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

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-28, the electronic commerce protection act. The purpose of the bill is to deal with the issue of spam. The act would prohibit the sending of commercial electronic messages, spam, without prior consent of the recipients.

Spam represents about 60% to 80% of Internet traffic worldwide. It is a serious problem for Canadians and Canadian businesses. In recognition of the seriousness, the Liberal government in 2004-05 established an anti-spam task force that came up with the following recommendations.

The Liberal recommendation called for the government to introduce legislation that would do the following: prohibit the sending of spam without the prior consent of recipients; prohibit the use of false or misleading statements that disguise the origins or the true intent of the email; prohibit the installation of unauthorized programs; and prohibit the unauthorized collection of personal information or email addresses.

I am pleased to see that the Conservative government, through Bill C-28, is enacting all of those recommendations.

Twenty years ago a computer was not essential in carrying out our daily duties. However, now it is important to everyone, be it businesses, individuals, corporations, non-profit groups, hospitals, students or seniors. Our parents and grandparents use it. It is a mode of operation. It facilitates and eases transactions. People like to do their banking and bill paying on the Internet.

However, the ease of using computers and sharing information creates another problem of its own: the unwanted advertising, misinformation and potential threats. We all know too well the consequences of spam because it brings with it viruses and worms. In 2003, Canadian consumers and businesses spent approximately $27 billion to develop a phishing program that would detect fraud and shield businesses from attacks. This is a critical issue and the problem has grown worse since 2003. I am sure we have all had first-hand experience with spam.

I was looking at my own email and noticed that someone had sent me an SOS notice. I wondered who the notice was from. It saw that it was from a constituent of mine. I could not imagine that a constituent's email had been compromised. There was a note asking for help as the constituent was stuck in some foreign land. I had to wonder how a person was able to access a personal email and then send me an SOS note.

The good thing is, if we know our constituents, we can verify who they are. However, for unsuspecting people, if somebody were to send an SOS notice and ask for funds, they might think they know the person and send it. They may not know that person's email has been compromised.

This is a huge problem for all of us. It is important that as a collective we address the issue. Sometimes we think we have secure accounts but we often get unsolicited and junk mail. As I mentioned, I am sure no one can attest to the fact that they have never received junk or spam mail. The junk mail on its own may not be risky if one knows what to do with it and assign it to a junk folder, but there are people who do not know what to do with it and respond to it.

A classic example is when we are told that our Internet has been compromised and that we need download a program. We download the program and our computer is frozen because of a virus. The people who sent the program now want payment for a service that was not needed in the first place. There are a lot of problems going on.

The worms and viruses that can enter a system are problematic for Canadian businesses, Canadians, banks and just about everyone. We just heard that people tend to receive emails that appear to be from their banking institution, financial institution or insurance company asking them to verify information. If people are naive enough to respond to the email, they are now giving information to the person who is trying to hack their system, which can cause people a lot of problems.

Therefore, to address this issue in 2005, the Liberals released a report entitled, ”Stopping Spam: Creating a Stronger, Safer Internet”. As was mentioned earlier, the task force made many recommendations. Among those were the prohibition of sending unsolicited email or the use of misleading statements, funny titles, products, et cetera These are important changes and I do not think anyone in the House would object to what Bill C-28 proposes.

I am sure that, like me, many members of the House have received numerous complaints from their constituents on the issue of spam. The issue has compounded because of things that are now delegated to outside of Canada. When people are contracting their telephone services or banking services outside of Canada there is no control over it.

The government's ability to control or combat spam is not just about introducing legislation but also about working with world governments and organizations to develop an international strategy for reducing this ongoing burden of spam.

Internet policing is difficult as the traffic is humongous. We know that 60% to 80% of the Internet traffic is spam. This sheer volume of messages challenges the capacity of Internet providing services or legitimate business to do their business. They have to put in all sorts of firewalls, et cetera.

If the government is serious about introducing legislation and the Industry Canada's committee will be reviewing this legislation, it is important that we move quickly to enforce the legislation. Industry Canada cannot do it on its own without having the necessary resources. I would like know what resources the government will give Industry Canada to ensure an effective corrective solution.

It is extremely important for people everywhere in Canada to have confidence that the legislation provided by the government will be effective and that the sanctions are there. I believe that any legislation brought forward must ensure that we have proper resources and effective coordination.

The more rapid a response to correct this problem would ensure that those who see an opportunity for Canada as a target will find another place. However, we do not want them to find another place because that other place is where we do our business as well, in banking, financial services and whatever we do. It is a global place and we do our business globally.

I hope we will work with the international community to ensure we have a reduction in spam. I hope all members will support the bill, that it will be sent to committee for further review and that it will provide fast relief for Canadians.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to split my time with my colleague, the member for Don Valley East.

I am pleased to stand in support of Bill C-28, which was put forward by the Minister of Industry.

This is an important issue. The bill looks to enact the electronic commerce protection act, which would prohibit the sending of commercial electronic messages, in other words, spam emails, without the prior consent of recipients.

We have spoken quite a lot in this House about spam and this particular legislation. I am not sure if anybody has spoken to the origin of the word “spam”, but according to what I have managed to find on the Internet, “Spam” traditionally has referred to a pork shoulder and ham product. That is not what we are referring to here. Today's spam is a nuisance which all of us, unfortunately, receive as emails.

Twenty years ago this was not an issue. Today our lives are guided by the use of the Internet and email messages. I do not think any of us could manage our day-to-day affairs without a computer. All members of the House probably use the Internet, but if not, certainly their staff does. It is next to impossible to communicate with our constituents effectively without the Internet.

