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.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

I have a question for Mr. Barratt. We're all clear that violations under Bill C-28 are not criminal offences. Have you had any problems with private hackers going into the system and spamming or using people's programs and so on to spam? Have you had any violations in that way, where you had to go...? I notice under the act that you can go to court and get an injunction to force a person. Have such things occurred?

[James S. Cowan]

I would say, first of all, that it is a question of deterrence, as Rob said earlier. That's what we're trying to do. It's not so much collecting the fines, or putting people in jail, as it is deterring people from what I think we all agree is unacceptable behaviour.

I think we did look more at Canadian comparables in what was happening here. We could certainly provide you with the comparables, but take, for instance—I think I mentioned this in my opening part—in 2010, we passed Bill C-28, which was the anti-spam legislation. It imposed penalties of $1 million for an individual or $10 million for a corporation, and here the maximum is $1 million. We felt that it has to be large enough so it's significant, but yet comparable.

For the imprisonment, there is a whole range of sections in the Criminal Code that provide for sentences up to five years. I'll just give you a smattering of them. Section 338 is defacing a brand or a mark on cattle, section 394 is unlawfully buying or selling valuable minerals, and section 397 is falsifying a book or document. There are eight or nine of them there. Then there are a number that are higher. For instance, you can get 14 years if you counterfeit or mutilate a postage stamp, 10 years for insider trading, 10 years for the fraudulent manipulation of stock exchange transactions, and 10 years for stealing or forging a credit card.

We looked at it and said, this is serious. We think it's very serious, so we wanted to make the maximum terms of imprisonment and the maximum fines significant, but we did have regard to what is already in those kinds of communications

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Your time is pretty much up; there are about 10 seconds left. But I would like to clarify, perhaps, Mr. Jenkin's response.

The PIPEDA act is up for review. It was due to be reviewed about two years ago. It was reviewed once about seven years ago, and the government's response to that review was Bill C-28, which died on the order paper, and Bill C-12, which died on the order paper. So if there was a government response, none of those elements was ever implemented; the act was never amended or changed.

I don't want Mr. Ravignat to think that a review led to amendments to the act. It did not.

Or did you mean something else?

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

I have the honour to inform the House that when the House went up to the Senate chamber His Excellency the Governor General was pleased to give, in Her Majesty's name, the royal assent to the following bills:

Bill S-3, An Act to implement conventions and protocols concluded between Canada and Colombia, Greece and Turkey for the avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of fiscal evasion with respect to taxes on income--Chapter No. 15

Bill S-210, An Act to amend the Federal Sustainable Development Act and the Auditor General Act (involvement of Parliament)--Chapter No. 16

Bill S-2, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and other Acts--Chapter 17

Bill C-3, An Act to promote gender equity in Indian registration by responding to the Court of Appeal for British Columbia decision in McIvor v. Canada (Registrar of Indian and Northern Affairs)--Chapter 18

Bill S-215, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (suicide bombings)--Chapter 19

Bill C-464, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (justification for detention in custody)--Chapter 20

Bill C-36, An Act respecting the safety of consumer products--Chapter 21

Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Old Age Security Act--Chapter 22

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--Chapter 23

Bill C-58, An Act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the federal public administration for the financial year ending March 31, 2011--Chapter 24

Bill C-47, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 4, 2010 and other measures--Chapter 25

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, Canadian Council on Learning; the hon. member for Vancouver Kingsway, Public Safety.

[Jennifer Stoddart, Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada]

Yes, thank you. I understand you've had a very busy day, so I will try to be very economical with your time.

As you said, Mr. Chair and honourable members, we're here to discuss the supplementary estimates relating to our oversight role in relation to Bill C-28, known as the anti-spam legislation. I'll just remind you that the overarching purpose of Bill C-28 is to combat spam in order to provide for a safer Internet. Spam is a serious problem that has had a significant impact on the economy. I should point out that Canada is currently the only G-8 country without such legislation.

Three federal agencies will share the oversight: the CRTC, the Competition Bureau, and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. I thought I might take a few minutes to describe our role regarding the legislation.

Our role will be to investigate the unauthorized collection and use of personal information through a variety of different techniques: harvesting of email addresses, dictionary attacks, and malware or spyware.

The legislation does not change our existing enforcement powers. However, we will play an important enforcement role. To fulfill this role, we will need to explain this new law to our stakeholders and the public, and undertake compliance education. The investigations themselves are likely to require technical expertise, as well as collaboration with domestic and international enforcement bodies, and legal enforcement action in some cases.

The legislation also imported some amendments to PIPEDA that are familiar to many members of this committee. Number one is to give our office discretion to decline to investigate a complaint, to discontinue a complaint or to refer it elsewhere. It also allows for collaboration and the exchange of information with provincial and foreign counterparts who oversee and enforce laws that are similar to PIPEDA. These are general amendments to PIPEDA and would therefore apply to all of our activities, not just those activities related to spam.

Assuming, Mr. Chairman, that the bill receives royal assent this fiscal year, we will receive approximately $700,000 this year and then $2 million as on ongoing sum in future years.

We plan to hire a modest number of additional staff that will amount to six FTEs. The focus this year will be on educating the public on the new legislation. We will be hiring technical expertise, acquiring knowledge to deepen our understanding of the many facets of spam, and collaborating with the other stakeholders.

In future years we envisage significant work in responding to public inquiries, providing increased education, and carrying out compliance activities. We need to prepare for public inquiries and inquiries from businesses. We've already started to ramp up the technical expertise that will be needed for investigations dealing with spyware and malware under Bill C-28, and we've invested in software for these online investigations.

Perhaps that's enough to give you some context for our request for additional money here today. I would be very happy to answer the questions of the honourable members.

Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act

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

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-28, the electronic commerce protection bill.

As has been discussed here, the purpose of the bill is to deal with the issue of spam. The bill would prohibit the sending of commercial electronic messages, or spam, without the prior consent of the recipients.

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

The recommendations called for the government to introduce legislation that would: first, prohibit the sending of spam without the prior consent of the recipient; second, prohibit the use of false or misleading statements that disguise the origin or the true intent of the email; third, prohibit the installation of unauthorized programs; and, fourth, prohibit the unauthorized collection of personal information or email address.

I am pleased to see that the Conservative government, through Bill C-28, is enacting all of these recommendations. However, we need the legislation immediately as Canadians are suffering because of the lack of legislation.

Twenty years ago, a computer was not essential in carrying out our daily lives. However, now it is important to small businesses, corporations, non-profit organizations, hospitals, students, seniors and even our parents and grandparents use one. It is a mode of operation. It is a way of life. It facilitates, hopefully, the ease of transactions. People like to do their banking, pay their bills, et cetera on the computer.

With the ease of using computers and sharing information, however, a problem is created. It is the unwarranted advertising or misinformation and potential threats. We all know too well the consequences of spam. It brings with it viruses and worms.

In 2003, Canadian consumers and businesses spent approximately $27 billion to develop a phishing program. Members should reflect on the amount of money Canadian businesses had to spend. It probably constitutes the budget of three developing countries. A critical issue is the amount of money that was spent and yet the problem has grown worse.

Why is spam a critical issue? First, it is unwanted; second, it makes the utilization of our computer or our technology inefficient; and, third, it is costly. Computer technology was supposed to make our lives easy, efficient and effective. It was supposed to do things on an economical basis and it was supposed to be paperless.

In my previous occupation as a management consultant, I used to talk about the 3E's of business: economy, efficiency and effectiveness. I used to tell users that by using technology they would make life easier for themselves, things would be simplified and everything would go well.

As we reflect on spam, let us look at the economic aspect of it. Has it become economical to use the computer? I think a lot of us would say that is debatable. As I mentioned, Canadian businesses have collectively spent $27 billion on a phishing program. Imagine what could have been done with $27 billion. Imagine the amount of investment that could have been made and the jobs that could have been created. From an economic perspective, there does not seem to be any economic benefits or the economic benefits have been diluted because of spam. Therefore, the Liberals made recommendations to alleviate the economic pitfalls.

Let us look at this from an efficiency standpoint. Sixty to seventy per cent of Internet traffic is spam. A small or medium sized enterprise can ill-afford this type of ineffective utilization of its computers. Employees or business owners have to waste time looking at that spam mail and figuring out what to do with it. Instead of being effective or productive, they have to start clearing out the spam. In terms of efficiency, spam is a thorn in the side of efficiency, be it for businesses or individuals.

How many times have we ourselves been overloaded with spam? I am sure all of us have had first-hand experience with spam where we get false and misleading information from institutions purporting to be banks and false or misleading information from organizations. In fact, sometimes it could be a personal spam that is sent to us, and I can attest to that. As I was looking through my own email, I noticed an SOS from a constituent and I wondered what was wrong. As I looked at that email, I realized that the constituent's email had been compromised, especially because I knew the constituent and I knew that she would never ask for money. It claimed that she was stuck in some foreign land.

People who do not understand or do not know the person who is sending an SOS notice try to be good Samaritans and they might just be misled into giving money and being defrauded.

Spam, and subsequently the possibility of fraud, is a huge problem for all of us. It is important that we, as a collective, address the issues.

Sometimes we think we have secure accounts. Our BlackBerrys are secure accounts but how many of us receive junk on our BlackBerrys? How many of us think that this is such a secure account, how did somebody access it?

If we look at what is going on in this day and age where technology is easy, where people can hack through anything, we need to be careful that we have legislation in place to protect Canadians from misleading or fraudulent activities.

We know what to do with junk mail. We park the junk mail. However, some people who do not know what to do with it and sometimes respond. Sometimes we get emails stating that our computers are at risk. This is a classic example where people download a program that will protect them from viruses or worms and then the computer freezes. Many constituents have complained that this has happened to them and they want to know if there is any protection for them. We have now downloaded a virus and the person who has sent us the virus is looking for us to buy his or her own anti-virus or firewall. This is trying to cheat Canadians and cheat people who are unsuspecting of what is going on. By sometimes naively downloading files or pictures, et cetera, worms and viruses have entered the system and it has been problematic for Canadian businesses.

We have heard of receiving emails that appear to come from our financial institutions. If we are naive enough and do not verify with the banks whether they have sent us this email, we can compromise our bank accounts. This has happened to many seniors. They have been defrauded of their life savings by unscrupulous people.

Therefore, to address this very important issue, the Liberals released a report in 2005 entitled, “Stopping Spam: Creating a Stronger, Safer Internet”. As we 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. However, we may object to the fact that it is a little too late, that we have not got on with the program and that we have not moved with the world.

I am sure many members of the House have received complaints from constituents because the issue is compounded when things are deregulated or contracted out. For example, when the telephone service is contracted out or the banking service is done in India, China or Brazil, there is a problem because the government's ability to control or combat spam is not just about introducing legislation, but it is 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. I mentioned that 60% to 80% of the Internet traffic is spam. The sheer volume of messages challenges the capacity of the ISP, the Internet service provider, or legitimate businesses to do business. They have to put all sorts of firewalls up to help prevent their businesses from being hacked.

It was only a matter of time before spammers began to take advantage of our country. Canada ranks fifth worldwide as a source of web-based email spam, trailing Iran, Nigeria, Kenya and Israel. The recent Facebook case that has been referred to has placed the spotlight on Canada's ongoing failure to address its spam problem by introducing long overdue anti-spam legislation. The case is only the latest to illustrate that the government's inaction has had an impact. 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 we are rapidly emerging as a haven for spammers eager to exploit our weak legal framework.

One of my colleagues talked about the information-sharing agreements, that we sign tax treaties and that we have trade treaties. We have a relationship with so many countries. It is absolutely unconscionable that Bill C-28 does not somehow link these relationships that we already have. Why are we not linking our anti-spam legislation so we can be assisted internationally?

We have these information-sharing agreements with regards to matters before us. Spam costs worldwide $130 billion in terms of costs and damages. Canada is ranked fifth in terms of web-based spam.

We need to ensure that the government does not drag its feet on this very important issue. It has been five years since the bill first came to us. It has already been disclosed that we have not gone as far as the other G8 countries. We are the only G8 country and one of four OECD countries that does not even have legislation. A member of the committee just said that we would be playing catch-up because we did not go far enough.

Michael Geist, who is an expert in Internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa, said that there were several Canadian companies among the roughly 200 top spamming organizations in the world. They account for about 80% of the spam generated. He pointed out that junk mail could go beyond nuisance and result in hacking and fraud. That is a big problem for a lot of businesses and individuals.

As I mentioned, many people have been defrauded of their savings. Many computers have been compromised. Therefore, it is important that Bill C-28 be passed quickly so at least there is a first step in getting anti-spam legislation.

In particular, a new section needs to be added to define false or misleading representation by electronic message as an offence. This offence extends not only to the content of the message, but also to its sender and subject matter information, as well as its locator. It is not necessary to prove that someone was mislead or deceived by the message or even that the person was the intended recipient. It is sufficient to prove that the message was misleading or deceptive.

The penalties for this new offence are a prison term of up to 14 years or a fine at the discretion of the court for an indictment of both or a prison term of up to one year or a fine up to $200,000 for a summary conviction, or both, which is clause 76.

At this junction, I would like to draw attention to government members. It could be troublesome for members of the government as they continue to send messages touting the dubious benefits of many pieces of its fiscal legislation. I look forward to the finance minister's tweets on the budget becoming one of the first enforcement actions emanating from the passage of this law. I wonder if emailing some of the debates in the House might also cause someone to be charged under this act.

In all seriousness, we must be mindful that the intent of this act is not to limit freedom of speech, but to stop some of the more egregious examples of spamming and fraud that is prevalent and obvious to anyone who has an email account.

It is important, as we move forward, that we know that Internet policing may be difficult. Internet trafficking is creating a lot of problems, but with problems there are solutions. In finding solutions, we need to know what we are dealing with. If the government is serious about introducing legislation, it is important that we move quickly to enforce the legislation.

Industry Canada cannot do its own work without the necessary resources. I would like to know the resources the government will commit to Industry Canada to ensure effective corrective solutions. It is extremely important for people everywhere in Canada to have confidence that the legislation provided by the government will be effective and that there are appropriate sanctions. I believe any legislation brought forward must ensure that we have proper resources and effective coordination.

A rapid response to correct this problem would ensure that those who see Canada as a target would find another place. However, we do not want them to find another place because that other place is where we also do our business in the financial and banking sectors.

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 so it will provide fast relief to Canadians.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, we are debating BillC-28, which I must admit is a very important bill. A number of members have had an opportunity to speak on it, but I would like to read into the record the summary of the bill. The summary of a bill is usually a fairly good synopsis of what the bill would do.

The summary of Bill C-28 states:

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 Radiotelevision 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 Radiotelevision and Telecommunications Commission Act and the Telecommunications Act.

Most people would recognize this as the bill to deal with spam, but actually it is much more than that. So I took the opportunity to go back and look at the representations made to the House by the minister himself when the bill first came forward. I would like to quote a brief section of his speech in which he says:

Threats to the online economy include more than just spam. They include spyware, malware, computer viruses, phishing, viral attachments, false or misleading emails, the use of fraudulent websites, and the harvesting of electronic addresses.

Here is an interesting point. He says:

These threats are not just nuisances. Some are fraudulent, some invade privacy, and some are used to infect and gain control over computers. It is estimated that spam costs the worldwide economy $130 billion a year.

He goes on to say:

The bill before us contains important provisions that will protect Canadian businesses and consumers from the most harmful and misleading forms of online threats. It improves the privacy and economic security of Canadians in the electronic environment. It offers a host of clear rules that all Canadians will benefit from. It will promote confidence in online communication and electronic commerce.

The bill before us stakes out new ground in Canada.

Here is an interesting point:

Currently we are the only G8 country and one of only four OECD countries without legislation dealing with spam. This bill will rectify that situation.

In developing the bill, we have been able to incorporate the best practices of other countries that have launched similar efforts.

That is not exactly what the members said today in debate. It is kind of interesting. In fact, some members said that we have not even put forward legislation that takes into account all of the best practices of the G8 countries that have legislation in place. We have come up short on that. As a matter of fact, it was described that we are going to be playing catch-up. That point was made several times today during debate.

It is concerning because this is a very serious problem. We are ranked fifth in the world in terms of spam. I believe nine billion spam messages are received each and every day in Canada.

There is a cost associated with it. The worldwide cost is some $130 billion. Canada is fifth and we have about 10% of that. So we are talking about a lot of money, and based on the debate in the House, which has been substantively just opposition members, not enough rigour has been put in this bill to make sure that it is effective, the wish of the minister that this is going to be a good thing. We have missed the boat a bit.

One reason is that most of these problem areas come from international origins and they are beyond the reach of the laws of Canada. So all of a sudden we have to take out all these mass emailings sent out by persons who are not resident in Canada and are outside the reach of our laws. I will speak a bit more about that later.

The other part that was discussed very substantively during the day had to do with penalties. The infractions are under clauses 43 and 44, but with regard to the penalties, it says in subclause 47(1):

Every person who commits an offence under section 43 or 44 is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction and is liable

(a) to a fine of not more than $10,000 for a first offence or $25,000 for a subsequent offence, in the case of an individual; or

(b) to a fine of not more than $100,000 for a first offence or $250,000 for a subsequent offence, in the case of any other person.

It seems to stop there, ostensibly, in terms of the fines.

The point made in debate was that these are just fines. The growth of spam in Canada continues and we are playing catch-up. Despite the fact that this is proposing some fines, the argument has been that it does not seem to represent a sufficient deterrent to the perpetrators of, in many cases, the frauds.

Since the year 2000, online sales for Canadian companies have increased nearly tenfold. Ten years ago, online sales in our country were less than $7.2 billion. In 2007, the sales reached $63 billion. When we consider the magnitude of the economic activity going on in these unsolicited emails, we have to wonder whether, if someone gets caught, a fine of $10,000 or even $250,000 is going to be a significant deterrent from continuing the practices of spamming and the other forms of offences.

The point has been made a number of times that we missed the boat in terms of the penalties for offences. We have not taken into account that although the CRTC and the Competition Bureau will have the tools to impose fines, we do not have criminal sanctions here. There are going to cases, undoubtedly, where we are talking about billions of dollars that have been made by companies, without the fear of any criminal prosecution, just a fine. That, I believe, is a big flaw in this bill.

Regarding the admission that it did not go as far as other G8 countries and that we are playing catch-up, this bill has been around for five years. Previously it was Bill C-27. It is now Bill C-28 under a new Parliament, after prorogation and/or an election, but we are still playing around ostensibly with the same act.

If we look at the briefing notes, it is substantially still the same act. I really have to question whether there is a strategy to deal with the whole problem. The deterrents and penalties are certainly one aspect of it.

Recently, we have been dealing with some other pieces of legislation that I had an opportunity to deal with. One I think was just yesterday, a bill on tax treaties with Greece, Turkey and Colombia. It included the fact that we would be entering into information-sharing agreements with these countries.

It turns out that Canada has tax treaties with more than 90 countries around the world. We have relationships with virtually with every major economy around the world, and we do it because we want to eliminate double taxation, we want to deal with tax avoidance issues and we want to promote trade, et cetera. It is a good thing.

Why is it that we did not discuss information-sharing agreements on Internet abuses at the G8 and G20 summits? We paid $1 billion for one of those meetings. Surely we could have talked about some substantive matters, such as a problem that is costing the world $130 billion a year. It is not insignificant. That is 130 G8 meetings. That concerns me.

In the Income Tax Act there is a general anti-avoidance provision. Because there is a concern about being behind in our ability to keep up with the changes in technology and not even up to speed with what other G8 countries have been doing, we have the situation that, given how long it takes to bring forward new legislation and make the necessary changes, the time lag is so great that it is a tremendously expensive proposition when we know that it is going to grow.

I am wondering why the government did not pursue information-sharing agreements and things like the spirit of a general anti-avoidance provision, something that would say that notwithstanding what the act says, if the government believes people have done something that gets around the rules and in fact perpetrates fraud, the process of fraud or other offences under the act, it will be able to prosecute them as well, even though it may not be specifically in the act or have been contemplated.

That is why we have regulations to legislation. Rather than putting all the items in the legislation, we put them in regulations, which we can amend by orders in council fairly quickly. We do not need new legislation.

I am not sure at this point whether there was an opportunity missed. It would have been helpful to have built in some sort of a mechanism whereby the legislation, particularly in this case, was adaptable or was able to address emerging technologies and some of the issues that are coming out.

The other bill we dealt with recently that spurred some interest with me was the requirement for Internet service providers to report websites, et cetera, that had information or depictions of the sexual exploitation of children. The whole purpose of the bill was to require Internet service providers to report those things. It is an important element in the overall attempt to deal with the sexual exploitation of children.

Could this bill not have had a requirement or obligation for people who are involved or who become knowledgeable about the people behind some of these fraudulent activities to report? Intuitively people would say, “I respect the law, but I am not sure whether I am obligated to report if I become aware”. Maybe we should understand what the consequences are if we allow it to carry on, and perhaps there should have been some initiative that would have spurred people to report when it comes to their knowledge.

One of the experiences I have recently had, which most members have had, is that we received an unsolicited email apparently from a bank, which has the actual logo of TD bank or Scotiabank, for example. It purports to be our friend and tells us our account has been suspended and we have to get in touch with the bank, blah, blah. I printed that email before I deleted it and took it to the bank, which told me those things originate offshore and there is nothing banks can do about it, and that was about it. The banks ought to play a greater role in this. This is a big part of it. This is where there are people who prey particularly on seniors, the ones who are most vulnerable. When they are sent an email that says the bank has a problem and they have to get in touch, once they press the button and respond, they are in the system. Now they are targets. Now they are at risk.

We did not deal with that. We should have dealt with that. I do not know how. I am not saying I have the answers, but we should talk about it. Are other jurisdictions doing it? If these come from offshore, it is a case where we should have entered into information-sharing agreements and worked collaboratively with countries around the world? We certainly could have agreements with the 90 countries with whom we have tax treaties on matters that are harming all of us, when someone is in one jurisdiction and doing harm in another. We have seen that with regard to Switzerland and Liechtenstein with regard to tax havens, money-laundering and all kinds of things. When are we going to start entering into serious negotiations with our partners in trade and any other country that wishes to, for mutual benefit, to deal with these things? Where is the strategy? That is what is missing.

As I indicated, the penalty regime is not quite right. The issue with regard to dealing with the international situation seems to be ignored. We do not know what the dimensions are there.

The fact that it has taken five years already to get to this point does not send a warm fuzzy signal that we are really serious about this. Why does it take so long? When we bring bills in, why do we not start them with the minister or whoever is going to present the bill to the House and deal with it right through so that there is a continuity of the debate and a consensus that starts to develop? Second reading should be an opportunity for members to alert committee members to the kinds of concerns they have. This is where some of the fodder comes from in the legislative process. We cannot make any particular motions at second reading to change things, but we certainly can make recommendations to the committee and then make sure that committee is ready to deal with it. There is no point in putting forward a bill when there are 10 other bills waiting in a hopper to get into a committee, because it will not get dealt with for months.

