I hope we will be able to fight spam and eliminate it, but it will not be easy to completely block fraudsters and dishonest people. These people inundate our email with spam.

We listened to a number of speeches, including that of my illustrious colleague from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, the Bloc Québécois industry critic, who has worked very hard on this file. His speech was very eloquent and provided a good explanation of the multi-faceted manner in which this scourge attacks businesses, offices, service providers and all those in business. I will repeat, it is a real scourge.

I remember very well that when I arrived here on Parliament Hill, not as a member of Parliament, but as an assistant, it was the first time that I had to work so much with computers. My previous job had me working with computers only occasionally. I was shocked by the number of spam messages and how much of our time they took up every day. I imagine that that is still the case for many businesses. Here in the House of Commons, and we must give credit to our tech team, we get far fewer spam messages. I will not go into detail, but we were getting some completely unacceptable emails. In some cases, pop-ups would take over our computers and sometimes cause them to freeze. The computers were frozen, not us. It was a serious problem.

The bill is creating a new electronic commerce protection act to set limits on the sending of spam. Spam can be defined as a commercial electronic message sent without the express consent of the recipient. It can be any commercial electronic message, any text, audio, voice or visual message sent by any means of telecommunication. Email was mentioned earlier, but there is also cellular phone text messaging—which is popular with young people—and instant messaging. Based on the content, it is reasonable to conclude that the purpose of the message is to encourage participation in commercial activity. That is the case, of course, with electronic messages that offer to purchase, sell, barter or lease a product, good, service, land or an interest or right in land, or offer a business, investment or gaming opportunity.

The Bloc Québécois is in favour of the principle of Bill C-28. As was mentioned earlier, it is new legislation that specifically targets unsolicited commercial electronic messages. We need this new legislation, and it has long been requested by society as a whole. The members who spoke before me said that it took a ridiculously long time for the government to wake up and put a real policy in place.

This bill is not yet in effect. It must be examined in committee. A task force has been studying the issue since 2004. We would have expected it to be quicker. These kinds of emails are costing us billions of dollars.

Nevertheless, the Bloc Québécois is pleased to see that Bill C-28 takes into account most of the recommendations in the final report of the task force on spam. However, we are not pleased that the legislative process took four long years.

Consideration of the bill in committee should give many industry stakeholders and consumer protection groups an opportunity to express their views on the new electronic commerce protection legislation created by Bill C-28.

I would now like to go over how Bill C-28 came about. First of all, the task force on spam was struck in 2004 to look into this problem and find ways of dealing with it. It brought together Internet service providers, as well as electronic marketing experts and government and consumer representatives. Consumers are often the main victims of spam.

I am thinking of fraud spam primarily. For instance, a bank or credit union asks someone to provide all of his or her contact information because of a bogus problem. I will come back to that. I will no doubt have time at a later date.

I am pleased to say that the Bloc Québécois supports the principle of this bill.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

When this bill is brought forth again in the House, the hon. member will have 15 minutes left.

The House resumed from September 27 consideration of the motion that Bill C-28, An Act to promote the efficiency and adaptability of the Canadian economy by regulating certain activities that discourage reliance on electronic means of carrying out commercial activities, and to amend the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act, the Competition Act, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and the Telecommunications Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if I am not mistaken, I have about 15 minutes left because on September 27, I had already started my speech on Bill C-28, Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act.

At the time, I spoke to the House about how difficult it is to eliminate spam. It is time for Canada to bring in legislation to prevent fraudsters and all kinds of people from taking over emails and text messages, among other things. Almost everyone who is online, or who can be online, and who uses new technologies, which are increasingly prevalent now, is subject to spam attacks. That is why it is important for us to pass legislation.

When I started my speech, I said that the scourge of spam attacks businesses, offices, service providers and everyone doing business. Bill C-28 creates the new Electronic Commerce Protection Act to limit spam. As I said, spam is a commercial electronic message sent without the express consent of the recipient. It can be any commercial electronic message, any text, audio, voice or visual message sent by any means of telecommunication. This includes text messages and instant messages, in addition to email.

When I was interrupted because of the time, I was talking about the background to Bill C-28. First of all, a task force on spam was created in 2004. The group brought together Internet service providers as well as electronic marketing experts and government and consumer representatives. I said that consumers are often the main victims of spam.

For example, I am sure that everyone has received an email, supposedly from their credit union or bank, saying that there were problems with their account but that the institution was working on it and the client's banking and contact information was needed in order to fix it. Chances are that anyone who takes the bait and is foolish enough to reply with personal details and their personal identification numbers will have their bank account emptied in no time. Very few people fall for it, but there are still some who do, unfortunately.

The task force, which was set up six years ago, gave more than 60 groups from the sectors concerned an opportunity to take part in the discussions and contribute their views on topics such as legislation and enforcement, international co-operation and raising public awareness.