Spam is a nuisance. It significantly affects individuals, governments and companies. We must look at this legislation very seriously.

Members have raised legitimate issues about this legislation and what needs to be changed in order to make this legislation more effective. However, the proper place to do that is at committee. All of us probably will support sending this bill to committee so that the committee can hear from the different stakeholders to ensure that the legislation is appropriate and timely and that it would in fact address this very serious issue of spam. Spam is not only a nuisance but it is also used by criminals to wreak havoc on people and companies. Recently, a Quebec judge upheld a United States award of $1 billion against a spammer who used Facebook to send over four million spam messages. It is important that the courts and government treat this issue seriously.

The bill would also prohibit the use of false or misleading statements that disguise the origin or true intent of the email, the installation of unauthorized programs, and unauthorized collection of personal information emails. The bill would also establish fines for these violations, to a maximum of $1 million for individuals and $10 million for businesses. The bill would establish rules for warrants for information during investigation, and injunctions on spam activity while under investigation.

Bill C-28 would establish the private right of action, allowing individuals and businesses the ability to seek damages from the perpetrators of spam.

This bill is long overdue and we are happy to support it.

We have been told that up to 80% of email traffic globally is spam, which means that only about 20% of email traffic is legitimate communication taking place between individuals and businesses. These numbers show that not only is spam a significant problem, but it is a growing menace to everyone who uses the Internet or email.

While this bill is a good start, we must also work with other countries to address this problem. The Internet is international and there must be an international solution to spam as well.

The leading source of spam this year has been the United States. Almost 19% of the spam sent around the world has originated in the United States. India is second with 8% and then Brazil with almost 6%. Canada must work with these nations and all countries to address spam-related issues.

It is also important to recognize that anyone can be a target for spammers, including young people. It has just been reported that in advance of the release of the new Harry Potter movie in mid-November, spammers have been busy at work targeting young people. The last Harry Potter movie was of so much interest to young people, spammers are promoting free tickets, but once young people enter their personal details, they become the tools of the spammer. Anti-virus companies are warning computer users to be very careful of such online offers.

I have received many emails from what appears to be my bank telling me that I should register my credit card online because of some issue. When I contacted the bank to tell it what was happening the bank was very alarmed.

Individuals are being fooled into giving out their credit card numbers in response to what they think is a legitimate email from their bank. Because the email contains the bank's corporate logo and detailed information, people think the email is official, but it is really somebody trying to get private information, hack into a bank account and take out money.

This criminal activity is taking place on a large scale globally. We are not looking at a small menace. We are looking at a serious threat to our economic well-being and a serious threat to the safety of people. This is an issue of great importance. I hope that members will see it for what it is, a very serious issue that needs to be addressed by Parliament.

Anyone is fair game as a target. Spammers manipulate people, and in the case I mentioned, young people who are anxiously awaiting the last instalment of the Harry Potter movies.

Another important aspect of the changing dynamics of spam is that the use of spam is becoming increasingly more automated. The result of greater automation is the ability to target more diverse computer users in greater numbers and in all corners of the world. The use of spam in such circumstances is growing.

An associated aspect of spamming is theft of information and related issues.

A major development that has been reported in the new Kroll Global Fraud Report is that for the first time, physical theft as a criminal act has been overtaken by cyber theft. Criminals are using with increasing effectiveness the vulnerability of the cyber world.

Even Microsoft recently confirmed that two of its network devices had been used illegally to forward spam to thousands of users. The fact that such a large and vigilant company can be victimized is further proof of the seriousness of the problem.

The cost to fight spam is in the billions of dollars every year. This is money that could go toward paying bills, growing companies and supporting other more productive causes.

The bottom line is simply that spam is way beyond an inconvenience. It is a vehicle for criminal activity. It is a means to manipulate and cause great harm to individual users. It has a serious impact on businesses financially and in terms of their reputation. Spam puts our young people at risk. With all of this in mind, it is essential that we take action here in Canada to address this issue.

I am pleased that the government has incorporated into this bill most of the work of the previous Liberal government in this area. Back in 2004-05, the Liberal government established an anti-spam task force which came forward with recommendations. Some of these recommendations are in the bill. The task force recommended prohibiting the sending of spam without the prior consent of recipients; prohibiting the use of false or misleading statements that disguise the origin and true intent of the email; prohibiting the installation of unauthorized programs; and prohibiting the unauthorized collection of personal information or email addresses.

We will support this bill now and hopefully make any needed changes at committee.

It is important for Canadians that we take action to challenge this growing problem. It is also important for people in all countries that we work together in order to hold those who commit these acts responsible for their actions no matter where they live or operate.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's comments about the cost of crime being taken out on the consumer. That is a valid point.

With respect to deterrence, the maximum penalty as proposed in Bill C-28 for an individual is $1 million, and the maximum penalty for a corporation or other organization is $10 million. They go by violation. If the regulations were to designate spamming as a violation of this kind, a business that has been spamming for 10 days could conceivably be required to pay up to $10 million.

Would the member comment on whether this is an appropriate amount for deterrence? How should we go about enforcing this as a stronger measure for the public?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I too rise to join members in my caucus and all parties in the House to support the idea of Bill C-28. It is important to protect consumers and those who are affected by what is really more than just a nuisance, and that is spam.

I should also note that it is probably the first time the word “spam” has been debated so fervently and thoroughly. Most people would compare this to affordable food, but this is in fact a widespread nuisance, a deterrent to the free access of information. Some people use technology not only to create a nuisance, but also to scam people. It is not just about stopping spam; it is also about stopping scams.