In scheduling the House business, a particularly important legislation such as this seems to have been an orphan. I wish it had been dealt with quickly and, when it went through committee and came back here, we did not have debate last May and some more debate in September and now again in November. The continuity of the bill has been appalling. The issues have been on the table and this is something that has the support of all hon. members, all the parties. So why does the government drag this out in terms of how it schedules the bills for debate in the House? If it really cared about it, this would have been bang, bang, bang. The House leaders should have talked to each other. In the U.K. they have discussions to decide how many speakers there are going to be, they have the speeches and they deal with it.

I would suggest it is an important bill. I support the bill. The House will support the bill. We should get on with it, but the minister should know we are very concerned that we did not go far enough and that the bill may be a false start on the resolution of a very important problem.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, one of the issues we wanted to try to resolve today was in the case of the Facebook suit. In that case, the judgment was against the individual. We wanted to think in terms of that in the context of the bill. Had the bill been in force at that time, would the penalties under the act have had any application to that gentleman?

We know, for example, that the authorities will be proceeding by undertaking as much as possible. The CRTC will try to get the perpetrators to stop doing what they are doing. That probably would not have worked with this gentleman.

The second option is to look at fines of $1 million or $10 million in the case of companies. Clearly this gentleman declared bankruptcy and moved on. Therefore, that would not have worked.

The question is whether any sort of a criminal offence would have helped stop this person. Violations under C-28 are not criminal offences.

The debate today has been about whether this bill would have proper application to the Facebook case. Perhaps we will have to revisit the bill in two or three years and take another look at it. If more Facebook-like cases evolve and the bill does not apply, then we will have to haul it back and look at making tougher sanctions available to people who do what the Facebook operator did.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise on Bill C-28, formerly Bill C-27. A little bit of history on the bill is important. This is a bill that will limit spam in this country and there are a number of different correspondence issues, not just email. There are several others I will get into later on, but it is important to recognize that this is important for Canada because we are the only one of the G7 countries that does not have a management style anti-spam bill. That is important for us to change.

New Democrats have been pushing for this for years and I want to touch at the beginning of my presentation a little bit on why we feel so strongly about the bill. It was formerly Bill C-27. With prorogation of Parliament that bill was shelved and did not go forward. We played a key role in getting that bill passed with the government. There were attempts to water it down by both the Bloc and Liberal members, but we made sure that the essence of the bill remained when there was lots of lobbying pressure from a number of different business and other organizations that rely upon electronic media. Some of it is done with good intent. Some of it is done with ill intent. But we were able to do that by taking out a provision where the government at one point was allowing a clause in the bill whereby if one had agreed to an electronic advertisement from someone that person could actually use that to go into one's computer and phish through it for further information. We had that clause taken out of the bill and compromised on that so we could move this forward.

Unfortunately, with prorogation, the government lost its opportunity and the bill died despite actually going through the chambers, and that is unfortunate because we did not get to have that legislation come to fruition. The bill reintroduced is taking quite some time in this latest government round. I am rather surprised it was not tabled during one of the first weeks post-election when we came back to the chamber. There certainly was a willingness on our side to get the bill moved forward and there were a few more changes added that were important to clean up the bill, but did not really essentially change anything. Then it moved quickly through committee and to this point in time.

It is a good opportunity for Canadians to revisit some of their rights in particular. I feel this is very much a social issue and a justice issue because when we look at the violations that go through spam it is not just the mere deleting and the pain of doing that, it is also a means of economically undermining people as well by phishing for information and privacy issues. It is important that the bill passes and I am hoping that it does so rather quickly in the other chamber when it goes there because it is critical.

What really defines New Democrats as different from the other parties in this are the rights people should have as users on computer systems and the Internet. This is something that I continually impressed on those who kept on pushing back on the bill. What I am referring to is the reality that when people buy a computer system, they pay the money. Then after that they pay for the use of the system not only through electricity, but also if it is activated on the Internet. They pay for the programs that are installed on computers that they use. They pay for all those elements out there.

At the same time, their rights were being ignored and, in my opinion, trampled on by others dumping all kinds of unwanted and unsolicited information and material, some of it even malicious, that affected computers, and that is wrong. There should be the rights of the users who pay for all of that, not just the initial outlay, but also the continuation of services every month through a provider. That is a key element that is important about this that gets overridden to a certain degree. With the explosion of the computer use and the Internet evolution, there were no rights granted to the user of any significant magnitude. As well, it allowed the introduction of a number of different commercials and even affects the performance of computers and the work people are doing by having malicious spyware and other types of things that end up on computer systems.

This is at the heart of it. Is this bill going to restore some justice to the Internet? Is it going to bring some accountability, bring Canada into this century in terms of its response and put penalties on those who do it?

For those who do not think it is a serious issue, I want to refer to a Cisco study that was done a couple of years ago. It found that there were around 200 billion messages per day and 90% of emails sent worldwide were spam. There were 200 billion messages per day being sent out to all kinds of people from all over the world and Canada, unfortunately, was one of the places that had spammers.

It was not individual people sending out that message. It was also those hijacking computers and creating what are called botnets. That is where people write programs and send out messages that would infect somebody else's computer so that people's computers become like zombies and send out a series of files, information and messages.

That happened to one of my accounts. It was hijacked and messages were sent out under my email address. A lot of people have faced this. That is why a lot of different software packages have been introduced. Because of the aggressive nature of those who are doing this, it has become an industry in itself just to police it. Various types of software are being used, which require constant upgrading to deal with all of the different infections taking place on computers.

What is important to recognize in that respect is that people are affected in a number of ways. Not only are their reputations affected by their names being tagged with material they do not approve of but it also affects the capabilities of their computers and sometimes their privacy.

There are also phishing scams to trick people. How that works is if people agree to something, there are unintended consequences that are not clear because there are no rules about that. Some people were giving out personal information, and there are those who said they knew what they were doing because they said yes.

We heard the argument from some of the people who use advertisements and so forth that once people agree, it is basically carte blanche. That is not fair and the reason is that yes, people made the mistake when they did it, but people are virtually learning on the computer every single day.

I know seniors today who are taking up the computer and its technology that they never had before, and they deserve protection from the government on that. The Internet has become very important, not only for communicating on social matters but also in allowing people to conduct their public and private affairs.

Public affairs means being connected to the world and communities and allows people to understand what is happening out there and to interact in that element, especially those who do not have the capabilities to get out any more, who do not have transportation or whatever the case may be. It is their connection to the community, and that has become clear through sites like Facebook and a whole series of other social media.

People use these avenues now to connect to their own community, not just to look at things or obtain information from across the globe, which they can do as well. It is very much part of people's lives, and those of neighbours, friends, family and so forth.

The second reason people deserve protection from the government and the forces who want fair play on the Internet is because people use it to conduct business, financial transactions such as paying bills, making investments and a whole series of things. Online elements have become critical for the daily administration of businesses and people's pocketbooks. That is key too.

There is the entertainment aspect as well, another critical part. People take part in everything from video games to movies. They can watch television now and a whole series of things. That is why with these elements of phishing, botnets and spam it is important to recognize the seriousness of it. It is not simply about deleting the thing that arrived in one's mailbox that was unwanted. It is about the abuse caused if one has those different elements affecting one's system.

New Democrats believe when a consumer buys equipment, programs and a service provider, the consumer's rights come first. That is an important difference. Technology will change even more. Some of the programs and the writers will become even more vicious. That is why it is important we start with the number one principle.

I will to refer to the international scene so we can get a clear understanding of this issue. Cisco reported that the United States was the single largest source of outgoing spam, accounting for 17.2% of all global spam. Canada was the fourth largest source with 4.7% of global spam. Behind the U.S., Turkey and Russia, Canada has a significant per capita.

The United States was referenced at 17.2% and Canada was at 4.7%. That is because the U.S. brought in what was affectionately known as the can spam bill. I hope Bill C-28 will be more effective than the American legislation, but we will see. It has been done with a bit more diligence.

Members will remember the legislation with respect to the do not call list. The government rushed it through and it failed miserably. It was an abuse on Canadians and an embarrassment to the government. We warned the government that it would not respond to the needs of Canadians.

There is a remedy. I took some criticism for supporting the government in a key vote on that legislation. I agreed to allow the minister to amend the do not call list legislation. I thought it was important for consumers to have that capability so I agreed with the government. Canadians want a do not call list that works. Improvements have been made to it and NDP members are happy with the changes.

I want to touch a bit on the types of information in the bill. I want to ensure people know that it is not just spam email defined under abuse. Instant media messaging, use net and user groups spam, web search engine spam, spam in blogs, wiki spam, online classified ad spam, mobile phone messaging spam, Internet form spam, junk fax transmissions and file sharing network spam are all included.

It is important to note that. Those who abuse these types of communication devices will be subject to a series of penalties and fines. I will get into that a bit later. There will be better enforcement power. There will be a better process to stop those who send messages in those different formats to people who do not want to receive them. It is key that be the case.

The spam that we are focusing on has a number of different cost factors. There is the overhead cost, which is electronic spamming, including bandwidth, developing or acquiring an email, wiki blog spam tool and taking or acquiring the zombie computer.

Materials used on a computer system, whether it be the actual computer itself, the server, the websites, the other tools and applications such as a dot design can get infected. They then have to be administered by new software upgrades, hardware upgrades, a series of different things depending on what the spam has done to the computer.

Say, for example, a web designer has to design another management system related to security provisions to block certain things coming in. A physical cost is going to be involved as well as a programming cost. That is basically lost productivity in the Canadian economy. There is a cost to people doing work because others have abused or caused problems maliciously.

There is also a transaction cost. The incremental cost of contacting each additional recipient when one method of spamming is multiplied by the number of recipients. There is risk of legal or public reaction, including punitive damages.

On the transaction cost, it is not only the cost of responding, but also the public image or whatever it might be. There could be any host of emails coming in that are disingenuous and presents one's company or oneself in an ill way. Often those affected have to physically spend the time to re-contact people.

Also, one's reputation may be at stake. If people have their names tagged to something they do not support, that can be very damaging to them, given some of the content that is on the Internet today. Companies can suffer from this as well. This is another cost.

As well, damage is another cost. Damage can take place in a number of different ways, from people's reputations to a community and other types of areas. For example, Canada is currently known as a spamming country. We know that other countries look at us in an unfavourable way because we have not dealt with spam in a responsible way until now.

Spam is also used in crime, and this is important. In our opinion, it is a violation of not only consumer rights, but it is crime. We have seen viruses, Trojan horses and malicious software, often with the objective of identity theft and fraud.

There are people who lose information. There is sensitive information on computers, for instance, payment of credit card bills, real estate or other types of transactions, and all types of purchases. We see more and more purchases through several different sites taking place now.

When people experience identity fraud, they face a series of things. First, they have to find out when it took place and what has gone out. As well, the damages are part of that. Whether it is credit card theft or the use of their names and IDs to do things on the Internet, that can significantly affect them.

Also, and this is important, some people are not used to using the Internet or are just learning to use it. They become pawns for those who are very clever about using this information, technology and the different types of spam. Basically, there are predators. If people are not skilled or do not know the full effects of what they are doing, it does not make it right that they are taken advantage of. The bill's increased fines and penalties will be a significant deterrent when we look at some elements that need to be changed.

I recognize the work of the 2004 national task force on spam, which went across the country. It got things going and unified Canadians around the rights of the spam bill. It is important that we recognize the task force.

The House resumed 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 third time and passed.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to speak to this bill.

The impetus for this bill dates back to 2003, when I introduced the first bill to combat emails containing commercial electronic information.

The fact that there have been changes of government and four Parliaments since then is obviously a problem. But the situation continues to get worse, and it cannot be minimized by arguments that we will hurt industry if we pass a bill to protect consumers and ensure that industry can function. We recognize the importance of sending commercial information through electronic media.

I reflect on the several years and how long it may take for a bill to make its way through Parliament and to address an issue, which I think for most Canadians is obvious. We have heard my good colleague from Nipissing—Timiskaming talking about the fact that many parts of his riding in northern Ontario and places outside of the beaten track of larger urban areas still are without significant access to the Internet, even though we all recognize in this Parliament, and Canadians recognize, the importance of commercial information through electronic media.

I was here 17 years ago as a member of Parliament and recall the then minister of industry having a BlackBerry. It was a new, revolutionary idea, but of course it had not really taken off at that time. One wonders how we could function as a nation today, recognizing the great advances that have been made in many respects with Canadian technology, Canadian prowess and Canadian utilization, were it not for these kinds of developments, which have caught on in Canada and around the world. It seems to me that we would certainly be somewhere well behind the rest of the world.

Therefore the legislation, albeit rather late, is timely in the sense that it does address a domestic problem, but as I indicated in my question for the previous member from our party, who sits on the industry committee and has sat on the industry committee, I am most concerned about the ability to reflect upon what this legislation will do as much as what it will not do.

I do not want to create false expectations for the Canadian public that suddenly tomorrow, or when the legislation is passed and accepted in the other house, there will be in fact a cessation of spam, malware, spyware, botnets and other programs that are added on, nor will this stop those who exercise beyond our jurisdiction, beyond our geography, from continuing to engage in something that is now more than just a nuisance, as it was in the early 2000s when I introduced the first spam bill.

It is important for us to recognize the work that has been done over the years.

I also want to give specific recommendations and a commendation, not just to the committee that passed this very recently, but also of course to my own party, which in 2004 and 2005, in order to address this issue, set up a task force, the Liberal task force on spam. Of course, it recommended that we come forward as quickly as possible with legislation that would prohibit the sending of unintended, unwarranted, unsolicited emails and information without the prior consent of recipients.

At the time it also recommended the prohibition of the use of false and misleading statements that suppress, ignore, set aside, or disguise the true intent of the email, not to mention of course its origins. This was a very serious point, where people would open up information and it was in fact nothing short of a commercial nuisance disguised in a fraud.

The Liberal task force on electronic emails also called for the prohibition of the installation of unauthorized programs. My colleague who spoke previously talked at great length about what those programs look like, the kind of information that is often inserted, unbeknownst to the recipient, on his or her computer. It also, of course, talked about the prohibition of the unauthorized collection of personal information or email addresses, the aggregation of which would be to see constant emails sent to us ad infinitum.

These were very important recommendations that were made and they formed literally the basis of what the government has now brought forward and with which we agree. We agree with it because it also does take into consideration the balancing of ensuring that privacy questions are also paramount. The committee took great pains to ensure that personal information and the laws that support PIPEDA are in fact in this piece of legislation, and that it reflect very carefully, endorse, and inform Canadians as to just how the legislation proposes not only to ensure the optimal protection of privacy, but also the steps in terms of coordination of how the legislation is to be enforced.

I go back to the Liberal Party task force recommendation because it is very telling.

As Bill C-28 looks to be implemented, it provides fines for violations of any one of these particular acts of up to $1 million for individuals and $10 million for business. It also establishes rules for warrants of information during investigations.

It is extremely important to understand that there has to be a coordinated and collaborative attempt to ensure that there are rules of engagement in terms of enforcement. We cannot just walk in and seize someone's computer.

The legislation, through the Department of Justice I presume, has met a number of very stiff and significant tests: privacy, the way in which the legislation is enforced; and, as the bill calls for the injunctions of spam on activity while under investigation, it does provide the ability to force a cease and desist.

Bill C-28, as we know, establishes something new, but it is something that was also discussed some years ago, and that is the private right of action. We have seen this in other areas where, if enforcement is not adequate and an individual or business feels there is something where they have been targeted, they have that as a recourse.

I think that is fundamentally important to distinguishing this bill from its previous characterizations and incarnations. It gives a significant step forward for individuals to take up these matters when there may be the possibility of a lack of interest as a result of a number of circumstances.

Of course, it also allows those individuals who have been aggrieved, who have been the target, whose businesses or affairs have been trampled on, affected, or impeded, to seek damages from those who are involved in the perpetration of spam. I think that is important.

We all understand the significance and importance of this kind of legislation. What cannot be misunderstood and certainly cannot be gainsaid is the significance and importance of ensuring that we have legislation that does not have unintended consequences. That is why legislation like this must, I emphasize, be reviewed periodically and more frequently. As technology evolves, so does the ability to make legislation that is relevant.

While we have constructed a piece of legislation that would have been good in 2003 with some modifications here and there, it may not be relevant to the overall concern that I think consumers have, and that is the prospect that they are going to continue to get unwarranted and unsolicited spam emanating from jurisdictions outside of Canada.

As my good colleague from Nipissing—Timiskaming has emphasized, and it cannot go unnoticed, we have to do a better job at working with other nations. We must ensure that individuals do not use jurisdictions with the least amount of enforcement in order to continue to harass, sully and act with relative impunity in assaulting and taking up so much space on the Internet.

It is one thing for northern and rural parts of this country to still be on dial-up or DSL. It is quite another thing to have 60% to 80% of all electronic traffic in this country originating from spammers. Quite apart from the sinister side of what that means in terms of malware, spyware, botnet, and as that has been described by my previous colleague in considerable detail I will not go over it again, it seems to me we have to ensure that the legislation is pragmatic and can evolve with time.

It is not clear to me that this legislation will do that. While I support it and believe it is a step in the right direction, let us understand that this is really only a first step. This is a first step towards understanding that Parliament has to be continuously vigilant in ensuring legislation meets the expectations of an economy that more increasingly depends, in this digital age, on the ability to receive and transmit information, and to use the Internet and electronic means not only to convey private information but indeed as a means by which our economic infrastructure becomes more increasingly dependent.

This brings me to the question of enforcement. I understand that there are other significant pieces of legislation that we have before us now in this House. There are a number of committees embarking on the issue of copyright. However, this legislation will require constant review by those in business, by those in the know, to recognize areas where the legislation should be modified from time to time. It will also be incumbent on future industry committees every year or so to have a periodic look to see where we are going, where the bill has had an impact, what it is failing and what it is addressing.

One of the areas that I think we have not discussed sufficiently about this bill, but which we are going to require, will be the unintended consequences this would have on domestic business.

Here I talk of legislation that is meant to do the right thing for business and the right thing for consumers.

At the same time, we have to recognize the impact it will have on small and medium-sized businesses that, for some reason, are unaware of this bill's real impact and of the fact that the bill provides for penalties. As well, these businesses may not be aware that some transactions they conduct, not for fraudulent reasons but for legitimate business reasons, may violate the legislation.

I am worried about the sudden impact it will have on our small and medium-sized businesses. This is not something this bill is merely silent on. We will have to use the federal government's communications resources to ensure that businesses do not run afoul of the law because they are unaware that, in the future, it will prohibit them from sending messages and notices to promote their business.

Let us be very clear on this point. We want to make sure that small business, as well, is aware of the impact of this legislation. It is great that we have finally come to the point where we have legislation that actually has a very positive impact on assuring Canadians that we are finally getting on the ball to address spam. However, we certainly do not want to negatively or adversely impact those who, through no fault of their own, do not have a real understanding of this legislation, business in particular.

People may be out there actually trying to make a living as opposed to hearing what we are saying here in Parliament, but those individuals should be contacted. Organizations that work with small and medium-sized enterprises in this country should at least be aware of what is in store should the law be broken unintentionally.

There has to be some deference given. We understand there is a civil sanction. This is where the hon. member for Nipissing—Timiskaming got it right. Criminalizing may have the horrific outcome of putting someone in a very difficult position. People who engage in advertising and unintentionally send electronic emails to prospective or perhaps even existing clients without the clients' consent could find themselves afoul of the law. It is a very fine balancing act that will not be resolved by criminalization.

Quite frankly, that would be the worst road we could go down and we should be very careful. If we do not have in place a strong communication strategy to ensure small business has the opportunity, we may hurt the very people we are trying to protect.

I look forward to hearing comments in the next few days as to where this legislation will go. It is a hybrid of what Parliament can do if parties decide to set aside their partisan differences and focus on some very important pieces of legislation.

It also requires us now to take this legislation, should it be passed in the next several weeks, to other committees. I would hope the trade committee of the House also takes on the responsibility of ensuring that there is co-operation and coordination between other jurisdictions. We have talked a bit about those, but if we receive spam originating from, say, Sao Tome, a very famous place off the continent of Africa that tends to be a channel or switch for a lot of information, we may not have the jurisdiction or wherewithal to stop it, prevent it or provide assurances to Canadians that they will not continue to be harassed.

It seems to me that when this bill was first introduced some years ago, there were individuals as close as Detroit. There was one individual I will not mention who was responsible for a significant amount of the junk we used to receive in our emails. It took us a considerable amount of time to work with our American friends to shut down the practice. The practice was not just about harassment. The practice itself was also about mismanaging and directing computers to open up programs and direct us to other addresses or simply to shut down or break down our computers that were otherwise intended for very innocent reasons.

It is also important to understand that the legislation itself has as its intentions all of the elements that have been brought forward to us in the more recent times, but we must be careful that we do not involve a debate that suggests this bill will be the be all and end all. I know some believe that Parliament is capable of doing far more and that this legislation may be the silver bullet. However, it is not. We have to be very realistic about what we believe this would accomplish.

My own sense is that, if the House of Commons were to be properly disposed, it would also want to allocate within a period of time an understanding of how much money will be spent on enforcement and what agencies would be responsible for collecting information on an ongoing basis to determine whether this legislation has in fact been properly impacted. We need appropriate benchmarks over the next year or so to demonstrate what the effectiveness and efficiency of this bill is.

I am talking about down the road. We have got to one point, but we have a long road ahead of us, and this is not going to end anytime soon. Canadians will continue to look upon parliamentarians and government to be able to correct problems they cannot themselves fix.

The last thing, as I have suggested, is that we do not want legislation that leads us in the direction of creating more problems than we are resolving. That is of course a real prospect and a concern that I have in looking at the legislation, because the legislation itself does not provide all of the guarantees.

I have looked at other concerns that have been raised in Bill C-28. There are some very hard penalties that come with this piece of legislation. It will be interesting to see whether those penalties in fact can be borne by those who unintentionally make an error. I think there has to be some kind of judicial discretion given in these circumstances so we are not looking to make a particular example of an individual.

That brings us to legislation as it relates to the do-not-call list. With that list, in many respects some are walking away with a literal slap on the wrist or, worse, being given an opportunity to send money to a particular academic organization in order to sort of make amends.

I think we have to provide an effective balance, a balance that takes into consideration the seriousness of the damage done to others, while giving people a private right of action but not going to the point where we are simply trying to make one example as a means of scaring off everyone else.

The law must be applied fairly, consistently and evenly, and above all it must be applied pragmatically in order to ensure that we are aware and can stay on top of all the new nuanced ways in which people will try to get around the legislation to harm our economy and, above all, really bother our consumers.

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member made a good point.

In 2003 we started working on this while the Liberal government was in power. Now in 2010, after five years of Conservative rule, we are finally getting around to enacting it. A lot of progressive legislation has fallen by the wayside and we are trying to get some of it back. This is a small step in the right direction.

Internationally, Canada no longer has the same esteem it had prior to the 2006 election when the Conservatives took over. That we know. We have heard it. I travel to Europe and other places. People have asked me what has happened to Canada. They say that Canada used to be an open country where people discussed things and came to an agreement, but suddenly it has become difficult to deal with Canada. I am speaking of countries in Europe, South America, all around the world. They are wondering what is going on.