The task force launched “Stop Spam Here”, an online awareness campaign to provide users with tips on how to limit the amount of spam they receive, and it presented its final report to the industry minister on May 17, 2005. A bill was introduced as a result. We are now studying Bill C-28. I would like to remind members that the Bloc Québécois agrees with this bill. It will undoubtedly go to committee, and we will have more opportunities to hear a number of witnesses talk about the importance of legislation in this area.

The task force's report, entitled “Stopping Spam: Creating a Stronger, Safer Internet”, recommended new, targeted legislation and more vigorous enforcement of current laws to reinforce the legal and regulatory arsenal available to Canada in the global fight against spam. The report also supported the creation of a focal point within government for coordinating the actions taken to address the spam issue and other related problems, such as spyware.

The task force proposed a number of interesting recommendations—this is where I left off last time when I was talking about background.

It recommended more vigorous legislation and enforcement and called for legislation to prohibit spam and protect personal information and privacy, as well as computers, emails and networks. The proposed legislation would allow individuals and companies to sue spammers—in other words, people who send spam—and hold businesses whose products and services are promoted using these means partially responsible for spamming activity. The report also recommended providing more resources to the organizations responsible for administering and enforcing anti-spam laws.

Another recommendation concerned a centre of expertise on spam. The task force recommended creating a centre to coordinate the government's anti-spam initiatives.

The third recommendation was for strong industry best practices. Email marketers would have to obtain informed consent from the email recipients, provide an opting-out mechanism for all further emails and create a complaints system.When it comes to new technology, it is somewhat natural to experiment with a free-for-all approach. When something first comes along, it is new and wonderful. Everything is on the table and anything goes. We want more and more of it. But sooner or later, we begin receiving emails that are not really just for us and when we no longer want to receive them, we realize that there is no way to stop receiving emails automatically sent by companies. Whether fraudulent or not, they can be annoying. The products they are selling are not always fraudulent. The intention of these emails, which become spam under the circumstances since we receive them so often, is not always to defraud the recipient. While email is a useful tool in the work place, spam can spoil a work day. We spend just as much time, if not more, trying to rid ourselves of spam as we do really working with the emails we need to send at work.

The task force also recommended launching a public education campaign. As I said earlier, a website has been set up for the public. The website, “Stop Spam Here”, was launched in December 2004 and offers practical tips for protecting personal information, computers and email addresses. It is important that people know how to get more information about this.

The task force also suggested, or rather, recommended, improved international co-operation and enforcement measures. International measures to stem spam are vital. We must harmonize anti-spam policies and improve co-operation in enforcing anti-spam laws among different countries. In preparing for my speech today, I learned that most of the spam reaching Canadians comes from outside the country. Huge amounts of spam are quite often sent from sites and locations all around the globe. We are the victims of these floods of spam. Of course it is difficult to identify the source of these emails. I am not a specialist in electronic communication, but I know that even though we can find the addresses that send the spam, people are clever enough to make it very hard to do so.

Both the Bloc Québécois industry, small business and tourism critic and member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord and I have criticized the fact that it took four or five years for legislation to be introduced. Private businesses especially are losing billions of dollars a year. Individuals are also wasting time.

Time is money. All this spam causes everyone to lose a lot of money. The government took a long time to act, but it is better late than never. The committee will see what it can do with this bill. At least there is something to start from. Industry Canada—particularly the minister and his predecessors—must be wondering why this bill took so long to be introduced, especially since elsewhere in the world, action was taken much more quickly.

We are now examining the Electronic Commerce Protect Act, which sets limits on the sending of spam. The only time spam may be sent is when the person to whom the message is sent has consented to receiving it, whether the consent is express or implied. In addition to being in a form that conforms to the prescribed requirements, the message will have to make it possible to identify and contact the sender. As I said earlier, it is not always easy to see where this type of message originated. With this legislation, it will be very clear. At least we hope it will. We must be able to identify and contact the person who sent us the message.

Lastly, the message must include an unsubscribe mechanism. This means that if someone receives an email, or spam in this case, and they no longer want to receive messages from that company, they will be able to click on a button to unsubscribe. The email address or hyperlink would allow us to no longer receive commercial electronic messages from the sender. That is mentioned in clauses 6 and 11 of Bill C-28.

The bill would also prohibit altering the transmission data in an electronic message so that it is delivered to destinations other than that specified by the initial sender. In addition, the bill would prohibit installing a computer program on another person's computer and sending an electronic message from that computer without the owner's consent. These are important measures if we want to limit fraud as much as possible.

Any violation, even indirect, of any of these provisions, would result in an administrative monetary penalty—a fine—if the computer being used is located in Canada. These fines could be as high as $1 million for individuals and $10 million in other cases.

This may seem high, but I would like to turn the House's attention to a recent article by Yves Boisvert, published in La Presse. The article was about a man from Montreal who was found guilty of spamming Facebook and was fined more than $1 billion. You heard correctly: I did not say $1 million, I said $1 billion. That sentence was handed down in California against a Montrealer whose name I will not mention because I do not want to encourage him. Apparently he is pleased and proud to have spammed Facebook. I will not indulge him by saying his name.