We have had enough time with the new technology known as the Internet to understand that there needs to be a balance between access to information, that is, people being able to decide what they want to put online, and protecting people from being abused by the information on the Internet.

It has been mentioned by my colleague from Sudbury that this bill looks familiar. It was around before with one digit less than the one in front of us, Bill C-27, which was in the last Parliament before it prorogued. It is unfortunate that we had to wait so long to get this legislation going, because it is affecting many consumers right across the country. We must also look at how we are measured by our partners: we are the only G7 country without legislation on this matter. Clearly, the time for it is now, and we in the NDP welcome it.

I want to acknowledge my colleague from Windsor West. He has done a lot of work on consumer protection and anti-spam legislation, both on the legislation in front of us and on previous legislation. I want to acknowledge his work and thank him.

The technical term for spam does not roll off the tongue quite as readily as the abuse of electronic messaging systems. This includes most broadcast media, through which digital delivery systems are used to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately. While the most widely recognized form of this is email spam, the term applies to other abuses like instant messaging. We have seen a lot of that lately by news groups that throw out spam.

Search engine spam is probably one of the most ubiquitous in that it is able to take the information from surfing the net, synthesize it, and throw the history of what one has been surfing back with advertisements and spam. There is software to block it, but that costs money. There is also spam in blogs and something called WikiSpam. There is spam for pretty much every aspect of our online culture these days.

We had this challenge before, and I see it from time to time with our faxes. There is a need to have proper regulation, not only to protect consumers but also to ensure that international scammers are curtailed and held to account. We must remember that this is not just a domestic problem.

Often these spam organizations and boiler rooms are looking for low-hanging fruit. They are looking for jurisdictions where there is not sufficient regulation. It goes without saying that Canada is wide open for this. It is analogous to how people use tax havens: we have not regulated enough to make sure our regulations are adequate for the 21st century.

It is a real problem and a costly one. The longer we have less spam regulation, the more it will cost businesses, individuals, and institutions to deal with it.

Spam results in large cost overheads for major corporations and small businesses. Consider the bandwidth problem and the net throttling that has gone on these last few years. There is less capacity for businesses, homes, and institutions to receive information, because of the spam being carried through the bandwidth. That means there are traffic jams on the Internet, because there is all this extra traffic in spam, which need not be there.

There is the cost of contacting each additional recipient. Once the spam has been constructed and multiplied, it proliferates. Trying to get to the source of it is a cost for people. Instead of chasing down who is spamming them, they could be doing something else.

Generally, there is also a social cost when we consider some of the spam that is put out. Some of it is offensive to families.

My colleague from Sudbury talked about having homes wired up with access to a computer. Some of the spam is offensive, either because of the nature of the spam, the pornographic content, or because certain messages convey values contrary to ours.

This is not just commercial. It is not just about selling us things we do not want. It is also about offensive material that costs us not just financially but socially as well.

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Ottawa Centre.

I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-28, Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act. The bill is an updated version of Bill C-27, which incorporates items that were added as government amendments during its original passage through the House in 2005.

It is fair to say that ordinary individuals are being overly inundated with unwanted spam in their email inboxes on a daily basis. Spam currently accounts for more than 80% of global email traffic and around 90% of Canadian email traffic. In addition to the nuisance that spam poses, as well as the decreased productivity and efficiency which spam entails, spam can also pose a significant risk to individuals who unwittingly open maliciously infected emails. Thus the issue of spam is not solely connected to economic and individual efficiency on productivity, but also to the increased rate of identity theft and other forms of illegal activity, which has grown alongside the rapid increase in the online shopping industry during the beginning of the 21st century.

What is spam? Spam is identified as the abuse of electronic messaging systems, including most broadcast media digital delivery systems, to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately. While the most widely recognized form of spam is email, the term applies to similar abuses in other media: instant messaging, Usenet newsgroups, web search engines, spam, spam in blogs, WikiSpam, online classified ad spam, mobile phone messaging spam, Internet forum spam, junk fax transmissions and file sharing networks. This is not a Monty Python skit, it is actually a very serious issue.

Spam seems to infiltrate every aspect of our lives these days and it is extremely important for the Canadian government and Parliament to take this on.

Let us look at the legislative summary for this. It says that this is an act that is an accumulation of a process that began with anti-spam action planned for Canada launched by the government in 2004, which established a private sector task force, chaired by Industry Canada, to examine the issue of unsolicited commercial email or spam. By the end of 2004, spam, which is in many ways the electronic equivalent to junk mail, has grown to encompass 80% of all global email traffic.

That was 2004 and here we are in 2010 and we are once again debating legislation. The initial legislation was lost when the House was prorogued. We have again lost time dealing with an issue that is extremely important to businesses, consumers and ordinary citizens in our country. This is complex legislation. It has many pages and it impacts on a number of different agencies.

However, let us look at some of the costs.

In both commercial and non-commercial cases, spam happens because of a positive cost benefit analysis result if the cost to recipients is excluded as an externality a spammer can avoid paying. The cost is the combination of overhead. The cost of the overhead of electronic spamming include bandwidth developing or acquiring an email, wiki or a blog spam tool and taking over or acquiring a host or a zombie. The transaction cost is the incremental cost of contacting each additional recipient once a method of spamming is constructed multiplied by the number of recipients, the risks, the chance and severity of legal and/or public reactions, including damages and punitive damages. Then there is the impact on the community and/or the communications channel being spammed.