One thing about Bill C-28 is that we would have to co-operate with other countries. We would have to talk to other countries and negotiate with other countries. We do not want another Camp Mirage situation to happen with this legislation.

It is important that the Conservatives start opening up when dealing with other people. They cannot just dig in their heels and say it is their way or the highway. It may sound good to some people, but not to most people, that here in Canada there is a government that can dig in its heels and do whatever it wants. The government has to be open. It is not about black and white. There are different shades of grey and the government has to negotiate to come to an agreement that works.

That is one of the keys of this legislation. It has to do with individuals in the government negotiating with other governments so that we can come to agreements and settlements that work so that the people of Canada can be protected from spam and other malware in the Internet.

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-28, the fighting Internet and wireless spam act, better known as FISA. It is designed to curb the flow of spam, unwanted installations of unauthorized and sometimes malicious software and the unauthorized collection of personal information. In other words, it aims at stopping spam emails. With spam emails, we do not always give prior consent and that is what makes them so obnoxious.

I have been listening to a lot of the speeches and going through the bill and it really is a dry topic. It is something that, unless one is really into the technical side of things, does not excite people until it hits our computers or our homes. That is when we really feel the impact that spam has on individuals.

I want to do a bit of a history. In 2004-05 the Liberal government of the day established an anti-spam task force and recommendations for actions were put forward. The Liberal recommendations called for the government to introduce legislation to prohibit four things: first, the sending of spam without prior consent of recipients; second, the use of false or misleading statements that disguise the origins or true intent of the email; third, the installation of unauthorized programs; and fourth, the unauthorized collection of personal information or email addresses.

I would like the members to remember these four points because they will be showing up again and it is important that we finally get there. Of all the G8 countries, Canada is the only one that does not have legislation in place yet. When we look at something like this, we have to ask why Canada has really lagged behind.

Had the government continued under a Liberal government back in 2005, we would have had legislation. However, unfortunately the NDP leader decided that in 2005, it was time to stop supporting the Liberal government of the day. I think history will look back and see where progressive thought really slowed down, if not stopped, for a number of years. It will not be pretty when people look back and see what was lost. Whether it was legislation on spam, child care or first nations rights, it will not be viewed positively.

Let us get back to Bill C-28. It was originally introduced by the Conservative government as Bill C-27, which died in prorogation. Prorogation normally is not something we speak of positively. I look at prorogation and it really was something Canadians did not want, it was something Parliament did not really want and it caused a lot of problems. However, one thing it caused was the death of Bill C-27.

Prior to the prorogation, many flaws were exposed in the bill and when it came back, the good thing was that many changes were made. Bill C-28 was introduced after the return from prorogation, with the changes to correct many flaws identified. I am pleased to see the Conservative government decided to act on the recommendations of our Liberal task force and the recommendations of the industry, science and technology committee.

Legislation in a fast moving area such as technology must be monitored closely to ensure it does not stifle legitimate electronic commerce in Canada, while accomplishing its intended purpose.

The real test of Bill C-28 will be in its implementation. How diligently will it be reinforced? What resources will be allotted? How serious is the government in protecting Canadian citizens? Those are the questions we will have to look at and really look to see how strong the legislation will be.

One of the things that the legislation calls for is periodic review of the legislation. I talked about how fast electronic media changes and how fast technology changes. That is why the legislation in particular has to be reviewed on a regular basis so it keeps up with what goes on.

In its main provisions, Bill C-28 introduces a new regulatory scheme and monetary penalties for spam and related threats such as identity theft, phishing, spyware, viruses and botnets, and it extends the rights of civil action of their victims. I know a lot of us have heard these terms, but I thought I would take the time to go through them because they are not always well understood and I want to clarify them.

I went on the Internet itself, to Wikipedia, and got some definitions of the individual terms, because I know there are people listening at home wondering, “This is wonderful, but what exactly does it mean and what effect does it have on me?” We all know about spam, which I will define at the end, but spam is just one part of it.

We hear about identity theft. Identity theft is a form of fraud or cheating of another person's identity in which someone pretends to be someone else by assuming that person's identity, typically in order to access resources or obtain credit and other benefits in that person's name. The victim of identity theft can suffer adverse consequences if he or she is held accountable for the perpetrator's actions. Organizations or individuals that are duped or defrauded by identity theft can also suffer adverse consequences and losses, and to that extent, they are also victims.

Again, identity theft is one of the points that this legislation takes on. We look at the fraud in it. Someone spoke earlier and asked about the Criminal Code. This identifies it, and fraud is covered under the Criminal Code.

The other term that comes up quite often is phishing, not fishing with an “f”, but phishing with a “ph”. Phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Communications purporting to be from popular social websites, auction sites, online payment processors or IT administrators are commonly used to lure the unsuspecting public.

Phishing is typically carried out by email or instant messaging and often directs users to enter details to a fake website that looks and feels almost identical to a legitimate one. When we go somewhere on the web and see something saying it is a certain company, we want to make sure that it is real, that it is what it says it is.

Phishing basically sets up a fake facade that people think they can trust. People input information and then the information is harvested and used to hurt individuals. Whether it is taking their money or identity or causing problems for those individuals, we can see where the problem would come.

The one we hear about often is spam. That seems to be the generic one that covers everything. Spam is the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messaging indiscriminately.

While the most widely recognized form of spam is email spam, the term is also applied to similar abuses in other media, including instant messaging spam, Usenet newsgroup spam, web research engine spam, spam in blogs, wikispam, online classified ad spam, mobile phone messaging spam, Internet forum spam, and junk fax transmissions.

People who have faxes in their offices have had junk fax transmissions come to them. It uses up trees by using paper, it uses up resources by using ink, and it uses up copies that the individual receiving it has to pay for. Sometimes when these transmissions are received in large number, it becomes an expense that hurts.

Social networking spam is something that people are aware of, as well as television advertising and file-sharing network spam.

We have all heard the word “spyware”. Not many people really realize what spyware is. It is a type of malware that can be installed on computers and collects little bits of information at a time, without the user's knowledge. The key is “without the user's knowledge”. Users do not know that this spyware is in their computers and it constantly transmits little bits of information. The presence of spyware is typically hidden from the user and it can be difficult to detect.

Typically, spyware is secretly installed on the user's personal computer, and while the term “spyware” suggests software that secretly monitors the user's computing, the functions of spyware extend well beyond simple monitoring. Spyware programs can collect various types of personal information such as Internet surfing habits and sites that have been visited, but it can also interfere with the user's control of the computer in other ways, such as installing additional software and redirecting web browser activity.

Spyware is known to change computer settings, resulting in slow connection speeds, different home pages, or loss of Internet functionality and other programs.

We have all come across that, where we are working on something and it seems that everything is going along really well, and suddenly everything stops. What happened? There is a piece of spyware that went in there and changed things around. There is a frustration and a cost to the individual.

If someone sitting at home, likely retired, working on a computer, has a fixed income and suddenly he or she has to expend dollars to get the computer running again, there is a direct effect there.

There may be those who ask how that affects them. We have all had the frustration. We have had to bring someone in to fix the problem, if he or she can fix the problem. When the individual gets it running again, that individual has money out of pocket. On a limited income, if one is retired, it really hurts individuals directly.

Computer viruses are something that we hear of a lot. A computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer. A true virus can spread from one computer to another when its host is taken to a target computer, for instance because a user sent it over a network or the Internet or carried it on a removable medium such as a floppy disk, CD, DVD or USB drive.

We see a lot more of that now where we have people coming in with USB drives, collecting the information and then going to another computer. It is a perfect way to spread viruses.

I have a 13-year-old daughter who works on her computer. She brings her homework back. She will input the information and take it to school. She might be bringing back something from the school or someone else might be bringing it to the school. So we can see where a virus can cause a lot of problems for many people.

Viruses can increase their chances of spreading to other computers by infecting files on a network file system or a file system that is accessed by other computers.

One that we do not hear much about is botnets. That is covered under this legislation. A botnet is a collection of software agents or robots that run autonomously and automatically. The term is most commonly associated with IRC bots.

The best way to describe IRC bots is when we go to a website or even an email and think we are interacting with another individual but we are not. With an IRC bot, we are basically interacting with another machine. We think that person is there responding to us. We can see the problems that could cause: someone going to one site, getting answers, building up a trust, and then suddenly finding out it is a machine on the other side.

The other thing that happens with the IRC bots is that one can access a number of people, all interacting with this one machine, so the individual is not duping people, a machine is, and the spread can cause a lot more damage because it is so pervasive.

As well, it does spread some malicious software and it can also refer to a network of computers using distributed computing software.

Anyone who has used a computer can relate to the kind of frustration that this malware can cause in some of these unwanted infiltrations into one's computer.

It is not only frustration. As I mentioned earlier, there can be a real financial loss to the individual who is using that computer and connecting and who will be affected by some of these issues.

Let us take a look at Bill C-28 again, now that we know what some of the definitions are.

Bill C-28 contains four main thrusts. It prohibits the transmission of commercial messages, basically spam, without express consent. The only conditions under which express consent is not required are those where family or prior recent business relationships exist. Messages requesting consent have to provide the names of the sender and the client on whose behalf the message is being sent, contact information for both, and a way to unsubscribe.

Quotes and estimates that are requested are not covered by this, nor are emails or follow-ups on business previously transacted.

There is one loophole or one barrier in this legislation that I would like to talk about. That is in regard to people who are in sales, such as financial advisers, real estate agents, or stockbrokers. What often happens is that they will do business with someone, and at some point, using real estate as an example, the person they are doing business with will say, “My brother, John, is looking for a house. Give him a call or get hold of him. I am sure you can help him out. You have done a great job for me, and John, who is my relative, could use your help”.

This legislation unfortunately does not allow the real estate agent to send an email to that person. He has to get express consent from the individual to whom he will be sending that email.

I was talking about how this legislation has to be reviewed on a regular basis. I think this is one of the areas we are going to have to look at and ask if it really allows business and e-commerce to continue and to flourish. We can see the barriers that are set up and the problems it would cause to people who earn a living in the sales field.

As we see this going on, I think it is important that we monitor some of the effects of this legislation. Maybe in about a year or so we should review it, see what is going on, and see what the unintended effects of this legislation will be.

The bill attempts to curtail phishing, with a prohibition on false or misleading information on the source of an email. The bill also prohibits the installation of programs to operate another's computer or the dissemination of messages on a computer without the individual's consent, and there is the option to withdraw the consent.

As we can see, it goes back to malware, the spam that we spoke about earlier and how this bill will block that.

The bill includes provisions that halt the collection of personal information, by amending PIPEDA, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, to include a ban on collecting or using electronic addresses obtained through a computer program designed for their collection, as I mentioned earlier, the phishing program.

So this legislation does come into play, and there are additional provisions that specify that a tougher regime under FISA take precedence over the existing Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and all the legislation that could apply.

The bill's provisions extend not only to those who violate it, but also to the agents or directors of the corporations who aid, authorize or acquiesce to the violations. The bill follows the money. That is the key right here, because when we look at a lot of this, the infractions and the invasion, it comes right back to money. It follows the money, stripping protection for those who hide behind a corporate shield.

When we look at some of the fines that are out there, the fines could go as high as $1 million for individuals and $10 million for corporations. The bill aims to accomplish ending the practice of spamming.

Will this bill end it completely? I think when there is something illegal going on, it just keeps going and going. What this does is minimize it and at least offer some protection to Canadians when it comes to spamming, phishing and the rest of the electronic malware that exists around the world and on the Internet.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I also wish the bill would be sufficient in the form it is right now. As I said, I look at the consent orders and think they should solve a lot of the problems. I think a lot of people would be reasonable. The fines are good as well. I do not have any problem with the $1 million for individuals and $10 million for companies. However, I do not see how that would solve the issue of somebody declaring bankruptcy and not paying the fines.

Some sort of criminal offence and jail time should be in the bill to stop people like that from spamming. In future, we may have to revisit the bill and add that in.

I want to mention the private right of action. This is another important part of the bill because it creates a private right of action for individuals who have been affected by contraventions of Bill C-28. A person who alleges that he or she is affected by an act or omission that breaches the key provisions of the act might apply to a court for an order of compensation. This is another outlet for people who think an issue is not being dealt with by the government. There would be a private right of action. It is important for those who are watching today to know that.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-28. I enjoyed the remarks by the member for Scarborough—Rouge River. He made some valid observations in the beginning about the fact that the delays of the government in bringing the bill to fruition were in some way unavoidable because of the election. However, sometimes delays can actually work out to one's benefit.

I note that because of this process involving a previous bill dying and then the government re-forming it as Bill C-28, the fact of the matter is some improvements were actually made along the way.

Coming out of the committee there were some improvements, even one that the government made itself as a result of representations made by presenters to the committee. They resulted in amendments to the bill.

I know governments oftentimes introduce legislation and they themselves bring in a number of amendments at the committee stage, so it is a process to get it right, a process that involves in many cases correcting oversights and making amendments as we progress.

At the end of the day, we may actually have a better bill than we would have, had we gone with the earlier versions.

We have not heard from the government very often during these debates. One of the questions I would ask is: How many actual cases have not been dealt with because of a lack of this type of legislation?

This type of legislation has been in the pipe since 2004. There were two senators involved with bills of their own. As has been pointed out, we are the only country in the G8 that does not have legislation of this type at this point.

Therefore I would be interested in knowing what the experience has been with the other countries in the G8, with their type of legislation, and how many consent orders have been dealt with in their jurisdictions and how many fines have been collected. If in fact they have jail provisions, how many people have actually gone to jail in any of those G8 countries?

However we have not had any representations from any government members about those particular issues. Surely we could learn from the other countries that have this legislation. If in fact there has been an increase in one type of activity over another in one of those G8 countries, I would assume that the government would have been quick enough to respond and would have been able to cover that off in our legislation.

Having looked at the legislation, I see it is quite comprehensive. The NDP members support the legislation over and above the questions that we have about it on the issue of the jail provisions. It is quite a substantial bill and deals with many areas that need to be dealt with.

Another point I would like to make is that this is a relatively new area. The technology has expanded so much. It has only been since 1995 that emails have become a regular occurrence and certainly e-commerce has been on the radar only since 1999.

At the provincial level, 10 years ago we were looking at bringing in e-commerce legislation, and in Manitoba around 10 years ago we brought in Bill 31, which I mentioned before in the House, which was the best e-commerce legislation in the country at the time. It was following the Uniform Law Conference. I believe that all of the provinces in Canada have since followed suit and brought in their own type of legislation to deal with those substantial issues.

However, that was a response to e-commerce in 1999 when it was very new and people were reluctant to purchase things online. We brought in some consumer friendly amendments to that bill. One of the provisions was that anyone in the province of Manitoba who purchased a product or service online and did not receive the product or service, the credit card company would have to back it up and compensate the customer.

The credit card companies had some concerns about that but it was something that we copied from at least four states in the United States that had that type of legislation in 1999. Those were the beginnings of e-commerce legislation. Today, e-commerce has burgeoned and exploded in spite of any type of legislation. I do not think I could point to many thousands of people in Manitoba who would even know we put in that protection for them in that bill.

That was only part of why we brought in the bill in the first place. We were dealing with the whole issue of databases, which is very controversial. It was shortly after the Jane Stewart experience in Ottawa with databases. However, what we were trying to do was come up with a common business identifier so that businesses in the country could deal with the federal tax department through a single business number. By doing that, we had to have a legislative framework in place to begin dealing with, not only within the government but within companies in Manitoba and the federal government, taxation issues, making corporate tax payments, the whole issue of T4 slips, records of employment and all those sorts of business type issues.

The governments of the day were looking at low-hanging fruit, things that they could control. They were looking at their own government to start with, but the view was to expand out to the private sector companies to try to make them more efficient and make the government more efficient. Before we went with the SAP computer system, we had no idea that the Department of Industry was giving a grant to a company that was in arrears with our taxation department and not paying its PST. In fact, that was happening. I am not sure what systems are now being used through federal government departments, whether it is SAP or a different ERP system, but we wanted to ensure we knew what we were doing in our own house.

This was a very controversial type of legislation that we had to deal with. We had to deal with the sharing of databases. We had interjurisdictional issues. We also had to deal with the existing silos within the provincial government where each department was saying something different. For example, finance was saying that it could not do this because of certain reasons and justice was saying something else. In each department there were five or six involved in the legislation. Since each one had its own concerns, we needed to get them together and say that this was the way we were going and that we would need to accommodate to the changing environment.

That is a big problem and it is a big problem with the federal government as well.

We have had to do a lot in this whole area and the federal government was under a lot of pressure. Why did it wait so long when seven of the eight G8 countries have had legislation dealing with spam for a number of years?

At the end of the day, it is time to pass this legislation and get it through. Some debate will continue about whether we went far enough. There are some provisions that I will get to later but there are so many provisions to this legislation that it is impossible to deal adequately with them in a 20 minute time period. However, a lot of provisions in the legislation may provide some sort of upset or cost to our nation or to the businesses in the country. We will only know over time whether that will be the case.

I know that in dealing with legislation, governments try to the best job it can to have an open process by having witnesses come before committee to give expert testimony. Provincially, we have a system where we allow almost anybody to come and make a 10 minute presentation on a bill.

Having said that, we would have a similar bill to this where we would do a round of consultations over the course of a year and then we would have the hearings and the press coverage. Still, at the end of the day, a year down the road after we had passed the legislation and had the regulations in force, people in the affected business communities would come forward and say that they knew nothing about the legislation and that it was a total mystery to them. They would accuse the government of bringing in the legislation and causing them a lot of problems without having proper consultation, when in fact we could prove that we did a lot of consultation.

In the spite of the fact that we have done all this work and that it has taken so much time, I still anticipate that we will have some problems at the end of the day with people or companies saying that they did not know about it, even after all of the speeches and the consulting that has been done.

Some adjustments may be necessary. For example, small businesses are very concerned about the relationship they will have or will continue to have with their previous clients. The new laws put some restrictions on how they can deal with their clientele. Before the do not call list came into effect, it was routine for a business to contact its customers, in-house, over the phone or through the mail, regarding other products. However, they cannot do that anymore because it is not allowed.

The way the system works now is that customers need to give their agreement for the business to approach them. This will cause a lot of stress for businesses in the country. Every time the government comes out with a new set of regulations, businesses that are doing what businesses do best, which is conduct business, will need to retool their operations and re-educate their employees on what is involved. There is no end to the questions being asked about whether companies can contact previous clients and under what conditions they can be contacted.

We introduced the do not call registry but the government found that the system did not work so well. I think it is working a little better now. However, in the initial periods, some people who were put on the do not call list found that they were receiving more calls after they were on the list than they were before being put on the list. People were accessing the do not call list.

This bill would deal with the do not call list. As a result of the much improved wording in the bill, the government has the option to phase out the do not call list over a period of time. When that time comes, the government can simply invoke the provision of the act that allows it to eliminate the do not call list. The do not call provisions are covered under this bill.

The bill has a lot of good things with respect to the definitions and the wording. With the volume of clauses and changes in wording that we are dealing with, it is impossible to get into all of the minutia in a 20 minute presentation.

A lot of good improvements have been made to the bill. Three or four years ago, people were not aware of some of the technical terms and technology issues, so it is possible that this legislation will be outdated before it comes into effect.

I have mentioned the issue of fines a few times but I want to deal with it again. I want to look at the case involving Facebook. The fellow who had a $1 billion judgment against him by Facebook for spamming, basically turned it into a media extravaganza for himself. He was on all the national television networks as a result of it. He laughed at Facebook. Facebook spent a huge amount of money on lawyers and chasing him down to get this $1 billion settlement and he just declared bankruptcy. If we are dealing with the likes of that fellow and other people like him, how in the world will we be able to deal with them by passing this type of legislation? Let us take a look at what is being contemplated in this bill in terms of enforcement.

I do not have any complaints about it. It is a good idea to look at consent orders. However, we can always be suspicious of regulators who deal with consent orders because they may show favouritism to their friends or may not fine people who should be fined. People who co-operate and people the regulators like will get a consent order and a cease and desist order but no fine. People not in their favour may get fined.

Nevertheless, let us assume for a moment that consent orders are a good idea and will solve a lot of problems. If the consent order does not work, the backup is a $1 million maximum penalty for individuals and $10 million for corporations. That is not bad but I do not know of any corporation that can afford a $10 million fine that will be guilty of spamming in the first place. These big companies have lawyers. They know the law. They will not be spamming in the first place.

Who we will have spamming are offshore people, people who are hard to catch, people who do not have any assets or people who hide their assets. A consent order will not stop them. Fines will not stop them. It seems to me that only a jail sentence will put the skids on some of these people--

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Madam Speaker, we support Bill C-28 in principle, even though it contains certain elements that we must come to terms with. As I said, it has taken too long to pass this kind of legislation to protect all of our networks and individuals, while the Internet and computer industry are evolving with lightning speed.

We must always remain ahead of the game, because those who use the Internet and spam to do business and hassle people know how to move quickly. As soon as we find solutions, they find new ways around them.

We need to work together. A great deal of spam is sent to Canada and Quebec. It is therefore important to raise people's awareness about this problem.

I have to wonder if users are perhaps too tolerant. They should act quickly as soon as they receive spam that invades their computers and their lives. It should be a spontaneous reaction.

Existing legislation and international agreements do not go as far as they should, but there is always room for improvement. That is precisely what the Bloc Québécois wants to do.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Madam Speaker, I rise here today to speak to Bill C-28, once known as the Fighting Wireless and Internet Spam Act.

I would like to begin by saying that the Bloc Québécois is in favour of the principle of Bill C-28, which was previously known as Bill C-27, but which died on the order paper at prorogation. A number of minor changes have been made, but the overall text, its objectives and key elements remain the same.

New legislation that specifically targets unsolicited commercial electronic messages has been needed and requested by society as a whole for some time now. Governments, Internet service providers, network operators and consumers are all affected by the problem of spam. Preserving the efficiency of legitimate electronic commerce is a vital and pressing issue. Not only are commercial emails sent with the prior and ongoing consent of the recipient important to electronic commerce, but they are also essential to the development of the online economy.

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. On the other hand, we are upset that the legislative process has taken four long years. Computer technology is evolving at astonishing speeds, and spammers keep finding new ways to achieve their goals. Accordingly, consideration of the bill in committee should give many industry stakeholders and consumer protection groups an opportunity to express their views on the proposed Electronic Commerce Protection Act. A number of other points also need to be examined in committee and I will come back to those points later on in my speech.

The task force on spam was struck in 2004 to look into this problem, which is constantly evolving, and to find ways of dealing with it. The task force heard from Internet service providers, electronic marketing experts and government and consumer representatives.

In all, more than 60 stakeholders took part in the discussions, providing input on issues such as legislation and law enforcement, international co-operation, and public education and awareness. In addition to launching an Internet-based consumer awareness campaign entitled “Stop Spam Here” to inform users of steps they can take to limit and control the volume of spam they receive, the task force on spam presented its final report to the Minister of Industry on May 17, 2005.

Entitled “Stopping Spam: Creating a Stronger, Safer Internet”, this report calls for new, targeted legislation and more rigorous enforcement to strengthen the legal and regulatory weapons that Canada could use in the global battle against spam.