According to the article by Mr. Boisvert, the Montrealer was found guilty in 2008 in California. Why California? Because that is where Facebook has its head offices. The ruling was recently made binding by Quebec Superior Court in Montreal. This man managed to penetrate Facebook and send spam to millions with the goal of selling all sorts of things. To quote Mr. Boisvert, “You know, spam signed by someone you know, maybe even a friend, but really they are ads for Viagra?”

The guy in question had to face California law, which is very, very strict. We all know that he will not be able to pay the fine of over $1 billion, but it certainly sends a very clear message.

If Bill C-28 manages to be a deterrent and to impose fines of $10 million, especially with regard to companies, then that is progress.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I hope to get a chance to speak to this bill later because the bill is very important. In his speech, the minister reminded us that we are the only G8 country that does not have anti-spam legislation. He also laid out the cost. As the member also alluded to, the cost is very significant. On a worldwide basis the cost is something like $130 billion a year as a consequence of not having this legislation.

There are privacy issues as well. The minister did not spend very much time on the aspect of personal privacy information under PIPEDA, another area in which personal information is being collected by harvesting addresses.

When we consider that the bill was going along very well and there was all-party support in the House for Bill C-27 in the last session, if it is so important, why did the minister have to introduce it again and start the process all over rather than refer the bill straight to committee so that we could get this legislation passed?

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if I remember correctly, it was because the House was prorogued. To answer the hon. member, I would say it was the Conservatives who delayed implementation of this bill. I agree that the government's inaction on this issue has cost the public billions of dollars.

As for privacy, spam directly threatens the viability of the Internet as an effective means of communication. The Internet has become vital to our economy. Fortunately, some merchants can now do business in places other than large urban centres, even from their homes, thanks to the Internet. However, spam is causing huge problems, both financially and in terms of privacy. Thus, it is time to take action.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's comments and I do understand there was prorogation, but the fact remains that when we started this third session of the 40th Parliament, the minister had the opportunity to refer the bill directly to committee before second reading. A bill can be referred to committee right after it is tabled. The government's failure to do that showed Canadians that the government has no intention of getting its legislation through, whether it be this bill or whether it be all of its other recycled crime bills. The government says that it is tough on crime, but it just does not want to pass any bills.

[An hon. member]

The copyright bill.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

The copyright bill is another one, Mr. Speaker. How many times are we going to go through copyright?

Would the member reflect a bit not only on the inaction of the government on this bill, but also the inaction of the government in all of the major areas of legislation that Canadians need and want?

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, like the hon. member, I, too, am astonished. As soon as Parliament resumed, the Bloc Québécois was calling for consensus on the elimination of parole after one-sixth of the sentence has been served, because several crimes had been committed by white collar criminals. Unfortunately, this has been stonewalled by the government, even though it prides itself on being tough on crime.

The government goes ahead with its own priorities. We have heard what they are. The Conservatives are buying fighter planes with a $16 billion price tag. When it comes to justice, they put forward some priorities, but they are extremely controversial. However, in this specific case, one thing is very clear: all parties agree on the need to avoid all spam-related economic losses.

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member a question relating to how Canada can be the only G8 country without anti-spam legislation.

Some of the problems created by spam relate to crime. Spammers send out emails and seniors and other vulnerable people respond to them because they think the emails are valid. The member mentioned that this actually impacts our economy and our police services. It makes me wonder why we would not have had legislation in place sooner.

I would like to hear the hon. member's comments on that.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there is no excuse. I said it in my speech: a task force was set up in 2004. In 2005, that group presented its report. A website had even been created to create awareness about spam. Then the Conservative government came to power in 2006.

Why, in 2010, have none of the task force's recommendations, which we have known about for a long time, not been implemented with a bill? I do not know. As I said before, better late than never. My only response is that the Conservative government set other priorities. However, as my Liberal colleague said, $130 billion in losses affects everyone.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, once again I would like to congratulate my colleague on his excellent speech. I would like to ask him if he does not see something bizarre happening with the Conservatives right now. They always say that they want to protect peoples' privacy. That is their argument for having abolished the long form census, although we know that it is a false argument.

They are taking their time on this bill, in addition to the other time they will put into it, because it is far from guaranteed that they will support it to the end. Does it not seem possible that they are more likely want to protect commercial interests than privacy? That is what I would like to ask my colleague.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is quite possible that there are business lobbies that are not so happy about the prospect of new regulations. As I said earlier, when e-commerce began, it was a free-for-all. There were opportunities for everyone. People could get away with anything. This sort of bill will change things.

Perhaps the government wanted to give companies time to adjust, but other countries did not wait as long, because businesses as well as individuals who get this sort of spam suffered economic losses that were extremely serious and extremely significant.

In any case, the vast majority of spammers are not honest businesspeople. Most spam comes from fraud artists. Earlier, I mentioned the Montrealer who managed to hack into Facebook. He did not do it for fun; he made money doing it. He made money dishonestly. We have to act immediately, even though some people will get their wrists slapped and will have more trouble complying with the law. This is the way things will have to be, because we want to protect our industries and individuals.