The benefit is the total expected profit from spam, which may include any combination of the commercial or non-commercial reasons listed above. If we talk about how quickly this can become a global epidemic, so to speak, we could have millions of emails go out asking for credit card information and just a small percentage of that is returned as a huge benefit, negatively of course, but it is still a benefit.

We are starting to see spam now used in crime. It can be used to spread computer viruses, Trojan horses, or other malicious software. The objective may be identity theft or advanced fee fraud. Some spam attempts to capitalize on human greed, while others attempt to use victims inexperienced with computer technology to trick them, such as phishing.

In May 2007 one of the world's most prolific spammers, Robert Alan Soloway, was arrested by U.S. authorities. Described as one of the top 10 spammers in the world, Soloway was charged with 35 criminal counts, including mail fraud, wire fraud, email fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering. Prosecutors alleged that he used millions of zombie computers to distribute spam during 2003. This was the first case at that time in which U.S. prosecutors used identity theft laws to prosecute a spammer for taking over someone else's Internet domain.

We have been labelled, unfortunately, as a lawless spam haven. Canada is the only G8 country without anti-spam legislation. It is only a matter of time before spammers will begin to take advantage of this. Canada ranked fifth worldwide as a source of web-based email spam, trailing only Iran, Nigeria, Kenya and Israel. This information is from a research study done by Cloudmark, a leading provider of anti-spam software.

A recent Facebook case has placed the spotlight on Canada's ongoing failure to address its spam problem by introducing long overdue anti-spam legislation. The Facebook case is only the latest illustration of the impact of government inaction.

Companies anxious to target Canadian-based spammers have been forced to turn to other countries to do the job, while international law enforcement investigations into criminal spam activities run the risk of stalling as Canada's authorities may lack the requisite investigatory powers.

The fact that organizations are forced to use U.S. courts and laws to deal with Canadian spammers points to an inconvenient truth; that Canadian anti-spam laws are woefully inadequate and that we are rapidly emerging as a haven for spammers eager to exploit the weak legal framework.

My colleague earlier talked about the OPP PhoneBusters and the great work it was doing to protect seniors and any person being dealt with fraudulently. Part of this group is based out of North Bay, Ontario. Many times PhoneBusters has put out announcements in my great riding of Sudbury, advising seniors to watch for an email campaign coming from some country that is asking for their credit card information. We are going in the right direction if we are able to start protecting our seniors and those who are infrequent users of electronic media.

Canada initially recognized the need to address spam with the formation of a task force in 2004, which included a broad cross-section of marketers, telecom companies and public policy groups. The task force unanimously recommended that the government introduce anti-spam legislation.

There are some very important aspects in this bill.

Under commercial activity, the bill contains a new exemption where it explicitly does not include any transaction, act or conduct carried out for the purpose of law enforcement, public safety, the protection of Canada in the conduct of international affairs or the defence of Canada.

The electronic address covers email, instant messaging, text messaging and messages sent on Facebook and Twitter. These things did not exist five years ago, and we have seen technology evolve rapidly. We will ensure that we can capture all aspects of spam by using that language.

The electronic message includes a message sent over any means of telecommunication, including text, sound, voice or image and therefore implicates voicemail messages. The commercial electronic message is based on the type of content contained in it, including contained links. Thus, for commercial purposes in any way, it qualifies under this definition.

Telecommunications service extends to any service or feature of a service provided by means of telecom facilities. Transmission data is any data relating to the telecommunications function of dialing, routing, addressing or signalling, including by phone, Internet and wireless involved in all functions of transmitting data electronically outside the actual substance of the message.

This is a very complex issue. We talk about many avenues and ways in which those with not so positive ideas can get their way out.

It is clear that introducing anti-spam legislation is intricate for both Canadians and Canada more broadly. I am glad to support the bill.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as the member knows, I am concerned that we have waited so long. As a matter of fact, Bill C-28 was introduced in the House on May 25 and we had the first round of debate on September 27. Here we are now, about a month later, and we are continuing on with that debate at second reading. It is an indication of how the process is being dragged out by the government on important legislation such as this. However, the member laid out some interesting points.

I was looking at the bill in a little more detail and at the regulatory requirements. When we pass legislation at all stages it goes through the whole process, but there is one thing we have not seen with regard to the bill and that is regulations. The regulations are important and can have a significant bearing on either the interpretation of the application of the legislation or in terms of the impacts that we should assess as legislators. I wonder if the member would agree that maybe the government should consider presenting draft regulations to the committee before the committee completes its work.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Your colleagues are picking on you, Mr. Speaker, but I will stick up for you and say that would be a fine shot, indeed, to send around the world.

Even in 2004 or 2005, we never thought we could take a picture and send it instantaneously. People can ask, “Where are you now”, and I can respond that I am in Newfoundland. They can ask me what it looks like and I can say, “It looks like this”, and send it. It is incredible.

However, that open opportunity for communications, which leads to an open opportunity for business for people seeking gainful employment, also opens us up to a realm of criminality. We can only assume that the criminal element out there is just as imaginative as the people who make a lot of money doing it the right way.

That brings me to Bill C-28. When it comes to prohibiting the sending of spam without the prior consent of recipients, that is the key. There is an element of consent with this and that way the element of criminality gets taken out of it because people will not be able to do it, but then we get into the issue of enforcement, which I will get to later.