The report also supports the creation of a focal point within government for coordinating the actions taken to address the spam issue and other related problems like spyware.

Among the report's key recommendations are more vigorous legislation and enforcement and legislation to prohibit spam and protect personal information and privacy, as well as computers, emails and networks.

The proposed legislation is designed to allow individuals and companies to sue spammers and hold any businesses whose products and services are promoted using these means partially responsible for spamming activity.

In addition, new and existing resources of the organizations responsible for the administration and enforcement of anti-spam laws should be strengthened.

The task force recommended creating a centre to coordinate the government's anti-spam initiatives. This focal point would coordinate policy and education campaigns and support law enforcement efforts. It would also receive complaints and compile statistics on spam.

To curb the volume of spam reaching users, the task force developed a series of industry best practices for Internet service providers, network operators and email marketers. Examples include allowing ISPs and other network operators to block email file attachments known to carry viruses and to stop emails with deceptive subject lines.

As well, email marketers would be required to obtain informed consent from recipients to receive emails, provide an opting-out mechanism for further emails and create a complaints system. The report recommends that these groups voluntarily adopt, regularly review and enhance the best practices.

To help change people's online behaviour, the task force created an online public education campaign called “Stop Spam Here”. Launched in 2004, the website offers consumers, volunteer organizations and businesses practical tips for protecting their personal information, computers and email addresses. The task force recommended that all partners continue to enhance the site's content.

Since most of the spam reaching Canadians comes from outside the country, international measures to stem spam are vital. Therefore, the task force proposed that the government continue its efforts to harmonize anti-spam policies and to improve cooperation among all countries to enforce anti-spam laws.

Four years later, on April 24, 2009, the Government of Canada finally introduced new legislation to protect electronic commerce, namely, Bill C-27. Inspired primarily by the final report of the task force on spam, Bill C-27 established a framework to protect electronic commerce. To achieve that, the bill would enact the new Electronic Commerce Protection Act, or ECPA. Basically, this act would set limits on the sending of spam.

Spam can be defined as any electronic commercial message sent without the express consent of the recipient. It can be any electronic commercial message, any text, audio, voice or visual message sent by any means of telecommunication, whether by email, cellular phone text messaging or instant messaging. Considering the content of the message, it would be reasonable to conclude its purpose is to encourage participation in a commercial activity, including an electronic message that offers to purchase, sell, barter or lease a product, goods, a service, land or an interest or right in land, or a business, investment or gaming opportunity.

Note that the following types of commercial messages, which appear in clause 7, are not considered to be spam: messages sent by an individual to another individual with whom they have a personal or family relationship; messages sent to a person who is engaged in a commercial activity and consists solely of an inquiry or application related to that activity; messages that are, in whole or in part, an interactive two-way voice communication between individuals; messages sent by means of a facsimile to a telephone account; messages that are a voice recording sent to a telephone account; a message that is of a class, or is sent in circumstances, specified in the regulations.

This means that, under this legislation, sending spam to an electronic address—email, instant messenger, telephone or any other similar account—would be prohibited. The only circumstances under which it would be allowed 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. Lastly, the message must include an unsubscribe mechanism, with an email address or hyperlink, so that the recipient can indicate that he or she does not want to receive any further commercial electronic messages from the sender.

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.

There are provisions for administrative recourse. Anyone who contravenes, even indirectly, any of these provisions would be liable to an administrative monetary penalty, or AMP, if the computer used is located in Canada. The maximum AMP is up to $1 million for individuals and up to $10 million in all other cases. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the CRTC, will be responsible for investigating complaints and, when necessary, imposing the penalties. Furthermore, the CRTC will have the authority to apply for an injunction if it finds that a person is about to or is likely to carry out a violation.

In order to carry out these inquiries, the CRTC would have interesting powers. It could require a person to preserve transmission data, produce a copy of a document that is in their possession or prepare a document based on data, information or documents that are in their possession. It could even conduct a site visit in order to gather such information or, if necessary, to establish whether there was a violation under clauses 6 to 9. Note that it will have to get a warrant from a justice of the peace prior to entering premises.

An individual who refuses or fails to comply with a demand under clauses 15, 17 or 19 will be guilty of an offence and subject to a fine of up to $10,000 for a first offence and up to $25,000 for repeat offences. Businesses will be subject to a fine of up to $100,000 for a first offence and $250,000 for repeat offences.

There are also private remedies. Bill C-28 provides for the creation of a private right of action, modelled on U.S. legislation, that would enable businesses and individuals to initiate civil proceedings against any person who contravenes clauses 6 to 9 of the new act.

If the court believes that a person has contravened any of these provisions, it may order that person to pay an amount corresponding to either the loss or damage suffered or the expenses incurred. If the applicant is unable to establish these amounts, the court may order the applicant to be paid a maximum amount of $200 for each contravention, up to a maximum of $1 million.

Bill C-28 also proposes an extension of the co-operation and information exchange powers for anything that has to do with the Competition Act, the Telecommunications Act or the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act.

For example, any organization to which part 1 of that act applies may on its own initiative disclose to the CRTC, the Commissioner of Competition or the Privacy Commissioner any information in its possession that it believes relates to a violation of the act. The CRTC, the Commissioner of Competition or the Privacy Commissioner must also consult with each other and may share any information necessary to carry out their activities and responsibilities in accordance with the act.

Over the years, unsolicited commercial electronic messages have turned into a major social and economic problem that undermines the business and personal productivity of Quebeckers. Not only does spam impede the use of email for personal communication, but it also threatens the growth of legitimate e-commerce.

The Internet has become an essential tool for commerce and communication in general. According to the government, the online marketplace represents an important segment of the Canadian and Quebec economies. In fact, there was $62.7 billion in sales in 2007. In 2009, e-commerce reportedly surpassed $8.75 trillion. But the Internet and e-commerce are also becoming increasingly vulnerable and threatened.

Spam accounts for more than 80% of global electronic traffic, which results in considerable expenses for businesses and consumers. Spam is a real nuisance. It damages computers and networks, contributes to deceptive and fraudulent marketing scams, and invades people's privacy. On a larger scale, spam directly threatens the viability of the Internet as an efficient means of communication, undermines consumer confidence in legitimate e-businesses and hinders electronic transactions. And in the end, everyone loses.

The need for new legislation dealing with unsolicited electronic messages has been urgent for far too long. The Bloc Québécois is pleased to see that Bill C-28 covers most of the recommendations made by the task force on spam. However, we deplore the fact that the legislative process has taken four long years. Computer technology is evolving at astonishing speeds, and spammers keep finding new ways to achieve their goal. In terms of information technology, four years is an eternity.

Consideration of the bill in committee should give many industry stakeholders and consumer protection groups an opportunity to express their views on the relevance of new electronic commerce protection legislation. The committee should also study the exchange of information between the CRTC, the Commissioner of Competition and the Privacy Commissioner. And while we want these exchanges to take place in order to maximize the efficiency of the ECPA, any personal information that is shared must always remain confidential. This is even more critical because this information could be shared with foreign states. The question of vigilance in relation to protecting commercial ties between businesses and consumers will also be studied in committee. And although the ECPA's provisions on this subject may seem to be sufficient, industry evidence must be considered because this legislation cannot slow down the use of the Internet as a catalyst for and facilitator of trade.

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

Madam Speaker, when I was first elected in the summer 2004, spam was a burgeoning issue, but it was something that was focused. Everyone's Internet account was getting inundated with spam and solicitations of a nefarious nature. In 2004 the activity was measured at $130 billion worldwide. One has to wonder exactly how it goes from zero to $130 billion in a very short period of time.

The situation has proliferated to the point where it has become oppressive to individuals who have email accounts and certainly for small businesses with accounts. In dealing with spam and unsolicited emails, we are at a point where the system has been clogged. Now 80% of the information traffic to our computers and PDAs constitutes what we know as spam.

That was then and this is now. Not only has the situation been exacerbated by the fact that so many people are trying to get involved in unsolicited emails and are becoming much better at, the system is allowing them to become much faster and in many cases more elusive. We have several platforms by which people can do this.

As imaginative as we can be when it comes to the world as an extension of who we are, since 2004, we have had the proliferation of social media, such as Facebook and Twitter. Also an abundance of texting has taken place. We know it is not only the computer on our desks at home or at the office, it now travels with us all day no matter where we go because it is much more compact.

Back in 2004, about six months after I was elected, an anti-spam task force was established. At that time, experts were gathered because it was a pressing issue. Let us remember, it is not only the domestic issue at which we are looking. Sometimes we extensively deal in a domestic nature in the House with issues such as the economy, social security, pensions and employment insurance. Sometimes these serve as models for the world to follow, such as our Canada pension plan.

Now we are now completely intertwined with the world. As we know, electronic commerce, or e-commerce, knows no boundaries. It surpasses all that CBSA can put out there. It travels around the globe instantaneously. We are able to connect to the world in a way we never thought possible. I am not saying that is a bad thing. It is absolutely wonderful if we are to achieve a common understanding around the globe. However, it becomes problematic when we have to create domestic legislation to follow suit on international agreements. Therein lies the crux of what we are doing.

Other members have pointed out, and I would wholeheartedly agree, that we are behind the eight ball when it comes to this type of legislation. Legislation has been addressed in other G8 nations and it has gone farther than we have. Now we find ourselves in the situation where we are playing catch up with the rest of the world.

However, that is one issue. We still have to do our due diligence within the House, through debate and committee work, so we can create legislation that has teeth and is effective.

The second phase of this follows from the legislation we create in the House, and that is the enforcement of it, which is very important. This is why the myriad of agencies, as mentioned in this debate, have been brought into this in order to enforce it.

I mentioned the international component of this. Being from the east coast, primarily Newfoundland and Labrador, we have dealt with legislation on an international perspective when it comes to our fisheries. As many past politicians from Newfoundland and Labrador have said, “borders are borders, but fish can swim”, and they swim over borders.

Therefore, the international scope of this issue is much like issues of climate change. Many of the models created to govern our resources are created in international forums. For fisheries, it is the North Atlantic Fisheries Organization, NAFO. For climate change, it is the United Nations and other avenues and even the Council of Europe for that matter.

This agreement has taken place through international governance. Now we have to follow with our own domestic legislation. That goes a long way in cluing up and taking our place in the world to deal with this issue.

I have compiled some background information. My compliments to the Library of Parliament for this legislative summary. I want to congratulate Ms. Alysia Davies for compiling this information. She did a fantastic job. She is with the legal and legislative division, Parliamentary Information and Research Service.

There are a few clauses in the bill that deal with the situation at hand.

Following the work of the task force, we had the first go around with Bill C-27. When it made its way through committee, certain changes were brought forward by the committee, as well as the government and the department, which have been incorporated for the most part. That too follows a great debate. Following the prorogation, the bill died on the order paper. Now we are with Bill C-28 and we will do our due diligence yet once again.

As Bill C-27, it was known as the electronic commerce protection act. We now incorporate items that were added to the former ECPA as government amendments during its original passage when it was Bill C-27.

As with the previous bill, the new bill, called “fighting Internet and wireless spam act”, would amend four existing acts that deal with telecommunications regulation, competition and privacy. Among other changes, these amendments designate the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, commonly known as the CRTC, as the main regulator of the fighting Internet and wireless spam act. Also, both the Commissioner of Competition and the Privacy Commissioner will play enforcement roles related to their respective mandates.

There may be some questions. For example, one question earlier in the debate was about the Privacy Commissioner not being mandated to educate the public. That is a very valid point because then it falls within the realm of justice. That certainly needs to be brought out in the House and we need to have a thorough debate as to exactly who will to educate on what is not right, not legal and what fines may result.

My hon. colleague from Manitoba brought up the idea of prosecution for the sake of criminal charges being laid. Right now we are dealing with just fines, but that too should be addressed. In future, this may be re-addressed in this legislation.

I also want to talk about the four pillars. This is a combination of a process that began with the anti-spam action plan in 2004. That was a private sector task force, chaired by Industry Canada, to examine the issue of unsolicited commercial email, which we now know as spam.

By the end of 2004, spam, which is in many ways the electronic equivalent of junk mail, had grown to encompass 80% of global email traffic. Imagine a mailbox with 80% of its mail being junk mail. Many would say that is already happening, and in some cases I am sure it is.

Nonetheless, 80% is a high number because it is so easy and cheap to put out these emails. Typing something in, either a scam or something close to a scam, and feeding it to the masses electronically is much easier than doing it with physical paper.

The task force on spam led the action plan at a round table of national stakeholders in December 2004. We received feedback through announcements in the Canada Gazette and in a dedicated online forum. It issued a report in May 2005. That report recommended, among other measures, legislation specifically aimed at combatting spam, which we are dealing with today. It is a second incarnation of a spam act. The federal government introduced a first attempt back in the 42nd session.

I want to thank two gentlemen from the Senate who did a lot of work prior to this. First is Senator Donald Oliver. Second is former Senator Yoine Goldstein from Montreal, who did a tremendous amount of work on this issue. We owe both former Senator Goldstein and Senator Oliver a debt of gratitude.

The spam act can be seen as a complement to the e-commerce legislation that has gradually been developing in each of the Canadian provinces and territories over the past 10 years.

We owe a debt gratitude to provincial legislation that started back in 1998 under the uniform electronic commerce act created by the Uniform Law Conference of Canada. The provincial and territorial acts have thus far served as the underpinning for burgeoning e-commerce sectors across the country. We also owe a debt of gratitude to many of the respective provincial ministers for helping us create the bill in front of us today. Eventually we will deal with the enforcement aspects of it.

Basically what came from that, the main federal legislation related to e-commerce, was the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, or PIPEDA, which governs privacy requirements for private sector organizations and electronic documents within federal jurisdiction and in provinces or territories that have not yet established their own similar legislation. This is typical for many pieces of legislation since the inception of Parliament.

As I mentioned, Canada is the last of the G8 countries to introduce specific anti-spam legislation domestically, and a lot of this came from what was negotiated in international fora. Some existing Criminal Code provisions were identified by the task force as being of possible assistance in prosecuting spam cases. The task force worked on this with the Department of Justice and the Technological Crime Branch of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in 2004 and 2005.

This is another element of the bill that should be engaged to a greater degree. We are still on the cusp of understanding the influence that spam emails have around the world. In six years we have come a long way in electronic commerce. We have gone from the nuisance of spam email to Facebook and social media, such as Twitter and other forms of apps, iPads, and so forth. Members get the idea. The platforms are evolving, but the people who are behind the criminal aspect of spam, and some not so criminal, are adapting around the platforms that currently exist. Therefore, it is incumbent upon us to try to keep up to date, to ensure people are informed as to what they can and cannot do and to allow the government agencies, at arm's-length, to deal with the enforcement of these issues.

I mentioned the technological crime branch of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the requirements to bring a charge under the existing provisions. However, when the task force report was published, these provisions had not been used for this purpose, so questions remain around that.

Other agencies, such as the office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada and the Competition Bureau, have received complaints from members of the public about spam as well and there was no overarching framework for addressing such complaints. We can see the genesis of this. At the time, the task force was able to tell them to deal with the issue of the Criminal Code and deal the fact that our government agencies are inundated with complaints and that we have to marry the two. The fine situation we have right now was a result of that. That is something we need to address at a future date.

The legislation would provide a clear regulatory scheme, including administrative monetary penalties, or AMPs, with respect to both spam and related threats from unsolicited electronic contact, including, which is the important part, identity theft, phishing, spyware, viruses and botnets. It would also grant an additional right of civil action to businesses and consumers targeted by the perpetrators of such activities. Therein lies another aspect of taking these people to court. Does it hold enough teeth is the expression and this is what I have a few reservations about.

For descriptions and analysis, clause 2, for example, contains its own definition of what we call commercial activity. It is different from the one in PIPEDA, the legislation that served as the paramount legislation for dealing with spam. It does not modify the existing definition to that act but builds on the PIPEDA wording of “any particular transaction, act or conduct or any regular course of conduct that is of a commercial character”, and adds the qualification “whether or not the person who carries it out does so in the expectation of profit”.

Therefore, we get the incentive for doing this when we talk about unsolicited emails and other nefarious activities that I described earlier, the botnets, the spyware and those sorts of things, because those are the programs that are adapting, for a nefarious nature, to solicit from us money taken under circumstances that consumers would consider to be not right. Therefore, it tries to define that for the sake of profit.

It does reflect an intention to widen the scope of who could be considered responsible under the new law in cases where spamming or other activity occurs, possibly implicating Internet service providers, or ISPs, or even those whose computers are being used for spamming without their awareness or consent. We can see how this has taken place.

A lot of situations have developed since we first started the task force about six years ago that this legislation has to address. A lot of that came out of the committee work on Bill C-27 and now enacted within this. Part of clause 2 acknowledges that.

There are also provisions discussed in further detail, which I will talk about in just a little while, but one of the situations was telemarketers and what we call the DNCL, the do not call list, which members of Parliament receive a lot of calls about. I would say that over the past six years of being here, I have certainly dealt with a lot of that and the bill would address it to an extent.

Eighty per cent of global traffic regarding spamming is an incredible amount of activity. This is what this legislation attempts to address. There are key provisions in clauses 7 to 10 and 13.

One of the situations that subclause 7(6) originally added to the predecessor bill through a government amendment that was before the House of Commons under the industry, science and technology committee specified that the prohibitions on sending a commercial or electronic message do not apply to quotes or estimates for the supply of a product, goods, a service, land or an interest or right in land, if the message was requested by the recipient. Therefore, this bill would not impede on the normal course of e-commerce.

We need to face the fact that those businesses, especially the small and medium size businesses, the SMEs, have been successful through the world of Internet and therefore we want to ensure this legislation will not impede upon their efforts to create business and to solicit in what I would call a way that is consistent with good consumer practice.

[Bruce Hyer, NDP, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise to speak to Bill C-28, the anti-spam bill, which was formerly Bill C-27.

I have often bemoaned the lack of co-operation in the House, but this is one case where members of all partisan stripes seem to agree.

All of us and our constituents have been inundated with unwanted spam at home and at work. Spam represents about 87% of email activity around the world. At best, it is a huge waste of time and energy. It was estimated last year that over 62 trillion, and I am trying to get my head around that number, spam emails were sent out. It is done in a variety of ways. This bill would identify and eliminate some of those ways.

This bill enjoys strong public support. It certainly has the support of the New Democratic Party. This is part of the New Democratic Party's electoral platform to move forward on a number of consumer issues that we want to see implemented as law.

There will be a push to try to weaken this bill. There are some elements in this bill that make it a really strong and good bill for Canadians and Canadian businesses because it affects our economy.

Canada is actually in the top 10 when it comes to generating and receiving spam. Canada is the only G8 country that does not have the kind of legislation that Bill C-28 represents. Once again, we are behind but we can catch up with this bill quite significantly and have one of the better models to deal with this important issue.

Approximately 1 out of 20, or 5%, of the spam in the world comes from Canada. Canada is known as a harbour for some of the big spammers. I believe we stand fourth in the world in terms of spamming, behind Russia and just ahead of Brazil. An Ipsos Reid poll found recently that approximately 130 spam messages are received by Canadians each week. That is troubling because it is up 51% from just the year before. Speaking for myself, both at work and at home I get quite a bit more than 130 spam emails.

It is not just the irritation of removing unwanted messages and solicitations; it is also time consuming. Employers are worried about the time it takes and the cost to their businesses. As a small business owner myself, I know how taxing spam can be on my computer system's efficiency. It puts my computers at risk and lowers my employees' productivity.

Some may argue that businesses have the right to inundate us with these kinds of messages, but really it is a privilege. No one has an absolute right to inundate us with emails, especially when many spammers use malware and other kinds of spyware to gain data on us regarding where we shop online, what our online consumer habits are, et cetera.

Interestingly, the bill provides for windows of opportunity for businesses with existing relationships to make that connection with their customers. One idea is an 18-month extension in terms of a previous existing business relationship. That makes sense. The Bloc moved a motion to extend that grace period on previous business relationships to 24 months. I strongly disagree with extending it to 24 months. Eighteen months is long enough.

Once this law is in place, there will be three regulatory agencies to punish spammers. The CRTC will investigate complaints. The Competition Bureau will slap on fines of up to $1 million for individuals and $10 million in all other cases. The Privacy Commissioner will get involved when people's privacy is violated.

The part about the Privacy Commissioner is important because far too often spammers have used headliners that look like many banks' headliners, and then people click on them, and I have almost done it a few times, thinking it is their bank, but it turns out that it is a spammer seeking to collect data and information on them, perhaps to create fraud.

There have been cases where people have lost money, thinking it was their own financial institution or a legitimate financial institution. They provided access to some of their monetary resources and suffered financial losses. This is shameful and should not be happening in a country like Canada.

There is going to be recourse to show those who bombard us with spam and those who have to deal with it that there will be real punishments, that it will be more than just a fine, that it is going to be significant for them to deal with and hopefully it will help to curb this behaviour.

One of the reasons that the bill will be strong is it would have those three regulatory agencies actively involved in maintaining the accountability of the actual bill. Interestingly enough, there was a bit of a debate about whether or not this bill should deal with the telephone solicitation issues. It would not. However, at the same time, it would allow the minister actually some degree of ability and capability, and quite frankly, a bit more strength to work on the do not call list.

It is also important to note that there was another issue in the bill that was defeated. It is important to recognize that, because it is an issue that people are concerned about. In the original manifestations of the bill there was a provision that would have allowed companies to go onto our computers and seek information regarding that computer site. If we had agreed to them being part of our Internet relationship, we would be consenting or allowing them to go onto our computer and access information and documents, and basically surf through our site, at times unknown to us. That issue was taken off the table as well, thank goodness.

There was great Internet discussion and blogging about this offensive piece of legislation. I was happy to see that this was removed as well. It is important because had that provision been there, as well as the other provisions I have mentioned that were taken out, I do not know whether I could have supported this legislation because it would have weakened it so much. It would have become far weaker than even the do not call registry, which is pretty weak. It is very fortunate that we were able to get consensus and push that back.

As well, there were a couple of amendments that were interesting, and I was rather curious as to how they came forward. We will see whether or not, in the Senate, they will be pushed forward again.

One of them came from the Bloc, and that was the extension of the time to actually opt out of an email subscription. The way it works is if I, for example, agree to receive an email and I have a relationship with a company, or if someone is sending me that information, then I could opt out of that later on. I would just send an email that I do not want to continue this relationship. The way the legislation was, in 10 days, I would be taken off the list. The Bloc moved a motion for it to be 30 days. The final part of the bill is now 10 business days.

If we agree to an email through our bank or somewhere else, they will instantly start spamming or sending information. Once we agree, they start flying in. I have Aeroplan points, for example, from Air Canada, and then boy, that thing rings all the time with all kinds of stuff. I have agreed to that relationship and sometimes it is helpful. Sometimes it is irritating, but I make that choice. To suggest that I want that out and that it would take 30 days to get out of that is absolute nonsense, especially with the sophistication of some of today's programs. Ten business days is more than sufficient time within which to end that relationship.