Bill C-28 introduces legislation to enact all recommendations, and the recommendations prohibit the sending of spam without the prior consent of recipients, the use of false or misleading statements that disguise the origins or true intent of the email, which is very true as I mentioned earlier, and the installation of unauthorized programs, which I will talk about. That is the concept of spyware or malware that was talked about, these sorts of things. They are like little bugs that crawl through either the air or wire, gain access and do funny things to computers while people sleep or are doing something else.

The unauthorized collection of personal information or email addresses is the same type of principle. It infiltrates people's computers and all the material stored on hard drives or whatever devices they have to store memory. Not only can that information be taken but it can be manipulated and sent elsewhere and an all-out assault done on other computers around the world. It is quite fascinating how people have manipulated the system of instant communication over the past four or five years.

Bill C-28 introduces legislation to enact all the recommendations that I stated. Many flaws were exposed in the last bill and there was quite a bit of feedback from people who said that things needed to be fixed, some of it major and some minor, that sort of thing. A lot of it was minor. When prorogation happened, elements of what happened in the industry committee at that point, as well as sending the bill back to the House, because of course when prorogation happens, the bill dies and the bill is brought back to the House.... Some of the changes were incorporated into the bill at that time.

God forbid that I praise prorogation for the sake of making one bill better than the other or a new and improved bill. Nonetheless, there were a few changes made to it that have satisfied many people in this debate, which is a good thing.

The other point is that, as we monitor the legislation going through, we will realize then whether these changes were appropriate or not as we get to the regulations when, because of this legislation, it triggers Governor in Council or cabinet to make the regulations involved.

I mentioned earlier the 2004-2005 task force set up by the government of the day, which decided to have a good look at this particular situation. It hired 10 people involved in this and it received thousands and thousands of items of input from stakeholders around the world, not just in Canada. The recommendations came forward that involved themes of consent and involved themes of doing specific tasks in order to specifically go after people who were up to no good.

One of the issues we came in contact with in the four years since is that we have to realize that the technology has changed. Therefore the flexibility we need in this bill has been addressed to a certain degree, but I am sure the committee will have a closer look at that as well.

Just so that you know, Mr. Speaker, and I am sure you are aware of it, 60% to 80% of all email traffic around the world is spam. Of course, I am not talking about everyone's favourite lunch meat. I am talking about spam of a type that one does not want to get each and every day. They are selling everything. Some of the stuff I dare not repeat in the House, for fear of the wrath of you, Mr. Speaker, and others. But members can well imagine what I am talking about, soliciting money, soliciting a product that does not measure up, as it were.

The sheer volume of messages poses a challenge not just to the individual owner of a particular computer or a bank of computers, for that matter, but to Internet service providers or ISPs, as we like to call them, legitimate businesses that conduct their activities over the Internet and email and, most importantly, consumers.

Let me just stay with that first point, businesses. There are so many businesses now that rely upon the Internet and the two-way communication between some consumer and themselves that the presence of all this spam material basically erodes the revenue stream for them, and that is a huge issue. If we do not address that, then many small and medium-size businesses, or SMEs, will suffer and continue to suffer.

I personally know some businesses that are spending thousands of dollars each month for software to get rid of the spam. These are people who cannot afford this cost but most of their business models, vis-à-vis direct marketing, go through the Internet because we have become global in scale.

Look at the tourism ads from Newfoundland and Labrador, where I come from. We get an incredible amount of response from across this country about those new ads that we see about Newfoundland and Labrador, but for a lot of these smaller businesses some of it is spam and some of it is legitimate.

As the House knows, I come from an area that relies a lot on the seal harvest every year. Many tourism operators get a lot of junk mail, spam, things to take them down, from animal rights groups not just in North America but around the world. They are using these techniques to go after these small businesses.

This is the type of activity we are into where we need to cut down on this. If it is a legitimate form of protest, such an email from one individual to a business saying that he or she does not like a product or that he or she does not like the way the business thinks about a certain issue and therefore will not frequent the business, I understand. However, people use these methods,which are put out by spam in certain cases, and they try to block their own computer data banks. We are talking about a small or medium-sized enterprise.

One can well imagine that these protest groups with larger amounts of money can actually gum up the system, as it were, very easily. Hopefully, some of this legislation will cut down on that. At least I feel it will.

Spam is also a large component of computer viruses. The seal harvest issue is a good example because there were a couple of examples of that happening. One of the ways of doing this is by using phishing programs, not “fishing” as in f-i-s-h-i-n-g, but p-h-i-s-h-i-n-g, which is designed for identity theft.

Identity theft is a huge issue with underworld crime. One of the ways identity theft occurs is through the use of spyware, for example, which can grab information from our computer and, from our computer, it goes out to other computers and gets that same sort of information and racks up our credit cards or whatever they may be. Therein lies a situation that we need to deal with on a global scale.

That brings me to one of my final points, which is the international scope of this.

Even though we are here debating, we vote to send this to a committee, I assume it comes back with some minor changes and it becomes law rather quickly. Once that is done, it is incumbent upon us, not just members of the cabinet and not just the Prime Minister but all of us as parliamentarians, to engage in all international fora that are out there, whether it be through the European Union, the Council of Europe, or through Southeast Asia. We need to engage all mechanisms, including the United Nations, because it will take a massive global effort to cut down on the amount of junk mail spam and the illegal activity associated with it.

By doing that, it will be an incredible step forward. If we are the final G8 nation to sign up for this, then the G8 should be the leading role for the rest of the nations, whether it is Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia, China and all the other nations where the proliferation of electronic media is so great. Again, that is what was not covered in 2004 and 2005. Who thought of facebook back then? Not very many people. However, now we have facebook, which is an incredible communicator for photos, family issues and a big one for business as well. It is a huge issue.

When it comes to enforcement, this is only a small part of this battle. The enforcement of these laws, followed by the regulations, will take a concerted effort, not just by the CRTC, which is handling this primarily, and not just the Competition Bureau, but other aspects of society, including all law officers, that this is a serious issue because we need to elevate the awareness of it. What people are doing through things such as spam is so illegal that a lot of people look at these things and do not pay much attention to them. However, some of them are very dangerous to us, to our finances and to small business owners. The enforcement part of this bill, Bill C-28, will take a massive effort.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I was going to start off with some of the technical matters at the very beginning, including the title of the bill and some of the functions in clause-by-clause material, but I do want to pick up on one thing that was brought up by my colleague from Sudbury.

He talked about seniors, and this is a perfect illustration of why we work in this House to legislate practices like this, because many seniors now are using devices such as Facebook and text messaging. Pictures can be transferred through our phones now and that sort of thing. A lot of seniors get these emails and a lot of them become victims as a result in many cases. One of the reasons is that it is hard for public relations campaigns, such as Crime Stoppers and others, to keep the pace going with the methods with which they are communicating and getting their bad products out there. It started out with just emails. Now we have things such as text messaging and Facebook.

My hon. colleague brings up a good point. We are looking at victims now, and because the seniors' ranks are becoming much larger because of what we call the baby-boom effect, we do have to keep pace with legislation much more quickly than we have been thus far. I would have to say that we have been a little too delayed in this particular bill, but nonetheless we have it here and it is nice to see that all parties are in support and that we are going to do this exercise once again. I say “once again”, because we started out with Bill C-27, which was left over from the last session. Now we find ourselves with Bill C-28, and some modifications have taken place since then, which I will touch upon in just a few moments, but this indeed does look to enact an electronic commerce protection act, prohibiting the sending of electronic commercial messages, or spam email, without the prior consent of recipients.

One of the key elements of this is going to be the idea of consent and just how we have to formalize this. Not only that, but we have had to expand the idea of what consent means, whether it is implied or not. As we know, if we are dealing with websites, many of them prompt us for contact information and there is always that disclaimer or a box that we have to click on, giving consent to receive unsolicited email. That has to be brought into context.

We have to talk about the international context, which my hon. colleague from Mississauga South mentioned earlier. That is to say that in the context of the G8 we are the last ones to get on board, so it is time we saddled up to this particular issue and did it the right way. I would implore all members to send this to committee as soon as possible, similar to the last go-round with Bill C-27. Some modifications were made in Bill C-27 that help with the language and allow it to be a little more flexible.

This is not on the floor yet, but when we talk about the copyright bill, Bill C-32, which is on the order paper and hopefully will come up for debate pretty soon, we are looking at ways in which the context of digital technology is changing the way we act as legislators. Flexibility is required. Mr. Speaker, I am sure you will agree with me that in the context of flexibility, the legislation has to be devised and written so that it can be enforced in a way that gives people protection and preserves their rights but at the same time goes after the people out to do nefarious things, in other words, circumvent laws, whether it be about copyright and digital locks in Bill C-32 or, in this particular case, getting around the consent for people to receive this information. Sometimes these people are very deceptive. They pretend to be what they are not. They shroud themselves in a realm of legitimacy.

Whether they call themselves a bank or a financial institution, they parade themselves as such and become a part of a person's life or know they can get involved in a person's life by pretending to be something that has a great reputation. With the imagination of using emails, Facebook and messaging, they have ways of doing this. It seems there are advances every day in the criminality of this type of activity. So we have to look at that.

The other issue we have to look at, of course, is digital technology itself and how it proliferates in a short period of time. When we first tackled the issue in the House, we looked at it through a panel. We set up a panel to decide how we were going to deal with all the spam email. Billions of dollars every year are spent on trying to cut down on spam email. It now constitutes the majority of traffic around the world when it comes to e-commerce and emailing in general, for that matter.

We can well imagine that back then, as it was becoming a problem, we set up a panel. That was in 2004 and 2005 when we were primarily looking at emails. There was just that one form of communication that we were focused on. Since then, we have text messages and Facebook, which was not looked at in 2004-05 as it is a relatively new concept, and other modes of communication such as texting.

Right now, Mr. Speaker, I can take a picture of you and send it around the world. How about that?

[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.

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, 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.

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-28 introduces measures that people and businesses have been waiting for for a long time. The government also put this measure forward as Bill C-27. Now we are dealing with Bill C-28.

I asked this question earlier, but I would like to hear the member's opinion, which may differ from that of the NDP member. Why does he think it took so long to get to Bill C-28?

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his presentation and speech.

The public has been waiting for Bill C-28 for a long time. In his speech this afternoon, one of his colleagues spoke about how important it is for the government to make the means available to implement Bill C-28.

What consequences does the member think there would be for implementing Bill C-28 if the government provided only limited resources?

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, like other members on this side of the House, I am pleased the government has finally brought forward legislation that we hope will be implemented before there is either a prorogation or the House rises yet again. This is only second reading and the bill is going to go to committee. I am pleased there are elements in the bill that the Liberal Party is absolutely delighted to support.