As well, it is important to reinforce the issues of how serious spam is. Spam is used in crime. Spam is also used in an organized way that affects the whole Internet capacity of the system. We just have to look at some of the botnets. This is like a zombie computer where specific programs are written to go in and turn our computers into a generator for spam, or our email address for someone else who controls a whole grid of computers.

I hope to see the bill passed and I hope to not see it watered down in our unelected Senate. One of the interesting results of the American legislation that was passed was the conviction of Robert Alan Soloway who was arrested in the United States. He was one of the world's largest spammers. Among the 35 counts that he was charged with were not only identity theft and fraud, but also money-laundering.

I want to touch on companies too because some of the market they invest in gets lost or hurt because of spamming. Some of the spamming is very particular, very effective and professional-appearing in imaging and induces people to think it is something it is not, such as, for example, the banking industry as I have already mentioned. It costs the banking industry because it loses customers. People then do not want to trust that company because others have abused the site that appeared to be theirs.

That is why we do not want to lose sight of the criminal aspect of this as well. We must move the bill through as quickly as possible. It has taken long enough to get through committee, despite the noble efforts of my colleague, the hon. member for Windsor West, who has worked hard and smart on the bill.

Let us show Canadians that the government can get useful things accomplished for Canadians.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Madam Speaker, to my knowledge, we have identified those bodies within the government that will have a role on the enforcement side, but we have not identified the resources. This is where we, as legislators, are going to have to be extremely vigilant after this bill has passed in watching how it is executed. The execution will be very much related to the first instances where spam propagators are challenged and action is taken. We will then discover if it takes an eternity to get anything done.

As we go along, we will have to ask whether the three bodies, the CRTC, the Competition Bureau and the Privacy Commissioner, have the adequate resources in order to effectively implement what is in Bill C-28.

At this point, I do not believe those resources have been identified. I think those are simply extra duties that are imposed upon those groups. We will have to be extremely vigilant to make sure that this bill not only has teeth, but that the resources are available to put it into effect.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I stand today in third reading to speak about Bill C-28. I was involved as a member of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology on the bill, which deals with a very important matter. It was known as Bill C-27 at the time and has now progressed to being Bill C-28, and it is very encouraging to see that we are now at third reading.

First of all, I would like to stress that we must act quickly to resolve the massive problem of unsolicited electronic messages, more commonly known as “spam”.

Let us go back to 2003, when the problem was not nearly as bad as it is now. A report at the time concluded that businesses spent $27 billion on expenses related to the IT personnel needed to deal with this plague.

Who of us in this chamber have not experienced that maddening moment when we have opened up our emails and discovered that a fairly large number were unsolicited, were trying to interest us in something we were really not interested in, were trying to sell us something? Who of us have not experienced the time it has taken to get rid of these unsolicited emails? Of course many of us have now had to purchase software to try to control so-called spam, and this is adding to our annoyance with the whole thing. Even today, the ingeniousness of some people still manages to circumvent even the best spam software, and we still occasionally receive spam messages even with that best software.

Spam represents, according to the experts, 60% to 80% of all email traffic around the world. Clearly this situation is a major challenge for consumers, businesses, governments and Internet service providers. Yet the issue at hand is not limited to spam and, therefore, legislation must also remedy the use of false or misleading statements that disguise the origins or true intent of the email, the installation of unauthorized programs and the unauthorized collection of personal information or email addresses.

Whether spam comes in the form of unsolicited emails, viruses hidden in attachments—which is often the case—phishing, misrepresentations or the use of fraudulent websites, the government must take action to ensure that Canada does not fall behind.

How can we be the only G8 country and one of only four OECD countries that has not introduced legislation on spam? No one can deny the magnitude of this problem that goes beyond the simple annoyance of receiving unsolicited emails.

This practice also has huge costs for users in terms of the cost of receiving emails and text messages, as well as in terms of the users' storage capacities. Furthermore, this interferes with computer systems, which can have consequences on businesses, governments and individuals. When spam floods and completely paralyzes systems, these practices have more serious effects than anyone could imagine on the way society functions.

We often do not realize how vulnerable we are, which is why we must act quickly. In this case, there is no point reminding members that when the Prime Minister prorogued Parliament at the beginning of the year, he ruined our chance to act quickly.

The Liberal Party of Canada has not only always been concerned by this serious problem but has been very proactive on this matter. In fact the Liberal government established an anti-spam task force in May 2004 that held public consultations and round tables with key industry stakeholders. This Liberal initiative led to the 2005 anti-spam action plan for Canada, which was a call to action.

The plan comprised specific recommendations, requiring the implementation of legislative measures that: prohibit the sending of unsolicited commercial electronic messages; prohibit the use of false or misleading statements that disguise the origins or true intent of the email; prohibit the installation of unauthorized programs; and prohibit the unauthorized collection of personal information or email addresses.

Bill C-28 and the initiatives announced by the Conservative government followed through on the recommendations made by the Liberal anti-spam task force of 2005. However, it is worth mentioning that Bill C-27, as originally submitted by the current government, contained a number of flaws. Fortunately, the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology did outstanding work and proposed recommendations that significantly improved the bill. With these amendments and with further changes recently proposed in Bill C-28, we believe the bill is achieving its main objectives.

Bill C-28 introduces legislation to deploy most of our recommendations, and therefore we are pleased to say that the government has finally decided to act on the recommendations brought forth by our task force. This said, care must taken and we will continue to monitor the legislation closely to ensure that it does not stifle legitimate electronic commerce in Canada. It is important to emphasize that the fight against spam is much more than just legislation.

The industry committee also discussed how important it is that the government take responsibility for a cohesive approach once Bill C-28 is passed. What good is this law if the authorities overseeing it cannot take action because they lack resources? What specifications will be given to the various entities that will enforce and implement the law?

The minister must submit a comprehensive enforcement plan outlining the roles of these entities, such as the CRTC, the Competition Bureau and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. The fact is that with this many stakeholders, Industry Canada's role as coordinator will be extremely important. We must give this department the proper tools, both from a human resources and an organizational perspective.

In short, it is essential that there be a coordinated approach involving industry partners, affected organizations and concerned stakeholders in order to implement this bill, and it is in this context that the government needs to take action. It needs to provide the mechanisms to ensure that this legislation is enforced effectively. Enforcing this type of law is complex. It needs to be reviewed periodically so that we, as legislators, can cover all eventualities, such as technological advances.

I should also point it that it is becoming essential and urgent to coordinate our legislation with various countries and engage with the international community in order to harmonize measures to achieve agreed-upon objectives. Canada must now take its place and become a leader in this area.

The Liberal task force also recommended that resources be put toward co-ordinated enforcement of the law, since we all know that legislation will only go as far as the capacity and willingness to enforce the law. Hence it is of the utmost importance that the government put appropriate resources into enforcement, in its determination to work with other nations to stamp out spam.

It is also imperative that the government dedicate resources to clearly establish codes of practice. The Liberal Party of Canada will, without fail, be on task to assure that these elements are not forgotten as the process moves forward.

I am confident that we are on the right track. The members of the Liberal Party will continue to work to ensure that this bill is in line with the expectations of the people.

The House resumed from November 22, 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 third time and passed.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member talked about amendments to the Competition Act. It amends the definition of “record” to give it a much broader meaning. There seem to be several additions, including amendments to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act, the CRTC.

I wonder if the member could briefly comment on what are the new roles and responsibilities being brought on to the CRTC regarding Bill C-28. Perhaps he could also, if he has time, briefly comment on the international aspect of it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his comments and question.

Clearly, that is why it is important to refer this kind of bill to committee, since I have never seen a perfect bill. I have been a member in this House for six years, and seeing a bill in which everything has been thought of, everything has be resolved from the beginning and which can be referred directly, without even examining it, now that is rare. I cannot say it has never happened, because sometimes we have had the time to read a bill, only to say that not much really needed to be changed in the end. Generally speaking, however, they need to be examined further in committee to ensure, as the member put it so well, that these kinds of problems are resolved.

Who has not been affected by the kind of messages he mentioned? For instance, a message supposedly sent from a bank or credit union asks for certain personal information and personal identification numbers to resolve an issue with an account, in order to ensure that everything is all right and that there are no problems. Unfortunately, some people are duped by this. Or else there are other kinds of messages from people who claim to be related to very wealthy individuals—for instance, presidents of certain African countries or other countries around the world—who need money. In return, those people will send us even more money. We have all seen these kinds of messages.

Whether Bill C-28 will specifically and completely prevent all fraud of this kind remains to be determined, but we need to conduct an extremely thorough examination of the bill in committee.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments from the member for Richmond—Arthabaska.

I am pleased that the Canadian chambers of commerce have decided to support the bill. I know when it was presented to the House in past machinations of what it is now as BillC-27, a great number of concerns were raised. Amendments have been made. One problem that had been identified with past legislation was the sending out of spam prior to any kind of approval or consent from the recipients. We wanted to prohibit the use of false and misleading statements that disguised the origins or the intent of the email and the insulation of unauthorized programs.

I am sure that every member of the House has received calls from constituents with regard to some of these vexatious annoyances. When one tries do some work on the computer there are these types of things and they are annoying.

Does the member think that Bill C-28 addresses with sufficient rigour the one that is of most concern, the one to prohibit the unauthorized collection of personal information? I know there are various laws to protect personal information. Specifically with regard to the Internet and the use of online services, does the member believe that with the checks and balances this is adequately addressed within the legislation?

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak again to Bill C-28.

My colleagues may think I have become an expert on spam. I want to reassure them and the people who are watching us that I am not a spam expert and I have certainly never sent any spam. I have received spam, though, as I said in my previous speeches on this issue. People who work in offices today, especially decision makers, receive so much spam that there was a need for legislation on this issue, which is why the Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-28, the Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act.

I am not necessarily going to repeat all the criticisms the Bloc Québécois has offered in speeches in the House. But I do want to remind hon. members—and the Conservative member who spoke before me said this himself—that Bill C-27, which preceded Bill C-28 and concerned the same issue, died because the government prorogued Parliament, which is why Canada is so far behind other countries today when it comes to anti-spam legislation.

Better late than never, as I always say, but the damage that has been done is still there. People who have suffered losses, especially financial ones, because of all this spam will never get their money back. It is time to act, and we need to act as quickly as possible. We will see how quickly we can deal with this in committee. We will also see whether the government is willing to listen to people who might have improvements to make to this bill.

The Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-28. We will listen to the relevant testimony in committee. This speech may give me the chance to draw some conclusions, which I had not had time to do. In our speeches, we often get sidetracked and end up not having enough time to say everything we planned to say. As I touched on earlier, over the years, unsolicited commercial electronic messages have turned into a major social and economic problem that undermines the individual productivity of Quebeckers. People all across Canada have the same problem.

Spam is a threat to the growth of legitimate electronic commerce. Clearly, new technologies can be practical. If legal businesses want to communicate by email legitimately, we must not stop them from doing so. However, spam is something else entirely. Fraud is not the only danger. Some companies harass people, which is a huge waste of time for people in offices trying to get rid of these unwanted emails.

Spam accounts for more than 80% of global electronic traffic, which results in considerable expenses for businesses and consumers. In light of this situation, legislation to protect electronic commerce is reasonable and appropriate.

On another note, some clauses of the bill are still problematic. We would like further information about the national do not call list. The current list is doing the job it is supposed to do, and it is used by millions of people. Compliance with the national do not call list required many companies to reorganize their resources and make a large financial outlay. Could we not use the existing list?

I do not know what mechanism might make that possible, but that can be covered in committee. A number of parallels may be drawn between the system proposed for emails and the existing system for telephone calls. For example, I have had my name taken off call lists, but that does not means that marketing companies cannot get in touch with me. There are certain categories of businesses that can do so. Political parties are one example. Since I subscribe to newspapers, they can call me. I am not completely sheltered from receiving calls. However, people who incessantly phone during supper to sell all sorts of things are now breaking the law.

As I said, could we not use this list to cut the cost of creating a whole new list? We will have to wait and see.

It might be worth looking into. Speaking of the do not call list, consumers should understand that registering will reduce but not eliminate all telemarketing calls. There are certain kinds of telemarketing calls that are exempt from the rules. The exemptions include telemarketing calls made by or on behalf of political parties, riding associations and candidates; Canadian registered charities; and newspapers of general circulation for the purpose of soliciting subscriptions.

Telemarketing calls from organizations with whom people have an existing business relationship are also exempt. A person is considered to have an existing business relationship with a telemarketer if they purchased, leased, or rented a product or service in the last 18 months from the telemarketer, have a written contract with the telemarketer for a service that is still in effect or expired within the last eighteen 18 months, or asked a telemarketer about a product or service within the last six months. In those cases, people can expect to receive calls at home.

Telemarketers may also call those who have provided express consent to be called. Express consent includes permission on a written form or an electronic or online form, or verbal permission. The do not call list rules do not apply to telemarketing calls made to businesses.

If you do not want to be called by a telemarketer making an exempt call, you can ask to be put on the telemarketer’s internal do not call list. Every telemarketer is required to maintain such a list and respect wishes not to be called. Organizations conducting market research, surveys, or public opinion polls are not required to keep their own specific do not call lists.

I am explaining all this to say that it is possible to have our telephone numbers taken off telemarketing lists. This list is working well. The very same principle should apply to email. Text messages can also come under this category. I think that Bill C-28 covers text messages as well as email.

I would remind the House that Bill C-28 was inspired by the final report of the task force on spam, which was created in 2004 and did an enormous amount of work. I have already had the opportunity to address some of the 22 recommendations made by the task force. Of course I will not list all of them here in the House, but I have already mentioned a couple of them. I would like to revisit some other, very interesting recommendations. Most of the 22 measures recommended to the government have been accepted and included in Bill C-28.

There are some very interesting recommendations regarding legislation, regulation and enforcement. The federal government was told it should establish in law a clear set of rules to prohibit spam and other emerging threats to the safety and security of the Internet—for example botnets, spyware and keylogging—by enacting new legislation—which will be done when Bill C-28 is passed—and amending existing legislation as required. It is worth noting that this bill also amends a number of other pieces of legislation, including the Competition Act, which I will talk about a little later, if I have the time. Of course this new legislation will affect the Competition Bureau.

It is important for people to know that they will have some recourse when it comes to sending and receiving unwanted emails. This is also covered in the final report of the task force, which was made up of experts, government officials and marketing experts, as well as leading experts in the field of these new technologies.

According to the task force on spam, the following penalties and remedies should be applicable: new offences created should be civil- and strict-liability offences, with criminal liability possible for more egregious or repeated offences. There should be meaningful statutory penalties for all offences listed in the recommendation. They also said that there should be meaningful statutory damages available to persons, both individuals and corporations, and that there should be meaningful statutory damages available to persons who bring civil action. The businesses whose products or services are being promoted by way of spam should also be held responsible for the spamming. Responsibility should also rest with other third-party beneficiaries of spam.

This leads us to the issue of private recourse. People should know that they will have rights once this bill is passed. Bill C-28 provides for the creation of a private right of action that would enable businesses and individuals to initiate civil proceedings against any person who contravenes articles 6 to 9 of the new act; this is found in clause 47 and onward. If the court believes that a person has contravened any of these provisions, it may order them to pay an amount representing either the loss or damage suffered, or the expenses incurred. If the applicant is unable to establish these amounts, the court may order the applicant to be paid a maximum amount of $20 for each contravention, not exceeding $1,000,000. This is found in clause 51.

That may seem a bit high, but in one of my earlier speeches on Bill C-28, I mentioned an individual from Montreal who was found guilty by a California court of hacking into the Facebook social networking site. This individual, who managed to send a slew of spam messages through Facebook, was fined $1 billion. Yves Boisvert wrote about this case in an article in La Presse, which I have quoted here before. The article said that this individual will never be able to pay $1 billion, but it served as a good scare for all those who use websites, social networks and email addresses to defraud or embezzle people and get away with it. These people flood us with unwanted emails or text messages, which are becoming increasingly popular, as I mentioned earlier. We all get them on our telephones. The individual in question in this case will perhaps not pay the fine, but he will certainly not have any desire to start up again.

Bill C-28 also proposes an extension of the co-operation and information exchange powers for anything that has to do with the Competition Act, the Telecommunications Act or the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. Earlier I said that I had some examples about the Competition Bureau. For example, any organization to which part 1 of that act applies may on its own initiative disclose to the CRTC, the Commissioner of Competition or the Privacy Commissioner any information in its possession that it believes relates to a violation of the act. The CRTC, the Commissioner of Competition or the Privacy Commissioner must also consult with each other and share any information necessary to carry out their activities and responsibilities in accordance with their respective acts.

And if agreements are signed to this effect, this information could be given to the government of a foreign state, an international state or government organization or one of their agencies, if the information is useful in ensuring compliance with laws that address conduct substantially similar to conduct prohibited in our laws. It is important that countries continue to consult more often in order to end this scourge of spam or at least reduce it; it will be difficult to eliminate it entirely.

On one hand, agreements must specify that the information can only be used to assist an investigation or proceeding in respect of a contravention of the laws of a foreign state that address conduct that is substantially similar to those I just spoke about. On the other hand, they must ensure that the information will remain confidential and cannot be otherwise shared without the express consent of the person responsible for the communication. These two conditions are fundamental to preserving the privacy rights of those concerned.

I said earlier that it was important to remember why countries enacted such laws, which are becoming increasingly strict. When a new technology comes on the scene, it is not always possible to know exactly how people are going to adjust to it and what powers the courts will have to deal with all the fraud and abuse that can be perpetrated with this new technology. But some countries have reacted much more quickly than we have, and we need to use their experience to help the victims of these unwanted emails. Spam is a real nuisance. It damages computers and networks, contributes to deceptive marketing scams and invades people's privacy. That list alone shows just how serious a problem spam can be.

More generally, spam poses a direct threat to the viability of the Internet as an effective means of communication. It undermines consumer confidence in legitimate electronic commerce and hampers electronic transactions. In the end, everyone loses.

I do not know whether it is because of my age, but when I buy things on the Internet, I am always reluctant to give my credit card number. It always gives me pause. If hon. members are like me, they wonder whether everything is secure or whether someone somewhere is looking at what they are doing on their computers. Maybe I watch too many movies—even though I do not have that much spare time—but I know there are hackers out there who can play around in people's home or office computers. Not only can they create computer problems, but they can also access the personal information of people who are using sites legitimately to purchase items.

In any event, like everyone else I got up to speed and managed to do my banking transactions, my transfers and all that on the Internet. So far, so good. However, before buying anything on the Internet with a credit card number, I check as much as possible to see whether the site is secured. So far, things have worked out well, but I know that everyone knows someone who has been a victim after making this type of transaction. We have to restore public confidence to ensure that those who have a legitimate business can make a living and that consumers can benefit from this properly.

New legislation to regulate unsolicited email has been needed for far too long now. The Bloc Québécois is pleased to see that Bill C-28 addresses most of the recommendations from the final report of the task force on spam.

Since I am being asked to wrap up, the time has come to talk about how we are behind on legislation that has been passed around the world. I am talking about the United States, Australia and Great Britain, for example. We must nonetheless proceed carefully. I invite people to read a very interesting article in La Presse about the Competition Bureau and how it has started to attack social networks. This September 25 article by Isabelle Massé addressed advertising on social networks and the importance of taking action.

I do not have enough time to quote it as much as I had hoped to, but it is worth reading this article that shows that the Competition Bureau has been able to take action. With Bill C-28, other organizations will be able to take even more consistent and concerted action.

As I was saying, it is time to take action.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in my place today to speak to Bill C-28, a bill that passed second reading as the fighting Internet and wireless spam act, or FISA. With this legislation, we would be providing Canadian consumers and businesses with a regulatory and legal regime that would help drive spammers out of Canada but permit legitimate online commerce.

Hon. members will recall that Bill C-28 recently received support from all sides of the House. In fact, several members pointed out the importance of passing this bill quickly. Indeed, we have been working for some time now to produce and implement legislation to reduce spam and related online threats that discourage the use of electronic commerce and undermine privacy.

The origins of this bill, after all, go back to the work of the task force on spam. The task force recommended that strong action be taken against unsolicited commercial emails, as it recognized that spam was becoming more than just a nuisance. It has become the means by which viruses, trojans and worms are spread through the Internet and it undermines confidence in the digital economy.

The task force made its recommendations, and Industry Canada followed up with its own consultations. In the last Parliament, Bill C-27, the electronic commerce protection act, or ECPA, was introduced in April 2009. The House unanimously passed Bill C-27 at third reading last November and it was sent to the other place on December 1, 2009.

The fundamentals of the former Bill C-27 and this Bill C-28 remain the same. With the new parliamentary session, Industry Canada took the opportunity to fine-tune some of the features of the bill before reintroducing it as Bill C-28. For example, given the more focused consent regime in the bill, it was necessary to make it clear that Bill C-28 takes precedence over the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act with respect to consent.

In review by the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, all parties stood behind the principles of this bill and there was good discussion about how some of these principles would be applied. For example, realtors and other businesses would need to change some business practices with respect to third party referrals as a result of requirements for consent in Bill C-28.

Committee members also expressed concern that the government allocate sufficient resources to administer the new rules. As hon. members will recall, the CRTC, the Competition Bureau and the Privacy Commissioner will all have their respective roles in combatting the effects of spam and related online threats. These three enforcement agencies would be able to collaborate with each other and their international counterparts as a result of this bill.

The government has committed that all three agencies will receive additional funding and personnel to fulfill this role. In addition, Industry Canada will establish a spam reporting centre and support the Office of Consumer Affairs at Industry Canada in providing resources for education and awareness.

When it came time to go through the clause-by-clause study, every clause but one was passed by the committee. As per the report from the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, clauses 2 through 92 were carried. Clause 1 was defeated. It would seem that there was unanimous consent in the committee and I believe in the House on the importance of this bill and the effect it would have on countering Internet and wireless spam and related online threats.

However, where the committee could not find its way to agree was on the short title of the bill. As outlined in clause 1, the short title of Bill C-28 is the “Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act”. The name was intended to reflect the concern that cellphone and other wireless spam has joined Internet spam as a source of malicious infections that undermine consumer confidence in the digital economy.

The government does not believe the short title of the bill should impede the progress of a much needed law. Canadians have waited a long time for legislation that would give spammers nowhere to hide in Canada. In the interest of having this bill move quickly through the House and on to the other place, we will support changing the short title of the bill to the name by which it was known under Bill C-27 in the last session.

The short title of the bill has been restored to what it was in the last session of this Parliament when Bill C-27 had succeeded in making its way through the House and to the other place but died on the order paper when Parliament was prorogued last December.

The change to the short title in clause 1 of the bill was the only change requested by the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology. Clauses 2 to 92 remain the same. So we now call the bill the electronic commerce protection act, ECPA for short.

The fact that clauses 2 through 92 passed through the clause-by-clause study without amendment indicates the wide support this bill has from all parties in this House. In fact members from both sides of the House are eager to see this bill pass into law so that we can help eliminate spam and related threats from the Internet and from cell phones.

This bill is about reducing spam and related online threats that discourage the use of electronic commerce and undermine privacy. The Internet has become a powerful medium for communication in the economy, but it has also become more vulnerable with the rapid growth and increasing sophistication of spam and other online threats.

Unsolicited commercial email can carry associated threats like malware, spyware, phishing and various viruses, worms and Trojans. In fact the hon. member for Davenport pointed out during second reading that the Kroll Global Fraud Report maintains that cyber theft has overtaken physical theft as a criminal act.

The Government of Canada is committed to the passage of this bill. Over the past years, it has worked both with the industry committee and in the House to create effective anti-spam legislation as a critical element of Canada's digital economy. The goal has been to make Canada a leader in anti-spam legislation by providing a more secure online environment for both consumers and businesses.

Under the bill before us, the CRTC would be responsible for enforcing the no-spam provisions, the violations involving the alterations of transmission data in an electronic message, and prohibitions against installing software or causing it to be installed without consent.

The Competition Bureau would extend its powers under the Competition Act to prevent misleading and deceptive online practices. The bill contains amendments to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act that would enable the office of the Privacy Commissioner to take measures against the unauthorized collection of personal information through hacking or illicit trading of lists of electronic addresses.

The bill before us would create an effective regulatory regime that would permit legitimate online commerce while protecting consumers and businesses through rigorous safeguards. It would provide powers to the CRTC and the Competition Bureau to administer administrative monetary penalties for those who violate the law. It also proposes a private right of action, which would allow individuals and businesses to take civil action against those who violate the law.

The end result would be to promote consumer confidence in online commerce, by protecting both consumers and Canadian businesses from unwanted spam and related online threats.

We saw one recent example of the power of the right of private action when a California court rendered a judgment against a Montreal-based Internet marketer. The marketer had posted spam messages on Facebook. This judgment was recently upheld by the Quebec Superior Court, which ordered the marketer to pay Facebook more than $1 billion in fines. It is unlikely the marketer will ever be able to pay the fine, but the judgment certainly sent a powerful signal to spammers.

During the debate at second reading, the hon. member for Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor reminded us that fighting spam is not the responsibility only of the designated enforcement agencies but is also the responsibility of businesses, citizens and all members of society writ large. I believe the Facebook judgment demonstrates how businesses are ready to take action against spammers.

The bill before us is part of a wider government strategy to build consumer confidence and put Canada at the forefront of the digital economy.

Last May, the hon. Minister of Industry launched a nationwide consultation on the digital economy. Industry Canada has been evaluating the input and advice, and the minister has indicated he will make further announcements in the coming weeks and months on steps we will take to put Canada at the forefront of digital economy.

We can reduce spam and related online threats through a concerted, co-operative approach involving the public sector and the private sector. We will continue to work closely with our domestic and international partners to address threats to online commerce.

I urge hon. members to join me in supporting Bill C-28.

The House proceeded to the consideration of 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, as reported (with amendment) from the committee.

Business of the House

[John Baird, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, let me make an undertaking to my colleague, the House leader of the official opposition, to make enquiries into that and respond to him in short order.

The House will continue today with the opposition motion.

Tomorrow we will continue debate, and I know the NDP will be excited about this, on Bill C-10, Senate term limits; Bill C-19, regarding political loans; followed by Bill S-3, tax conventions implementation.

On Monday and Tuesday of next week, we will call Bill S-3, tax conventions implementation; Bill C-3, gender equity in Indian registration; Bill C-28, fighting Internet and wireless spam; Bill C-22, protecting children; Bill C-29, safeguarding personal information; and Bill C-30, response to the Supreme Court of Canada decision in R. v. Shoker.

On Wednesday and Friday we will call Bill C-41, strengthening military justice; and Bill C-43, RCMP labour modernization.

Thursday will be an allotted day. I believe this allotted day will go to the Bloc Québécois.

With respect to a take note debate, there have been discussions amongst the parties. There have not been a lot of take note debates. Two weeks ago we had one on veterans issues. I believe next week we will be having one on the issue of pensions, which I know is a concern for all of us, but particularly this was brought forward by the House leader for the official opposition. I believe we are looking at Tuesday night for that.

I appreciate the co-operation we have had from all parties. This gives members an opportunity to bring issues relevant to their constituents forward in the House.

[John Baird, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, today we are debating the NDP opposition motion.

Pursuant to any order adopted by the House earlier today, the vote on that opposition motion will take place on Tuesday, November 16 at the end of government orders.

Tomorrow the House will have the occasion to debate at second reading Bill C-32, Copyright Modernization Act, and the backup bill, should debate conclude at second reading, will be Bill S-9, Tackling Auto Theft and Property Crime Act, which I know is a key priority of the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada.

Next week, as the member opposite said, is a constituency week. I encourage all members to remember and recognize the sacrifices made by the men and women of our armed forces, on November 11.

When we return on Monday, November 15, we will call a number of bills, including Bill C-3, Gender Equity in Indian Registration Act, Bill C-31, Eliminating Entitlements for Prisoners Act, Bill C-35, Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants Act, Bill C-20, An Action Plan for the National Capital Commission, Bill C-28, Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act, Bill C-22, Protecting Children from Online Sexual Exploitation Act and Bill C-48, Protecting Canadians by Ending Sentence Discounts for Multiple Murders Act. We would also consider calling other bills that may have returned from committee by the time we return.

Thursday, November 18, shall be the next allotted day.

In closing, I wish all members a productive constituency week.

Industry, Science and Technology

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 10th report of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology. In accordance with its order of reference of Tuesday, October 18, the committee has considered 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, Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act, and agreed, on Tuesday, November 2, to report it with amendments.

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

It is $12.5 million annually for the application of Bill C-28, once it is passed and becomes law.

Thank you.

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

I have one last question.

We have been talking about the CRTC and other agencies such as the Competition Bureau and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. Do you think these agencies will need supplementary resources when Bill C-28 comes into force, or will they continue to work with their existing staff? I would like your opinion on that. What should be added in terms of budget, resources, staffing?

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

Thank you Mr. Chair.

Thank you ladies and gentlemen for being here today.

My first question is for Ms. DiFrancesco.

First, we know that Bill C-28 was Bill C-27, which was studied in committee and made it all the way to the Senate. However, when the election was called, the bill died on the order paper. You said that Bill C-28 is quite similar to Bill C-27, which suggests that there are some changes. Could you share some of those changes?

I have another question about that. Do these changes come from officials or other entities?

[Janet DiFrancesco, Director General, Electronic Commerce Branch, Department of Industry]

Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate this opportunity to be here today to discuss Bill C-28, the proposed Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act, or FISA.

The bill before you today closely resembles the former Bill C-27, the Electronic Commerce Protection Act, or ECPA, which this committee studied during the last parliamentary session. Bill C-28 builds upon the recommendations of this committee and stakeholders in response to Bill C-27.

FISA, like ECPA, provides a comprehensive regulatory regime that uses economic disincentives instead of criminal sanctions to protect electronic commerce. The measures introduced in Bill C-28 are based on international best practices.

This regime creates new violations to address the threats posed by spam, malware, deceptive online marketing practices, phishing and spyware.

It also allows for private right of action and introduces administrative monetary penalties in order to hold those who violate the Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act—FISA—accountable for their actions.

It also promotes international cooperation by providing authority for the three enforcement agencies, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission—the CRTC—, the Competition Bureau and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, to share information with their counterparts around the globe.

We have provided the committee with a redline version of the bill to make it easier for you to compare FISA with its predecessor, ECPA. The redline version can be found at tab three in the blue binders that you have in front of you this morning.

I can take you through that document, if you like, but I would briefly like to summarize two substantive changes that have been made to the bill.

The first change concerns a new clause in clause 3, which can be found on page 4. The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, or PIPEDA, contains a primacy clause in subsection 4(3) that, among other things, ensures that the consent provisions in PIPEDA take precedence over other acts. However, since the scope of the consent regime in FISA is more precise than in PIPEDA, it is necessary to include this coordinating amendment, which clarifies that FISA takes precedence over PIPEDA should there be any conflict.

The second change that I would point to can be found on page 59 of the bill, in clause 83. It concerns an amendment to PIPEDA designed to address the collection of personal information when a person accesses a computer system without consent. In Bill C-27, this provision applied when access to the computer system was without authorization. Stakeholders expressed concern that the term “without authorization” was too broad, and to address these concerns the provision now applies when access to a computer system to collect personal information is “in contravention of an act of Parliament”. For example, there was concern that hackers might be able to claim that information obtained about their practices from a website could be considered to be collected without authorization simply through the use of the terms and conditions on the site.

Mr. Chairman, it is our hope that the adoption of this bill will provide an opportunity, through a concerted and cooperative approach involving the public sector and the private sector, to reduce spam and related online threats. At the same time, the bill will permit us to work more effectively with our domestic and international partners to address threats to online commerce.

I would be pleased to take the committee through a more detailed examination of the changes highlighted in the redline version of the bill that has been provided to you, or, if you prefer, we can simply be prepared to respond to questions.

Thank you.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you. I wasn't intending to ask the question, but you opened that door on Bill C-28 and Bill C-29.

I'd be the first to acknowledge that I'm not an IT expert, and my questions will probably show that quickly enough.

If Google can inadvertently capture this Wi-Fi payload data while a car is driving down the street, how can I be assured as a private citizen that some IT expert with malicious intent could not go down my street, do a personal investigation on my data, and use it for something other than proper purposes?

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here today.

I wanted to follow up Bill C-28 and Bill C-29. I take it from your comments that you are very supportive of the measures in those bills that are before Parliament right now.

[Patricia Kosseim]

That's a very nice question. Thank you.

We may take you up on that on further reflection and send those recommendations back to you. I'm sure our office would be pleased to do so, but let me offer a few suggestions right off the bat, if I may.

The first thing I could say is to echo what has been the key message of the commissioner and her international counterparts, which is to impress upon all organizations--but especially model organizations and world trendsetters like Google--that they must take proactive measures to avert risks before the deployment of products and services occurs. This is a key message; if you were to echo it, I think it would be very helpful.

There are other things being contemplated by Parliament right now that would go a long way in assisting in where we go from here. One of those is to afford the commissioner with the powers and the authority necessary to share information about ongoing investigations with her international counterparts, so that she can compare notes with her German and U.K. and Irish and Australian colleagues and discuss what we have found, what they have found, and what we need to do collectively to stop something in its tracks.

Currently, she cannot do that, but Bill C-28 would afford her with the powers to share and exchange information and collaborate even more meaningfully than she can now with her international counterparts to deal with these global issues.

Another change going from here currently to Parliament would be to give her discretion to choose which complaints she goes forward with. Right now she must investigate all complaints, which takes an awful lot of resources, as you know. If she were afforded with the discretion to set priorities and decide where the real risks are, to take some complaints or not investigate other complaints, then she could afford and allocate resources much more meaningfully to get at the big risks--such as Google, in this example--and allocate her resources accordingly. That discretion would help.

Finally, another change before Parliament is Bill C-29, the amendments to PIPEDA. As you know, these amendments would make it mandatory for organizations to notify of breach. This would go a long way towards bringing these instances out into the open to be able to deal with them.

[Patricia Kosseim]

I'll answer the first question, with your permission, Mr. Chairman, and then I'll ask my colleague to answer the member's second question.

First, was it crazy to say there was a mistake? Yes. Should that mistake have been prevented? Yes. Had Google adopted procedures to ensure such a mistake would not occur? Yes. Were the procedures followed? No, and that's where the commissioner reacted more strongly, for Wi-Fi, as in the case of Google Buzz and Google Street View. The commissioner's key message was that, when these new technologies are developed, the procedures to ensure protection must be put in place and followed from the product design and development stage, not just when an error occurs. That's the key message. These measures must be immediately followed and there must be control mechanisms to ensure they are followed in every case.

Would it be preferable to harmonize reactions to the various technologies developed by Google? That is the wish of many commissioners around the world who have powers in the privacy field. They increasingly want to work together to face large global businesses like Google. Now, the possibility of doing so varies from one commissioner to the next since they don't all have the same powers regarding the exchange of information with their counterparts elsewhere in the world.

Consequently, with regard to Bill C-28 before you, the Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act, it would make a key amendment to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act that would enable our commissioner to freely exchange the information that she receives in the context of her investigations with her counterparts elsewhere in the world so as to be able to react in a more concerted and harmonized manner and deal with large businesses such as Google.

With your permission, I'll ask Dr. Patrick to answer your next question.

Safeguarding Canadians' Personal Information Act

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Minister of Industry]

moved that Bill C-29, An Act to amend the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise in my place today to begin second reading of Bill C-29, the safeguarding Canadians' personal information act.

I would like to thank those following me on Twitter for being so patient. I have been telling them I was going to be rising to speak on this bill for about an hour now. They can rest assured that I am fulfilling my responsibilities as industry minister as I debate this bill.

This bill is about privacy in the digital age and is, therefore, an important element of Canada's emerging digital economy strategy.

Internet technology has brought many benefits and has changed our society in sometimes profound ways. It has made distance irrelevant for many and improved our overall quality of life. It has changed the way we communicate with one another, how we network, how we socialize with another. It has revolutionized our economic models, transforming how businesses, large and small, manage their supply chains and expand their reach. Businesses use the Internet to customize their products and manage relationships with their customers.

However, the digital economy has challenges as well as benefits. The Internet can be used to broaden a company's marketing base and collect a great deal of information. Most of this information is personal, and many would prefer that it remain private. There is basic information such as names, addresses and dates of birth. There is also very personal information about health, criminal records and credit card numbers.

So in the wrong hands any of this information could be used for malicious purposes, such as identity theft or bank fraud. But even when not used for malicious or illegal purposes, the unauthorized revelation of personal information to outside third parties constitutes an invasion of the privacy that most Canadians value highly.

We want to ensure that concerns about privacy and the protection of personal information do not undermine the potential of the digital economy to continue to change our lives for the better. After all, some 80% of Canadians use the Internet and 88% of businesses are online. The total value of online commerce in Canada in 2007 was $62.7 billion. We want to grow that business, and to do so we need to establish an environment of confidence and trust in online transactions.

Currently in this place Bill C-28, the fighting Internet and wireless spam act, is under consideration as well. It would provide a solid foundation for combating spam and various forms of malicious Internet activity. That bill, together with the bill I rise to support today, is part of our agenda for putting Canada at the forefront of the digital economy.

PIPEDA, as it is called, has codified in law a set of privacy principles that had already been well established. The Canadian Standards Association model code for the protection of personal information provides the foundation for privacy protection, no matter what the technology.

The standard was developed through careful consideration among government, industry, consumers and privacy advocates and has been recognized internationally. In fact, international recognition was an important concern when building the PIPEDA regulatory regime.

One of the early tests PIPEDA faced was whether the European Commission would recognize that it provided adequate privacy protection for the purposes of the EU data protection directive. The European Commissioner has recognized PIPEDA's regime. As a result, organizations subject to PIPEDA can receive personal data from EU member states. I point this out as an example of how framework laws such as PIPEDA, our privacy protection legislation, are essential for the competitiveness that we need for the digital economy.

PIPEDA's flexible, principles-based approach has allowed the Privacy Commissioner of Canada to examine challenges to our privacy posed by new technologies that collect and store massive amounts of personal information. We have become international champions of privacy in the age of social media.

PIPEDA is a very effective component of the legislative framework. But a good law can always be made better. Thus, it must be reviewed every five years.

The first such review was completed by the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in May 2007. I want to reiterate the thanks to the committee that were given at that time by my predecessor as industry minister, the current Minister of the Environment.

The committee heard from 67 witnesses and considered 34 submissions from individuals and organizations. The report concluded that PIPEDA does not require major changes at this time, but at the same time it presented 25 recommendations addressing issues raised during review.

In October 2007, the government tabled its response to the report; it dealt with each of the 25 recommendations. Even though no substantive changes are required, our government made a commitment to amend the act in keeping with a number of the report's recommendations. We will also work with stakeholders to ensure that the changes made are as effective as possible.

To guide the government's approach to this commitment, Industry Canada organized more than 25 meetings with stakeholders. It met with businesses, consumer and privacy advocates, Canada's Privacy Commissioner, the provincial governments and enforcement agencies. The department also received 76 written representations in the Canada Gazette after the consultation process.

The bill before us responds to the recommendations of the committee and to what we learned from the Industry Canada consultation. The amendments contained in the bill will further enhance Canada's reputation as a world leader in privacy protection. We will maintain one of the world's most effective regimes for the protection of personal information in the digital age.

The amendments before us can be divided into four broad categories designed to do the following: protect and empower consumers, clarify and streamline rules for business, support effective law enforcement and security investigations and address technical issues.

Let me summarize. First, to protect and empower consumers we have added new provisions to the act and amended existing ones. To protect the privacy of minors online, we have enhanced the consent provisions.

Under the amendments before us, consent is only valid when obtained from an individual who can reasonably be expected to understand the nature and consequences of the transaction or the communication being proposed.

To help deter financial abuse, locate injured, ill or missing persons and to help identify the deceased, the act will be amended to allow for disclosure of personal information to the relevant authorities or the next of kin. Financial organizations, for example, would be able to contact law agencies, friends or family members of individuals who are suspected to be victims or potential victims of financial abuse. This is in response to situations commonly referred to as elder financial abuse.

Even more important, this bill will introduce new requirements. Organizations will have to report significant breaches to the commissioner and notify the people affected when a breach poses a risk of harm.

This is a risk-based approach to providing notifications of privacy breaches. It recognizes that not all breaches pose a risk to consumers. It also recognizes the risk of too many notifications. In fact, consumers might not respond appropriately when a breach poses a real risk. With this approach, the commissioner is informed of the nature and extent of privacy breaches so that she can monitor and defend privacy issues.

The second broad category of amendments will clarify and streamline rules for businesses. We are making these changes in response to calls from business to help clarify their responsibilities under PIPEDA. They will help businesses comply with the law.

These amendments will ensure access to information that is critical to the regular conduct of business. This will facilitate such functions as managing employment relationships and conducting due diligence for business transactions, such as mergers and acquisitions.

The amendments would also allow employers to disclose, as required, professional information, including emails, that their employees produce in the course of their daily activities. The new provisions will facilitate the legitimate activities of the public and private sectors, in the financial sector, for the purposes of investigations and fraud prevention. In accordance with the government's paper burden reduction initiative, these provisions will replace a tedious regulatory process.

The third broad category of amendments will support effective law enforcement and security investigations. These amendments remove barriers to investigations that were unintended by Parliament when PIPEDA was enacted. They will clarify that the act allows organizations to collaborate with law enforcement in situations where there is no warrant.

Amendments will also prohibit organizations from notifying individuals, without prior approval from law enforcement, that the police have requested information about them. This will help prevent the disappearance of suspects and the destruction of evidence.

PIPEDA of course, the current privacy legislation, is a good act. It has put Canada at the forefront of online privacy protection, but we can and we should make a good act even better. The House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics created a road map for us in its report. We are following that route, and with the further help from the advice of the Privacy Commissioner and the many individuals and organizations who have consulted with Industry Canada over the past two years, we will do so.

Taken in a broader context, these amendments are part of a much bigger initiative to put Canada at the forefront of the digital economy. Our economic performance in the 21st century will depend in large part on the trust and confidence Canadians have in online transactions. From the foundation of that trust and confidence, we can build a digital economy that will bring prosperity and quality of life to Canadians for generations to come.

With this in mind, I encourage all hon. members to join me in supporting the bill.

[Jennifer Stoddart, Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

It's a pleasure to be back before this committee after the summer recess. I welcome this opportunity, because since I've last been before you, I have released two annual reports to Parliament. The topic for today is the findings in my two annual reports.

First of all, Mr. Chair, the annual report on the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, known as PIPEDA, Canada's private sector privacy law, was tabled in June of this year. As you will also recall, Mr. Chair, we presented our most recent annual report to Parliament on the Privacy Act just two weeks ago.

Over the next few minutes, I propose to offer to the committee some highlights from those reports and some highlights of our work over the past year. Then I would be happy to take all the questions members of the committee may have.

First is the Privacy Act annual report. I will mention parenthetically for the new members of the committee that the Office of the Privacy Commissioner administers two privacy laws, one in the public sector and the other, the more recent, in the private sector. I'll start with the report on the one on the public sector, which is the one we released in September.

The Privacy Act report of September traced our efforts to safeguard privacy rights in the face of two key challenges: rapidly evolving information technologies and the pressures of national security and public safety measures. On the whole, it is safe to say that most public servants take good care of the personal information entrusted to them by Canadians.

Still, and unfortunately, there were some exceptions. One complaint to our office, for instance, involved the unauthorized access by Canada Revenue Agency employees to the tax records of prominent Canadian athletes. While such a breach cannot be undone, it did lead the Canada Revenue Agency to update its audit capabilities to better control access to personal information.

I now want to talk about wireless and disposal audits. The annual report also summarized two privacy audits we undertook during the year.

One found significant shortcomings in the way government institutions dispose of surplus computers, with many still containing sensitive data. We also discovered that documents are shredded by private contractors without the necessary degree of government oversight.

A second audit of the use of wireless networks and mobile devices of five federal departments and agencies uncovered numerous gaps in policies and practices that could put the personal information of Canadians at risk.

I will now move on to Veterans Affairs. Just a few weeks ago, we announced plans to conduct another privacy audit—this one of privacy policies and practices at the Veterans Affairs Department. This, as you know, was sparked by concerns that came to light during our investigation of a complaint launched by a veteran who has been an outspoken critic of the department.

Our investigation determined that the veteran's sensitive medical and personal information was shared—apparently with no controls—among department officials with no legitimate need to see it. The information then made its way into a ministerial briefing note about the individual's advocacy activities, something I deemed entirely inappropriate.

We are still working out the scope of the audit. We hope, though, that it will provide guidance as the department implements the recommendations stemming from our investigation.

In June, we also published our findings in an important audit on the private sector side. This one was triggered by a string of serious data breaches among Ontario mortgage brokers that compromised the personal information of thousands of Canadians. Our audit under PIPEDA found that the breaches caused several of the brokerages to take further steps to better protect personal information.

And yet, we determined they had not gone far enough. Indeed, our audit raised concerns about data security; the haphazard storage of documents containing personal information; inadequate consent by clients; and a general lack of accountability for privacy issues.

The audit was summarized in the PIPEDA annual report, which also highlighted the challenges of enforcing privacy rules in a world where data flows readily and instantly around the world.

I would like to talk now about Google Buzz and a bit of our international work.

We recognize that addressing this global challenge will demand agility and resourcefulness on the part of all privacy authorities. That is why, when Google disregarded privacy rights in the rollout of its Google Buzz social networking service last February, we opted for an innovative alternative to our conventional tools of audit and investigation.

Instead, we led nine other data protection authorities from around the world in an unprecedented--and I think highly effective--tactic: the joint publication of an open letter that urged Google and other technology titans entrusted with people's personal information to incorporate fundamental privacy principles directly into the design of new online services.

We are engaging with global partners in numerous other ways as well. Last month, for instance, we joined other data protection authorities from around the world to establish the Global Privacy Enforcement Network, which aims to bolster compliance with privacy laws through better cross-border cooperation. Later this month at an international conference of data protection privacy commissioners, I will be co-sponsoring a resolution that would see privacy considerations become embedded into the design, operations, and management of information technologies--or at least that is the wish.