As other members have indicated from all three opposition parties already, the bill contains a series of recommendations that flow from a task force that was initiated by the then Liberal government in 2004-05. Five and a half years ago the government of the day said that it recognized there was a series of difficulties, problems, impediments to development of a true Internet economy and Internet communication system. It said that we needed to bring all the stakeholders, all the experts, all the legal experts as well, given all the ramifications of any of the changes that might be proposed, together to the table and see what they had to say to the government of the day. We wanted to present legislation that would not only have us catch up to other countries, not only catch up to all those people who have made the Internet their means of communication, whether it is communications for personal use or for commercial use, but go beyond that and make us a leader in the new economy of the day.

Government and opposition members have pointed out that this is not an insignificant element of economic activity worldwide. In Canada we like to throw these numbers around in the trillions because they are the significant digits today, but the Canadian economy has been estimated by experts to be dependent to the tune of about $27 billion per annum in Canada.

For those who are watching and who are not expert in the Internet society, the Internet commercial world, what that really means is about $850 per person per year. That is not bad. That is every person who is alive and well in Canada. They realize there is an impact of some $27 billion in costs. That is not just an economic activity. That is in the amount it is costing every Canadian, every man, woman and child, simply because somebody is scamming the system, introducing a culture of deceit and a culture that in a different marketplace might well border on the criminal. In other words, it is fraudulent and it invades privacy. It invades commerce. It invades the free flow of communication that leads to productive activity. That was the significance of what that task force underscored. The task force noted that the penalties translated themselves into costs, immediate, perceived, or forgone. It said we needed to put in place a framework that legislators and other organizations could ensure would function for the better of the Canadian public.

It is little wonder then to find that the official opposition would support these initiatives, at least until they go to committee and we bring forward all those experts and they are numerous. They are legion. They are younger and younger. As one of my colleagues from the NDP indicated, there is a particular generational divide. Those who are expert are expert at a very young age. They develop that expertise as the communication system, the knowledge base is growing not in leaps and bounds, but exponentially with every new innovation as we get greater and greater opportunity to relate to each other not only on a social basis, but on a commercial basis as well.

It was not long ago that the only thing societies aspired to do was to develop the art of speaking, the art of writing and the art of arithmetic. It was the three Rs all over again. All we wanted to do was facilitate the communications required in order to make societies much more productive.

Today we are no longer talking about those simple items. We are talking about an entirely different economy that is making everything grow, as I said, exponentially. We owe it to ourselves. The parliamentary secretary can no longer say that we will go from laggards to leaders. We are laggards.

Forgive this partisan shot but it is in part because for five and a half years the government refused to do anything that came out the task force. It refused to do anything because it was something that came out of another government. The Conservatives have squandered the opportunities presented to them by the Canadian bureaucracy, previous legislators in the Liberal Party, contributors from the NDP and the Bloc Québécois, who have wanted to move our society along.

The Conservatives have refused to accept those suggestions, in part because they are afraid of a coalition of knowledgeable people. They are afraid of people who actually work together and who want to move the country forward. They are afraid of anybody who voices a vision. A vision was expressed five and a half years ago. It is almost pitiable that here we are today discussing something that should have been implemented very early on in the government's mandate.

The Conservatives have the support of all the members of Parliament on this side of the House. Everyone said, “Let's get working”. Even though Bill C-27, its predecessor, was fraught with some difficulties, everybody wanted to move forward. Instead they prorogued Parliament.

Today we are not proroguing. We are taking a look at Bill C-28. It is a complex system. I do not pretend to be the expert and I am not going to even suggest that anybody should come close to thinking of me or any other member in this place as anything other than someone who is presenting issues for the discussion of a committee that is going to bring in stakeholders and experts to ensure that we get the best possible legislation.

I do not know how thoroughly you have looked at this, Mr. Speaker. You have a reputation for studying every bill. I know you will have noted that there are some implications for other legislative items here. I want to draw them to the attention of the House for no other reason than that the general public wants to understand that we as legislators in the House have an appreciation of the comprehensiveness of the task that is at hand.

For example, when the parliamentary secretary says that we can use the mechanisms already available that are vested in the CRTC, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, we have to go to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act in order to make the appropriate changes so it can be vested with the authorities to provide appropriate vigilance and to do the appropriate prosecutorial work required to get enforcement.

I know the committee will be the master of its own agenda, but it will bring forward people who will illustrate for it how the prosecution of infringements will be handled and how the CRTC can do that more quickly and to greater satisfaction than, say, the RCMP or any other police forces.

I note the parliamentary secretary said that we did not need to go to the police, that we did not need to go the criminal route. We have these specialized agencies. Another one of these specialized agencies is the Privacy Commissioner's office. The Privacy Commissioner has the task of ensuring that privacy is very properly vested in all Canadians, not only their personal privacy but their commercial privacy, everything about them that they want to maintain as part of their identity.

When we think about identity, we talk about our names. I am the member of Parliament for Eglinton—Lawrence. I am a whole series of other things associated with that identity but that identity belongs to me unless I relinquish any portion of it for purposes that I agree are appropriate. We have spammers and scammers today, and sometimes they are one and the same thing, who will take advantage of that identity and use it for their own purpose that has nothing to do with the legitimacy of the identity of the current member of Parliament for Eglinton—Lawrence or, indeed, even the Speaker, I dare say. We are all at the mercy of those who are utilizing the communication systems that are made available. They are abusing it and they are using it for their own purposes. What we need to do is vest authority in the CRTC and the privacy commission that is appropriate to the task at hand. I note that Bill C-28 attempts to do that and I am looking forward to the committee's analysis of whether they will have the tools appropriate to the task.

We need to take a look at the Competition Act. As in every business, we need to at least provide a playing field that treats every competitor equitably and equally.