A couple of our other files are of great interest to many Canadians: Google Wi-Fi and Facebook. Just this morning, we released our preliminary findings in an investigation of Google's collection of Wi-Fi data by a camera car shooting images for the company's Street View mapping application. We have learned that while collecting Wi-Fi signals, Google had also captured personal information, some of it highly sensitive. The collection appears to have been careless and in violation of PIPEDA. We are making several recommendations that would bring Google into compliance with Canadian law and help safeguard the privacy of Canadians.

But Google isn't the only major technology giant we have had concerns about during the past year. In September, we were able to wind up an investigation of Facebook that was heavily publicized last year. In 2009, Facebook agreed to make certain changes to its site, which took a year to fully and satisfactorily implement. This concluded lengthy and intensive discussions between my office and Facebook, which eventually led the social networking company to significantly boost the privacy protections available on its site.

As we look ahead, I'm looking forward to many other initiatives to strengthen the privacy rights of Canadians. You will, of course, be familiar with two pieces of legislation currently before the House that are of particular interest to my office.

Bill C-28, called FIWSA in English, the anti-spam legislation, would give us important powers to control which cases we investigate and permit the sharing of information for the purposes of enforcing Canadian privacy laws. Earlier I mentioned the Global Privacy Enforcement Network, the group of data protection agencies who together are working toward ensuring better compliance. For us to be an effective member, we need the ability to share information with our international counterparts when necessary, and the provisions in this bill will assist in making that possible.

Bill C-29, meanwhile, would amend PIPEDA to, among other things, make breach notification compulsory for private sector organizations. Over the longer term, we welcome the next statutory review of PIPEDA. We will be publishing in the near future a draft report on the comprehensive public consultations that we hosted this spring on such cutting edge topics as tracking people's online activities by companies, and cloud computing. While this report is not our contribution to the PIPEDA review, the consultations raised issues that we will need to focus on for that review, which starts in 2011.

On the public sector side, we continue to advocate for a long overdue modernization of the Privacy Act, which was passed in 1982. Some of you may remember that 1982 was the year that the first affordable home computer, the Commodore 64, hit the market, and we lined up at movie theatres to watch E.T.

We're also working with experts to develop privacy policy guidance documents for decision-makers working in four key areas. The first, focused on national security, should be ready for publication in the near future, with others to follow in the areas of information technology, genetic technology, and identity integrity.

I hope, Mr. Chair, that I have been able to give you an overall sense of our activities over the past year. I would be happy to respond to your questions.

Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise on this bill, which is now Bill C-28 and was Bill C-27. As has been indicated before, it has been a very long time getting to this point, in fact, several Parliaments and elections, to the point where Canada is pretty much last in the line of modern developed countries that have such legislation.

I listened very carefully to what the member for Timmins—James Bay had to say. He talked about the lack of a broadband strategy on the part of the government and he is absolutely correct. There are many things the current government could have been doing. There are many things that the former Liberal government was doing when John Manley was industry minister.

There are a lot of innovative ideas in the marketplace. For example, a few years ago it was discovered that school boards, some in the United States, were able to set up dark fibre co-ops. In the past the school boards had been under contract with the telcos and were leasing their broadband from the phone companies. They turned the whole relationship upside down. By the school boards doing their own dark fibre builds, they were able to offer gigabyte Internet access and they sold space to the very telcos that they had been leasing from before.

There is nothing difficult about this. The reality is that the fibre can be laid out on the ground or it can be put through the air or through trenches. Trenching is the most expensive way of laying dark fibre.

In rural communities, for example the community of Churchill in my home province, the government does not have any difficulty because the government has crown lands to work with and rights of way at its disposal. A government that is interested in taking the bull by the horns can mandate in very short order that dark fibre be laid over crown land through pipes that the provinces own. It does not have to make the type of effort that private industry has to.

When a private telco wants to lay fibre, it has to negotiate with the landowners. It has to negotiate rights of way. It is a very involved process. The government has none of that to contend with.

Unfortunately, what has happened in this country is that over the years governments have bowed to the pressure of the telcos that want the good customers. As soon as the government tries to develop a proper broadband strategy, the telcos knock on its door and say that the government cannot do that because it is against the principles of free enterprise. The telcos want the right to offer this service in cities and urban centres where they can run the final mile very cheaply to people's homes. They want to be able to offer that to residents and to control the pipes to the hospitals and schools so they can make tons of money, but they do not want to do it in rural areas. They do not want to do it in the north.

That is the conundrum that governments have faced. While they could have taken charge in a more determined way, they have tended to piece off the private companies within their jurisdictions. They have allowed telcos to take some good sections and then the governments are stuck with the less profitable areas.

Even so, I still say that all is not lost. Fibre is cheap. Fibre is not expensive and is easy to build. We had four or five examples of co-ops and school boards in the United States that developed their own fibre. They took the cost of the fibre, turned it around and not only leased out their extra capacity but they still had enough capacity in their system to fulfill their own needs for free and at much faster rates.

What will happen when the final mile is completed and the thick fibre exists, rural hospitals, for example, will be connected. The last time I toured Brandon Hospital, which is in a city of about 50,000 people in my province, it was still sending the electronic imaging for medical tests by bus to one of the smaller hospitals in Neepawa, which I believe is the closest hospital. That should not be the case. Once we have a proper broadband strategy, those images will be sent electronically, rather than being put in a can and sent on a bus to another hospital. They will be able to be sent electronically to the hospital. That is what we are talking about here.

That is what the member for Timmins—James Bay was alluding to when he talked about the broadband strategy that we do not see the government making efforts toward. I am not a big fan of the previous Liberal government but when it comes to issues like broadband, at least there was a pulse in that government. We do not hear anything from the current government.

Let us take a look at the whole area of government online programs. Ten years ago, in 1999, the prime ministers of Great Britain and Australia would put their vision statements on a website indicating where they saw government online programs rolling out and developing over the next 10 years.

I remember putting a resolution before the Manitoba legislature that government programs should be online by the year 2010 and that they should be transactional. It was recognized that there was no point in putting all government information online. There would be tons of information online, some usable, some not, but the true goal was to offer government services on a transactional basis. For example, a student applying for student aid or a student loan would not have to ride the bus from Sudbury to Toronto, for example, to have the privilege of standing in line at a government office to fill out an application.

There was a student aid online program set up in Manitoba, probably 10 years ago, which worked from the very beginning. It worked from the very beginning because it was a low-hanging fruit that dealt with youth. If it had been a program for senior citizens who were less inclined to use computers, it might not have worked so well. However, it worked very well because we were dealing with people who understand computers, who have worked with computers in their daily lives and in school settings since they started school. It was natural for the government to put student aid online. That is an example of a program that worked very well.

Those sorts of programs should have been replicated right across all jurisdictions. We should not be offering them in one province and not in another. The provinces had to get together to talk about whether they could share these programs. I have always said that the national government, rather than individual governments, should pay for one national computer program to be used in all the hospitals across the country. We had software developers in my own province getting a grant from one arm of the government, the Department of Industry, to develop a software program and then turn around and sell it to individual hospitals. The taxpayers had the privilege of paying for a certain software program that was already paid for in part by the taxpayers through one arm of the government to pay multiple times as each hospital bought the program.

That made no sense at all to me. Where was the direction and leadership of the government. There were some signs under the latter part of the Paul Martin government that it was showing some interest in developing programs that could be used on a national basis.

We did encourage the provinces to get together and exchange programs, which worked to a certain extent, but it fell down because of the silo effect. People in their own little silos in their own parts of the government refused to co-operate with anyone else. We would hear arguments that it was contrary to the legislation, that it would need to alter it to the legislation in its jurisdiction or that it did not meet its capacities.

However, there were these off the shelf programs. For example, the Securities Commission in Alberta had a program that Manitoba could simply adapt because it was exactly what it needed. However, we found a lot of silo thinking where people would say that was specialized for Alberta and that they needed to have their own made in Manitoba.

In many ways we find ourselves working against ourselves and perhaps that is why the system is not as advanced at it should be.

A few minutes ago my colleague mentioned consumer legislation. In 2002 in Manitoba, we put together bill 31. I was asked to be the coordinator of it. We had to pull in all the people from four or five departments and we had that typical silo problem. Before we got them together in one room, we heard all the reasons that it could not be done or could never be done. We called them together in one room and asked them what their problems were. In a group environment they did not have a problem.

Therefore, we proceeded with a very big omnibus bill. As a matter of fact, it was designed and crafted under the Uniform Law Conference of Canada suggested wordings and it was the most comprehensive of its type in Canada at the time.

One of the things that got the bill moving a lot quicker was the idea of putting in some consumer legislation. We discovered that there were between one and four states in the United States that had laws that said that if people did not receive their product or service that they ordered on line that the credit card companies would be held responsible to reimburse them. That sounded very intriguing. That was 10 years ago. That was at a time when Internet commerce was still in its infancy and we were trying to encourage it in Manitoba. However, we did not want people to be afraid of it and think that somehow if they bought something on line and they did not get it they would be out their money and would not know how to retrieve it.

In bill 31, we made the credit card companies responsible for any Manitoban's purchases online and if they did not receive the product or the service, the credit card company would be responsible.

Can anyone guess what happened? We went to committee and we heard from the credit card companies. Some of them were not too happy about this but Visa, which is a very big organization, did not put up that much of a fight.

We put forward that particular piece of consumer-friendly legislation and we put forward other pieces of consumer legislation but the reason we brought in this legislation in the first place was to streamline the government and make it more efficient.

We were trying to use the common business identifier. In the old days, the federal government and the provinces were using their own business numbers. We had situations in provincial governments where people were not even paying their PST or GST to the government and, in fact, were in receipt of grants from other parts of the government. This was an intolerable situation and it is something that should never happen.

Therefore, by having a common business identifier and a centralized computing system, we were able to tell if a person had applied for a grant from a certain department and whether the person was in arrears on his or her PST or whether the person owed the taxpayers all sorts of money that he or she had not paid back through taxes. We were trying to put a stop to that. We were also trying to make the system easier to use for businesses so they could file their returns. We were cutting down the paperwork involved in business.

The Conservatives just love to talk about red tape. One of the first things Conservative politicians love to talk for hours about is reducing red tape. The former member for Portage--La Prairie, who was in this House for several years, made his career on cutting red tape in the Manitoba legislature. He also made his career on eliminating the pension plan in the Manitoba legislative assembly. I can tell the House that it was not a very happy group of former MLAs when he moved to the federal scene and proceeded to collect his own federal pension when they in fact had lost their own, but that is an aside.

Nevertheless, the legislation before us today is long overdue. As a matter of fact, we have a danger here that this legislation will need to be re-tweaked. As I mentioned at the beginning of my speech in response to some comments by the member for Timmins—James Bay, nothing in this bill involves any criminality.

We just had a case in the last two weeks where Facebook got a judgment against a Canadian guy for $1 billion. He did a huge amount of spamming on the Facebook system and has made a hero out of himself by getting all kinds of free publicity around the world. What has he done? He has simply declared bankruptcy. We could go to all this trouble of finally passing this bill after all these years and find out that it is totally ineffective when we have people running huge spamming operations in this country right under the noses of the authorities and then, when they finally do end up in court and get sued, they just simply declare bankruptcy and are gone or simply change countries.

Clearly, if we are passing legislation now, we should ensure there are enough penalties in here that will make people responsible and try to correct the behaviours that we are seeing.

However, as we indicated, there are bigger issues. This is an important issue and we need to deal with it, but the member for Timmins—James Bay talked about the other areas, such as the broadband strategy that is lacking from the government. The vision on broadband is very vital to this country and especially to the survival and development of rural Canada. There is also the whole issue of government online programs, which we hear nothing about from the government.

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

Mr. Speaker, I was saying in regard to Bill C-28 that there is a lot of spam and I defined what spam is. I have the pleasure now of putting all that in the current context because intrusions into people's private lives are nothing new. Companies and corporations tried for decades to sell their products through publications people received in the mail. That was an intrusion into our private lives but a fairly minor one in comparison with the spam we receive directly on our home computers. First of all, intrusive junk mail could be eliminated because there were ways of doing that and second, it amounted to only a small fraction of the mail we received, while the amount of spam we get can sometimes exceed the number of legitimate e-mails on our home computers.

Things certainly change over time. Back in the days when there were only postal deliveries, concern about intrusions into our private lives focused almost exclusively on government intrusions. We all remember such great novels as George Orwell’s 1984 and other similar works. Nowadays, intrusions come much more from the business world. This is a new threat. I did not say that the fear of government intrusion has disappeared, but it is just one of a number of possible intrusions into our private lives. There are some recent developments, such as Facebook. Concern about intrusions into our private lives is now greater than the fear of government intrusion. We are afraid of intrusions by our neighbours, friends, relatives and family. They can get right into our private lives. That shows just how fast things are changing.

And then there is the task force that I mentioned earlier. This task force was struck in 2004 and presented its report in 2005. A lot has changed since 2005, which is why I feel that the committee must work openly with a view to improving this bill. That type of openness is rarely found in legislation. We get the impression that this legislation will already be practically outdated if it is not updated. It is very important to keep in mind that computer usage evolves rapidly so that the legislation can be relevant and valid.

And coming back to that task force, it brought together Internet service providers—not just companies—electronic marketing experts, and government and consumer representatives. It was a broad-based group of people in the know. More than 60 groups from the sectors concerned took part and did an admirable job. I want to emphasize that. But this work absolutely must be put into the 2010-11 context because this evolution needs to be taken seriously.

In addition to the online anti-spam awareness campaign launched to provide users with tips on how to limit the amount of spam they receive, it should be mentioned that the task force on spam presented its final report to the Minister of Industry in May 2005.

The report was entitled Stopping Spam: Creating a Stronger, Safer Internet.

We need to create a stronger, safer Internet because it has become a vitally important economic tool. Simply prohibiting all economic communications and marketing through email is out of the question, because that would limit the freedom of those who want to receive such material. The bill must allow people to continue receiving emails of this nature if they so desire. People must be able to receive communications from a company or group of companies that they have clearly identified.

Consider for example the paper catalogues people receive. Personally, I have quite a bit of experience as a handyman. I receive very specialized catalogues in woodworking, which is a real passion of mine. When people receive them electronically, it means the companies have our permission to send them and solicit our business in that way. That is why we cannot simply eliminate all forms of commercial correspondence on the Internet. This legislation will be difficult to create and enforce. Consider the example of Facebook. People trusted it and posted things without thinking about the fact that neighbours and family could see into their private lives.

Using the same kind of procedures and programs on the computer, people could find ways around this legislation if it were too simple or simplistic. This legislation will have to be fine-tuned. That is why it is crucial that all the recommendations made in the report are included, even if they need to be tweaked later.

One of the recommendations had to do with proposed legislation and more vigorous enforcement measures. The report recommended drafting legislation to prohibit spam and to safeguard personal information and privacy as well as email, networks and computers, which, of course, can be made to crash.

The legislation is designed to allow individuals and companies to sue spammers. This applies not only to products, but also to services that people promote. Some might argue that people promote and advertise things on television and that this comes into our homes. That is true, but we can all choose not to watch television. If the Chamber of Notaries runs an ad to promote the need for notaries, then we just have to click a button if we do not want to see it. However, if we receive 10 or 15 pop-up ads that we cannot avoid and that take up space to announce that the Chamber of Notaries is the best in the world and that it is absolutely necessary, we might find that to be an invasion of privacy, and rightfully so.

The task force also recommended the creation of a centre of expertise on spam. The centre would coordinate the government's anti-spam initiatives. A new agency will have to be created. The centre would be responsible for coordinating policies, awareness campaigns and providing support to enforcement agencies. It would also receive complaints and compile statistics on spam.

It will be important to have a place where complaints could be lodged. Not all people who receive spam are capable of going after the company directly. The government will have to keep a record of the companies that send this type of message and take action directly.

The public awareness campaign I just mentioned is an interesting aspect. I do not think we could implement a modern or new law—spam has not been around for that long—without conducting a broad public awareness campaign. This campaign would also help businesses. There are small businesses that do not know and would not know that they cannot solicit business by email without running into problems. Awareness has to be raised on different levels. The campaign will have to address businesses that sell goods and services as well as the users. There are all sorts of users, including young children. Quite often, children aged 10 or 11 already have a laptop; if not a laptop, then an iPad or some other electronic gadget of that kind. They, too, can be inundated with email. We can see how quickly this is all evolving.

When this bill is studied in committee, the members will have to consider what is likely to happen in the near future. Because things change so quickly, the committee will not be able to consider what is going to happen in 10 years, but it could at least consider what is going to happen in the next few years.

The task force on spam also recommended establishing solid best practices for the industry, and it will be important to show that the industry can put an end to misleading information.

Lastly, there will have to be international co-operation and improved enforcement measures that are known around the world. France is an example of this. It passed legislation in 2004, but I would caution the committee that we cannot do what France did, because 2004 was a long time ago. The United States is perhaps more advanced. We need to look at this in an international context, and our law has to dovetail with other countries' legislation.

The House resumed 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 sent to a committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be speaking about Bill C-28, Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act. The word “wireless” is important, as we will see later on, given that there are important developments in that area, particularly with 3G, which is becoming more significant.

The Bloc Québécois is in favour of the principle of Bill C-28, which was previously Bill C-27 but died on the Order Paper at prorogation. It is important to note that the government is dragging its heels on this file and is taking as long as possible to deal with this problem. However, this new legislation, with a few small amendments, specifically targets unsolicited commercial electronic messages. This bill has been needed and requested by society as a whole for a long time now. Governments, Internet service providers—which I will refer to later as ISPs—network operators and consumers are all affected by the problem of spam.

In this type of bill, it is important to define the terms. What is meant by the term “spam”? Spam can be defined as a commercial electronic message sent without the express consent of the recipient. It can be any text, audio, voice or visual message sent by any means of telecommunication, including email, cellular phone text messaging or instant messaging, whose content is such that it is reasonable to conclude that the purpose of the message is to encourage participation in commercial activity. Any electronic message that offers to purchase, sell, barter or lease a product, goods, services, land or an interest or right in land, or a business, investment or gaming opportunity is considered spam for our purposes.

Note that the following types of commercial messages are not considered as spam: messages sent by an individual to another individual with whom they have a personal or family relationship; messages sent to a person who is engaged in a commercial activity and consist solely of an inquiry or application related to that activity; messages that are, in whole or in part, an interactive two-way voice communication between individuals; and messages that are sent by means of a facsimile to a telephone account. This bill does not include them, but we know that faxes can also be a form of spam. Messages that are voice recordings sent to a telephone account are not spam. Earlier, I mentioned 3G technology, which goes through cell phone towers and is becoming increasingly significant.

We must create safeguards for legitimate electronic commerce. It is now essential to our economy. Not only are commercial emails sent with the prior and ongoing consent of the recipient important to electronic commerce, but they are also essential to the development of the online economy. It is quite clear that our commerce is heading in that direction.

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.

I would remind this House that the task force on spam was made up of people from government, industry and consumer advocacy groups. So it was a very broad task force whose members reached a consensus after a few months of work. They tabled their report in 2005. This bill has been on the table for a long time. In 2005, the multipartite task force tabled the bill that the government more or less adopted as its own. It was the task force that essentially came up with this bill.

We are very upset that the legislative process has taken so long. The legislation was tabled in 2005, and it is now 2010. Parliament may have been prorogued, but we are not sure the government really intends to deal with this bill quickly. It is quite likely that the bill will be delayed further, because it is hard to know whose interests will be served, so the government does not want to rush this bill through.

The committee study will be an opportunity for many industry stakeholders to come back and update it and for consumer advocacy groups to have their say about the new Electronic Commerce Protection Act. It is a question of updating it—

[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?

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is referring to Bill C-28 in which there is small mention of the do not call list.

I will concur with the hon. member's comments about the do not call list in the sense that a great number of Canadians have signed up for it. I believe 33% have registered their land lines. A smaller percentage have registered their mobile phones.

I point out that notwithstanding comments by other members of the House in regard to the do not call list, surveys have pointed out that a majority of the people who have signed up have indicated that they have received less marketing calls as a result of doing that.

I hope we will have the support of that hon. colleague.

There are differences in the legislation to the do not call list. In putting this legislation forward, we studied some of the things that have or have not worked in other countries. We have built the legislation by taking the best legislation from other countries in the knowledge that this will make a significant impact on the amount of spam coming out of Canada and make us a world leader in a good way in that regard.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member knows that the national do not call list already exists, and it can be compared to the electronic commerce system being addressed in Bill C-28. The national do not call list works very well, and the public very much appreciates it, judging by the number of people who have signed up in the past few years.

Can the member guarantee that Bill C-28 will not have an impact on the maintenance of the national do not call list?

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in today's debate on second reading of Bill C-28, Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act, or FIWSA.

The online marketplace represents a major segment of Canada's economy, with some $62.7 billion in sales in 2007. That same year, the Information Society Index report published by the International Data Corporation projected that worldwide electronic commerce would exceed $9.6 trillion by 2010.

We have now reached the year projected by the Information Society Index and we must think in terms of a digital economy that will soon surpass $10 trillion in revenue. Let me put this in context. That is over six times the size of the Canadian economy and it continues to grow. Those economies that do not tap into the phenomenal growth of online commerce will miss out on opportunities for prosperity and quality of life in the 21st century.

While the digital economy is growing, so also grow the threats that can undermine it. In 2009, the annual security report released by MessageLabs Intelligence estimated that nearly 90% of worldwide email traffic was spam. These unsolicited commercial electronic messages impose costs on consumers and businesses. They tie up bandwidth, they tie up time, and when they contain malware they impose real threats on consumer confidence in the digital economy.

Canada is one of only four countries in the OECD that does not have laws governing spam. We are the only country in the G7 not to have regulations fighting the problems associated with spam, but we are about to change that. In fact, with this bill, Canada will move from laggard to leader. We will be at the forefront of global efforts to fight spam and related online problems.

The bill before us addresses unsolicited commercial electronic messages as well as installation of malware and interference with electronic transmissions. It contains safeguards for consumers and businesses against illegitimate electronic marketing practices. This bill takes a multi-faceted approach to protect consumers and businesses. It implements a clear regulatory enforcement regime that is consistent with international best practices.

When passed into law, this bill would be enforced by three organizations.

First, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the CRTC, would be able to investigate and take action against the sending of unsolicited commercial electronic messages, the altering of transmission data and the installation of computer programs on computer systems and networks without consent.

The second organization tasked with enforcing this bill is the Competition Bureau, which would address deceptive practices and representations online. This includes false or misleading headers and website content.

Finally, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner would be able to take measures against the unauthorized collection of personal information by access to a computer found to be contrary to an act of Parliament and the unauthorized compiling or supplying of lists of electronic addresses.

Further, both the CRTC and the Competition Tribunal would be given authority to impose administrative monetary penalties, or AMPS, on those who violate the respective provisions of this bill.

These AMPS are significant. The CRTC would be able to impose fines of up to $1 million per violation for individuals and $10 million for businesses. The Competition Bureau would apply to the Competition Tribunal to seek AMPS under the current regime in the Competition Act. That regime allows for penalties of up to $750,000 for individuals, with $1 million for subsequent violations, and up to $10 million for businesses, with $15 million for subsequent violations.