I noted today that there was a list of cities around the world that were ranked according to their ability to provide a secure investment climate and business climate. I am pleased to say, in case it missed anybody from this House, that my own native city, my home city of Toronto, the city by Lake Ontario, was ranked number one, not in Canada but in the world. It means that some things that governments prior to this one put in place actually did work.

Sometimes we tend to forget that people who preceded us actually had a contribution to make to national development. For at least as far as Toronto goes, despite all of its faults, it is still ranked number one in the world. Can we imagine, if we can say that, despite all of its faults, it is ranked number one that it has faults and the bill had better accept those? Can we imagine what the other cities around the world are like? I note that there are only two other cities in Canada that ranked in the top 20. I leave it for members from the other caucuses to highlight and trumpet their cities. However, the important thing is that a Canadian city is ranked number one, and that happens to be mine, but it is because there was legislation in the past that provided for a competitive environment that bred good commercial practices and, in fact, attracted business investment.

We need to go to the Competition Act and ensure that Bill C-28 establishes a continuation of just that type of a climate. We must remember that we are moving in a world that is Internet based, that is much more speedy, much more attuned to changes, literally like that. We can no longer rest on our laurels. We need to be able to say that the commercial climate, the investor climate, the privacy climate and the social climate that we attempt to provide an ambience for here in the House meets the test.

We have the Telecommunications Act. It is no longer simply about telephones and faxes. Some colleagues from both sides of the House have talked about a do not call list as the protection of privacy, stopping harassment and eliminating all the irritants. Whether that worked or did not work, we made an effort to do it when I was in government. Again, not to be partisan, but the current government has attempted to do something with a little less success than had been anticipated.

We cannot simply stand here and say that it will achieve this. How will it do that? That is an expression of an objective, a goal. It is not necessarily an indication of how that goal will be achieved. This needs to go to committee so that we can get the experts to tell us just what path we will take to ensure that we can achieve those goals. When it comes into force, we need to be able to say that there will be resources in place to ensure that all of the mechanisms that we do put in place are actually supportive of that overall, long-term goal and objective.

Otherwise, this is nothing more than an exercise in trying to keep us occupied because the government has finally come to its senses and said, “We have been here for five and a half years. There was a task force that laid out a road map for us and we did not do anything about it”.

In fact, the parliamentary secretary said a moment ago that there should be a sense of urgency because we are the laggards of the western world and because the OECD countries rank us last. However, we are not moving at all. That cannot be the fault of anybody else other than those members who are currently at the helm. It is not the Liberal Party. It is not the NDP, although it is responsible for having those people on that side of the House. It cannot be the Bloc. It must be the Conservatives who have squandered an opportunity to do something with the levers of power that have been granted to them as the result of an electoral outcome.

The parliamentary secretary said that we need to have sharp teeth for those agencies and commissions that will actually do the work of ferreting out all of those spammers, scammers and all of those who pry into our lives and distort our businesses. If those resources are not put in place, then we will not get those sharp teeth.

What are the consequences? Yes, $1 million per person is great and $10 million for business sounds impressive, but I want to know whether the mechanisms are in place to get them before a court of law, act expeditiously and actually be able to fine them, seize their assets and ensure that the stated penalty is reflected in reality. I have asked the parliamentary secretary for an indication of how this will work. The public does not want to know what anymore. They understand the why but they want to know the how and the how always includes the resources that will be put in place.

If one can acknowledge that there is a $27 billion cost on an annual basis, about $850 out of everybody's pocket every year, surely one ought to be able to put in some resources to ensure that does not happen. I am not sure the government has done that.

It might be instructive for everybody to understand what it was that the Liberal Party offered as an alternative. Everybody is always looking for an alternative to the government. The government says that there is no alternative to it because it is good. However, it has been lazy for five and a half years and it has squandered opportunity. It has wasted a chance to make Canada a leader. Now the Conservative government stands in the House and says that it is a laggard and that it will try to make us a leader. Trying is nice, it is an expression of a desire, but it is not a road map.

I want to explain what the road map was five and a half years ago that this bill purports to follow. It said that we would prohibit the sending of spam without the prior consent of recipients. Who the heck wants spam? There was a proactive measure on the part of those who hook up to the Internet and who were willing to accept virtually anything that came in because they were knowledgeable, did not care if the anti-virus system was in place, did not care if somebody wanted to fish into their system, and so on.

Clearly, there is no protection against those who want to break the law, but if there is no law, there is no breaking the law, no breaking of convention. We need to be able to put it in place.

Since we do not accept the use of false and misleading statements in regular advertising, why would accept it on the Internet? As I said earlier, the installation of unauthorized programs needs to be absolutely prohibited, as, for example, the unauthorized collection of personal information or email addresses. Unless someone gives the okay, why should we allow that to happen?

In fact, over the course of the last several years we did put in the no call list, although it has not worked all that well, but we did put in something that worked a bit more effectively and that was removing names from facsimile lists. Paper was constantly being burned up at home or at work with people sending information that was not wanted or needed.

Bill C-28 finally introduces some key elements that tap into that task force. I want to compliment the people who did the work on that task force. I want to compliment the former Liberal government for actually providing a mechanism. I want to encourage the current government for having done a Rip Van Winkle and finally awakened after five and a half years. I hope the committee will do the work for the government and that the House will be able to give its stamp of approval.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, is all the dedication and energy that we are going to put into discussing Bill C-28 going to go the same way as Bill C-27? Is the government going to prorogue before we actually realize some of the claims that he thinks the bill is going to put forward?