When it comes to stopping spam through these kinds of penalties it is clear that these government agencies will have very sharp teeth. Indeed, where penalties of this nature have been applied in other countries, the amount of spam originating from those countries dropped significantly.

The point I would like to emphasize is that we do not need to turn to police forces to put a stop to spam and other related online problems. We can very effectively use the existing specialized agencies.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner would use its existing tools and enforcement framework to enforce the provisions of this legislation. The Privacy Commissioner's powers to cooperate and exchange information with her international counterparts under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act would be expanded. The enforcement bodies would be able to share information and evidence with their international colleagues so that together international partners would be able to pursue spammers.

In addition to the work of the three regulatory agencies, businesses and individuals would do their part to put an end to spam and related online nuisances. Under this bill, they would have the private right of action against those who have violated the law.

Finally, let me say a few words about the importance of education and awareness to ensuring that individuals and businesses take the right steps to combat spam. In support of this bill, the government will promote education and awareness through the efforts of a national coordinating body.

We will also create a spam reporting centre, which consumers and businesses may contact to report spam and related threats. The spam reporting centre would collect evidence and gather intelligence to help the three enforcement agencies with their investigations. Also, the spam reporting centre would track and analyze statistics and trends in spam and other related online threats.

To conclude, Bill C-28 would make Canada a world leader in anti-spam legislation by providing a more secure online environment for both consumers and businesses. I hope that the House will move quickly to send this bill through the system. I urge hon. members from all parties to join me in supporting it.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there were two aspects of the member's question.

I want to touch on the matter of co-operation for one moment. It is always interesting to me that members in the House are criticized for doing due diligence, for taking the time to study a bill thoroughly, taking the time to ensure that there are no unintended consequences and that Canadians are being well served by the legislation.

I would argue that it is part of our responsibility as elected representatives to ensure that the legislation that comes before us is solid legislation that we can support, legislation that we can go home and talk to our constituents about.

With respect to Bill C-28, I would agree with the member that it sounds as if the House is co-operating to get the bill to committee for further review, but I also think it is incumbent upon us to study the bill thoroughly and make sure that it is a good piece of legislation for Canada.

On the second aspect of the member's a question, in respect of the changes that we might want to see in this piece of legislation, we need to look at how the three-year parliamentary review might affect the bill. I raise this because my understanding of this practice is that it requires a three-year review, after coming into force, of all aspects of the legislation. If the bill is phased in, we might want to take a look at the effects of this time frame.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech. This bill contains some very important measures that the public has been waiting for to regulate electronic commerce.

A task force was created by the Liberal government in 2004. Can the member tell me why it has taken so long to arrive at Bill C-28?

Six years have passed since 2004. I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about that.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there were many problems with the do not call list. One was that industry ended up regulating itself in this matter. The departments involved with the do not call list had few resources for enforcement and oversight, and the original do not call list legislation was much stronger than what ended up being passed, because it was eventually watered down.

There were a number of challenges, including lists that were accessed by organizations that had no entitlement to them. As I pointed out, roughly 80% of the calls that were being made before the do not call list continued to be made. That is an ineffective piece of legislation, which is why we have additions in Bill C-28 to deal with the do not call list, and why the bill gives the government an opportunity to deal with the list.

If the government ends up amending regulations affecting the do not call list, it is important that the House oversees these amendments, so that we do not end up in the same quagmire that we experienced in the original legislation.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising to speak on behalf of New Democrats on Bill C-28.

I want to start by acknowledging the good work the hon. member for Windsor West has done on the anti-spam legislation, both the current piece and the previous piece of legislation that was before the House.

New Democrats will be supporting Bill C-28 at second reading to get it to committee. Of course, as always, I know that the members of the industry committee will do their due diligence in reviewing the bill thoroughly to make sure that there are no clauses of the bill that could have unintended consequences.

I want to speak briefly. I spoke to this bill back in May 2009 when it was Bill C-27. I was fortunate enough to sit in on some of the industry committee's hearings on the anti-spam legislation. I want to start by reading into the record a definition of spam. I think most of us in the House know what spam is, but not all the Canadians who may be listening to this debate may be aware of what it is.

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 spam, the term applies to similar abuses in other media: instant messaging, Usenet newsgroups spam, web search engine spam, spam in blogs, wiki spam, online classified ads spam, mobile phone messaging spam, Internet forum spam, junk fax transmissions...and file sharing networks.”

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

I want to read a brief statistic from an article by Peter Nowak on July 14. He wrote that New Brunswick is hardest hit in Canada. It reads:

New Brunswick receives the most spam email of the Canadian provinces while nearby Newfoundland and Labrador gets the least, according to a report from security firm Symantec. About 92.5 per cent of email in New Brunswick qualified as spam over a 10-month period.

It goes on to say:

That was the worst rate in the country and the only province to exceed the global average of 89.3 per cent.

New Brunswick, British Columbia and Saskatchewan exceeded the Canadian average of 88 per cent. Newfoundland and Labrador fared best with only 86 per cent of email considered spam, followed by Quebec, Nova Scotia and Manitoba at 87 per cent, Ontario at 87.5 per cent and Alberta at 87.6 per cent.

I know that the hon. member for Windsor West has identified this before, but we need to recognize that Canada is actually in the top 10 in the world. We are the only G8 country that does not have this type of legislation.

When one starts thinking about the fact that a province like New Brunswick, where 92.5% of all email in the province is spam, one can see that we have a very serious problem facing us.

I want to turn briefly to the legislative summary, because there are a couple of aspects of this bill that I think are important to note. Other members have pointed this out, but I would like to highlight the fact that we have been talking about anti-spam legislation for a number of years.

In fact, the legislative summary says that this act is a culmination of a process that began with the anti-spam action plan for Canada launched by the Government of Canada 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 of junk mail, had grown to encompass 80% of all global email traffic.

It goes on to talk about the fact that the task force issued a report in May 2005 examining the spam situation in Canada and recommended, among other measures, that legislation specifically aimed at combatting spam be created.

That was 2004, and here we are in 2010. We are once again debating legislation. The initial legislation, Bill C-27, was lost when the House prorogued. So we again have lost time dealing with an issue that is extremely important to businesses, consumers, and ordinary citizens in this country.

This is a complex piece of legislation. It is many pages long and it impacts on a number of different agencies.

The agencies that are involved in the regulation of spam include the Competition Bureau, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and the CRTC. In addition to setting up a regulatory scheme to deal with spam in Canada, the bill gives these agencies the power to share information and evidence with international counterparts in order to deal with spam coming from outside the country. It goes on again to emphasize the fact that Canada is the last of the G8 countries to introduce anti-spam legislation.

One of the points raised in this legislative summary is the fact that Canada, in some respects, is seen on the international market as a haven for some of these spammers from outside the country because of our lack of legislation. The legislative summary goes on to say that the act:

will provide a clear regulatory scheme including administrative monetary penalties, with respect to both spam and related threats from unsolicited electronic contact, including identity theft, phishing, spyware, viruses, and botnets. It will also grant an additional right of civil action to businesses and consumers targeted by the perpetrators of such activities.

At the very end of the Bill C-27 legislation, when it was introduced, were a couple of clauses that dealt with the do not call list. Again, Bill C-28 has the same inclusion in the legislation. It says that they

would give the government the power to repeal legislation for the relatively new Do Not Call List for telemarketers. Since it was introduced in 2008, the Do Not Call List has been subject to much criticism owing to telemarketer misuse of the names on the list.

I want to refer to another aspect of that. It says that:

The delayed set of amendments provides the framework for replacing the do not call list with a new scheme at a future date, as described earlier in the summary. The powers to be restored with the delayed amendments include the power to regulate the hours during which such communications can be made, the contact information that must be provided by the communicator and the way in which it must be provided, and the use of automated telephone calls.

The reason I raise this in the context of Bill C-28 is that this inclusion of the ability to amend the do not call list legislation is important to note, because the do not call list legislation actually was flawed. That is why it is important that the House refer the bill back to the industry committee for a thorough review.

Now I know that we had hearings on Bill C-27, and there have been some amendments to this legislation as a result of those hearings, but it is important that we reconsider this legislation and make sure that there are not any unintended consequences such as we saw with the do not call list.

There are a couple of other aspects of this legislation that are important to note as a result of industry hearings and the input that was heard. Clause 66 in Bill C-28 now allows for a review three years after the day on which the section comes into force.

[A] review of the provisions and operation of this Act must be undertaken by any committee of the Senate, of the House of Commons, or of both Houses of Parliament that is designated or established for that purpose.

It is very important that the mandate to review the legislation three years after coming into force is in place again so that we can determine if there have been further changes in the whole electronic media that would require some further amendments. We can determine whether the piece of legislation is effective. We can determine if adequate resources have been put in place in order to make sure that the agencies involved have what they need to oversee and enforce the legislation.

I think others have referred to the very substantial fines that are now in place to make sure that there are some teeth to this piece of legislation.

There are a couple of aspects of the legislation that came up when it was under study when it was Bill C-27. I want to turn to an analysis that was done by a law firm called McCarthy Tétrault that pointed out a couple of aspects that raised some concerns. I want to outline the summary of a couple of these aspects. One of these was about consent. It says that the legislation contains certain exceptions to the rule about consent. It says that consent is not required

to send a commercial electronic message, the purpose of which is to provide a quote or an estimate; facilitate, complete or confirm an existing commercial transaction; provide warranty information; provide information related to an ongoing subscription, membership, account or loan; provide information related to an employment relationship; or deliver a product, goods or a service, including product updates and upgrades.

It goes on to say that the list is not exhaustive, and that other purposes may be specified in the regulations.

I am bringing this up because business has raised concerns. Some in the business community think that this legislation is too onerous, that it would not allow businesspeople to communicate with their customers or potential customers.

Clearly, the legislation has made some attempt to recognize that there is an ongoing business relationship that needs to be maintained, and it has outlined situations in which that consent would not be required.

It goes on to say:

The bill also provides for certain situations where consent can be implied, including where:

- the sender has an existing business relationship with a recipient (provided the relationship is entered into within the specified time frames);

- the recipient has “conspicuously published” its electronic address and has not indicated a desire to not receive unsolicited commercial electronic messages, and the message is relevant to the recipient's business role; or

- the recipient has provided its electronic address to the sender without indicating a wish not to receive unsolicited commercial and electronic messages.

When requesting express consent to send unsolicited commercial messages, an organization would have to set out “clearly and simply” the purpose(s) for which the consent is being sought, information identifying the organization that is seeking the consent, and any other information that may be prescribed.

The [act] also stipulates the electronic message must:

- identify the sender;

- provide contact information for the sender; and

- include an “unsubscribe” mechanism....

I think what is required of businesses is clear, as are the references to the protection for consumers. It does not appear that these are going to be onerous.

I want to touch on a couple of other aspects that are important when we are talking about the viability of business.

When it was Bill C-27, Professor Michael Geist appeared before the industry committee. I know he was talking about Bill C-27, but I think some of his comments are applicable to Bill C-28. He stated:

The introduction of Bill C-27 represents the culmination of years of effort to address concerns that Canada is rapidly emerging as a spam haven. I don't think I have to convince you that spam is a problem, whether it's the cost borne by consumers, schools, businesses, and hospitals in dealing with unwanted e-mail, or the shaken confidence of online banking customers who received phished email. There is a real need to address the problem.

Professor Geist identified that there was an impact on businesses. Many times in this House we have heard concerns raised about Canadian productivity in the workplace. When we understand the volume of spam that is coming in, whether it is via email, text messaging, or electronic media that businesses are using, we can understand the concern about the impact on business productivity.

There are varying statistics about the amount of time it takes for workers to recover when they are interrupted in a task. Many of us in this House can attest that, even though we have a good filter on our email system, we are still occasionally bothered by spam.

Imagine in a regular workplace where up to 90% of emails may be spam if there are not adequate filters in place. Every time they have to go through their email box and clear emails, or they are interrupted in their work, it affects the business's productivity, its quality, its performance. I saw a statistic that every time workers were interrupted at a task, it took them up to seven minutes to get back to where they had left off. So we can see that this has a definite impact on workers' ability to perform well in their jobs.

The other aspect of this, and it can be quite troubling, is the effect on seniors. Despite the unfair stereotype, I believe many seniors are absolutely email literate. They rely on email to communicate with loved ones, to do business, and to do all the things that Canadians under the age of 65 do.

One of the real concerns about spam is that seniors and other unsuspecting people end up being fraudulently sold goods or services.

Another important purpose of the bill is to protect vulnerable citizens from spam, whether it is banking fraud or investment fraud. I think many of us have received those unfortunate emails from overseas that tell us to send money to get somebody out of jail. It is sad that unsuspecting Canadians have sent money, only to learn that their money has gone down the tubes. That is an important aspect of the bill.

Professor Geist also raised another issue when he did his presentation to the committee. He said:

Let me conclude with a warning against what I see as some lobbying efforts to water down what I see as reasonable standards found in this legislation. I note that we have seen this before. It is what took place with the do-not-call list. The bill started with good principles, faced intense lobbying, and I think some scare tactics, and by the end of the process Canadians were left with a system that I think is now widely recognized as a failure, with some estimates saying that more than 80% of the calls that used to come, continue to come, and with security breeches around the do-not-call list itself.

I think we must avoid a similar occurrence with respect to the anti-spam legislation. Changes in some business practices might be scary to some, but we cannot allow scare tactics to persuade you from moving forward with this much-needed legislation.

In that context, when businesses are looking at the potential costs of complying with the legislation, getting the appropriate consent, and doing all the things that are laid out in the legislation, it is important to encourage them to consider the costs of dealing with the amount of spam that is out there.

In conclusion, New Democrats will be supporting Bill C-28 to go to committee for further review, and we are optimistic that perhaps this time it will actually get through the House.

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

Mr. Speaker, this is the third time in a year that I have risen in the House of Commons to discuss the bill on electronic commerce, known as Bill C-28 this time around.

The former Bill C-27 sparked a lot of public interest, and a number of witnesses who testified before the committee essentially told us that we needed to move forward in order to provide better protection for email users.

The new Bill C-28 specifically targets unsolicited commercial electronic messages. People have been demanding such a bill for some time, and it is sorely needed. Governments, service providers and network operators are all affected by spam. We must create safeguards for legitimate electronic commerce, and we must do so now. Commercial emails are also essential to the development of the online economy.

Bill C-28 was inspired primarily by the final report of the task force on spam, which was set up in 2004 to examine the issue and to find ways to eliminate spam.

Some groups had reservations about the former Bill C-27 and made suggestions for amendments. The main concerns and questions from these groups had to do with the enforcement of the legislation.

Parliamentary committee members had to examine a number of issues. Even now, this bill amends the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act, the Competition Act, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and the Telecommunications Act.

As a result, government officials in each of these sectors came to tell us why and especially how the amendments would apply and how we could be certain the changes would be useful.

We supported the former Bill C-27 as amended by the committee. Therefore, we will support Bill C-28, whose contents are more or less the same, so that the committee can study it.

We are aware of the need to legislate quickly, but we must also proceed carefully in light of the many witnesses the committee has already heard from.

I hope that the work the committee has already done will prove useful and that we will be able to proceed more quickly.

Let us not forget that we first started talking about spam in 2004 and that six years on, we still do not have legislation to get rid of spam.

I would like to expand on one point. The government accused the committee of taking its time when studying this bill and of holding up the electronic commerce bill's progress.

I want to make one thing clear: Bill C-28 is not a back-of-the-napkin affair. It covers a number of complex issues and clauses. It is to be expected that committee members and our research teams be given the time to study the content of the bill. I am sure that this electronic commerce protection bill would be in force by now had the Conservative government not prorogued Parliament. We lost a lot of time because of that.

I want to reiterate that the Bloc Québécois and the other parties worked well on this. I can vouch for the fact that my party, the Bloc Québécois, and the members of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology worked constructively together.

I sincerely believe that during the committee's hearings, all of the members worked hard to find a solution to the spam problem while taking into account the needs of companies that shared their concerns.

Anyone with an email address receives spam, emails that try to sell us products and offer us prizes and many other annoying things.

I do not know if anyone has noticed, but in recent months, there seems to have been a significant increase in the amount of spam. It makes me wonder whether companies have made changes to how they contact consumers.

Obviously, some businesses are concerned about how legitimate businesses will continue to contact consumers if Bill C-28 is adopted.

Bill C-28 clearly states that organizations will not require the express consent of their own clients to communicate with them in what can be deemed “existing business relationships”. However, to contact potential clients in order to market a good or service or to expand their activities, businesses may not directly contact a client by email without their prior consent.

Unsolicited electronic messages have become a significant social and economic problem that undermines the individual productivity of Quebeckers. Spam is a threat to the growth of legitimate electronic commerce.

Spam accounts for more than 80% of global electronic traffic, which results in considerable expenses for businesses and consumers. In light of this situation, legislation to protect electronic commerce is reasonable and appropriate.

On another note, some clauses of the bill are still problematic for the Bloc Québécois. We would like further information about the national do not call list.

A number of parallels may be drawn between the system proposed by Bill C-28 and the existing system for telephone calls.

The Bloc Québécois feels that the current list is doing the job, and it is used by millions of people. Compliance with the national do not call list required many companies to reorganize their resources and make a large financial outlay.

We realize that the Minister of Industry wants to keep the door open in order to replace the list with a new system. However, for the time being, it is a proven system that has been successful since it was implemented in 2008. At the committee hearings on Bill C-28 regarding electronic commerce, we were given verbal assurances by officials that it would not be abolished without public hearings.

Let us come back to Bill C-28. I believe we are all concerned about the way businesses obtain consumers' consent to transfer or pass on their contact information or email addresses to other organizations. The new legislation will enable us to reduce spam and go after unsolicited commercial emails.

To the Bloc Québécois, there is no doubt that the bill aims at protecting the integrity of transmission data by prohibiting practices related to the installation of computer programs without consent. It makes sense to avoid the use of consumers' personal information to send them spam.

Bill C-28 prohibits the collection of personal information via access to computer systems without consent and the unauthorized compiling or supplying of lists of electronic addresses.

We can hardly be against motherhood and apple pie. The Bloc Québécois feels that companies that want to send consumers information by email should get their consent first. It is a matter of principle.

This bill has a noble objective, but it will be a complex law to apply. I know the government wants to attack spam, and I agree with that. In my previous speeches and having had the chance to be part of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, I personally have been convinced of the need to pass such a bill.

A number of countries have already passed measures similar to those in Bill C-28 and seem to have had positive results. The various laws passed in Australia, the United States and Great Britain to combat spam have apparently been quite successful.

Bill C-28 will make it possible to develop measures to dissuade as many people and businesses as possible from sending spam involving false representation, unauthorized software and exchanges of email address information.

This bill will help resolve many of the problems our constituents have raised and will further protect their privacy. Unsolicited commercial electronic messages have become, over time, a major social and economic problem that undermines the individual and commercial productivity of Quebeckers.

Spam is a real nuisance. It damages computers and networks, contributes to deceptive marketing scams, and invades people's privacy. Spam directly threatens the viability of the Internet. In fact, spam accounts for over 80% of all global Internet communications. Thus, spam directly threatens the viability of the Internet as an effective means of communication. It undermines consumer confidence in legitimate e-businesses and hinders electronic transactions.

Basically, this electronic commerce protection act governs the sending of messages by email, text messaging or instant messaging without consent. Transmission of spam to an electronic mail account, telephone account or other similar accounts would be prohibited.

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. This is what we mean by “prior consent”.

I would like to close by reiterating that the Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-28. This proposed legislation has already been examined by a parliamentary committee, and it will help to increase the protection of computer systems and people's personal information.

As a final point, 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, created in 2004. However, it is unfortunate that the legislative process took several years to produce this long-awaited bill to protect electronic commerce.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, sometimes it is not a pleasure to rise and speak to bills, but it is a pleasure to speak to this bill as it will make Canadians very happy.

All of us are bombarded with annoying spam on our computers. The side effects can be dangerous to our computer system. It slows down legitimate commercial businesses in Canada. It is amazing that we have not yet dealt with this issue because it is an annoying and costly problem to Canadians and people all over the world. I am sure there will be support on all sides of the House to deal with this aggravating and at some times dangerous problem that essential computer systems face.

Twenty years ago a computer was not essential in carrying on daily life, but now it is involved in many things. It is even more important to people in the area I come from for things like distance education and health because they do not live in a big city so they do not have access to these specialties. Computers are essential. People need their computers for all sorts of things, like banking and personal communication. A fly in the ointment or a wrench in the works could gum the whole thing up. All of us would like this problem fixed as spam is distressing and dangerous.

I am excited about speaking to the bill. I am also excited about Parliament taking action on spam, which is unsolicited electronic email.

Many of us with computers know how dangerous and how much of a problem this is for Canadian consumers and businesses. In 2003 it was estimated that spam cost the economy over $27 billion worldwide. That is half the Canadian deficit. It is a monumental amount of money.

Since then, the problem has only grown worse. I am sure each of us in the House has thousands of these unsolicited emails gumming up the work of Parliament. I am sure that businesses across the country have this problem, as do individuals. More updated information will be forthcoming on how devastating spam actually is, and it is becoming worse all the time.

We are now looking at a far more serious problem, which would be corrected by the bill, and that relates to the issues of identity theft, phishing and spyware, all of which give concern to Canadians and to the world. We have to deal with this in legislation, both locally and internationally.

In the early 2000s the Liberal Party recognized the problem that spam created. In 2003 the Liberal member for Pickering—Scarborough East tabled a private member's bill to make spam illegal. Unfortunately, the bill never made it to second reading.

However, based on the strength of Bill C-460, introduced in mid-2003 in the 37th Parliament, the Liberal minister of industry struck a committee to examine the issue of spam and to report to the minister about how the government could most effectively stop this obvious and seriously growing problem.

That report entitled “Stopping Spam: Creating a Stronger, Safer Internet ”, was released in May 2005. The report was created by a committee of 10 experts on information technology and Internet law. The task force also worked with dozens of stakeholders in the technology industry to develop sound proposals and to look at the best practices at the time.

The primary recommendations of the task force were that the government legislate prohibitions on the following: the sending of unsolicited email; the use of false or misleading statements that disguise the origin and the true intent of the email, those emails we get with the funny titles that make it look like it is for us, or something critical or important, but it has nothing to do with that at all. The same product is being sold to us all over again.

The task force also recommended prohibitions on the unauthorized collection of personal information and email addresses, particularly by using fake websites through the selling of lists where those on the list were not told the list would be sold to a third, unknown party.

The committee recommended all these very important changes and I cannot imagine anyone in the House disagrees with those changes. The official opposition supports the bill as it follows through on the recommendations of the committee created by the Liberal government. Also the industry committee did such good work in the last Parliament before prorogation on Bill C-27. It made some very good changes to the bill to make it acceptable to more members of Parliament and a much better bill. However, much more needs to be done.

As I described earlier, as the world is changing, it is changing for businesses too and it is changing the way businesses do business and earn their revenue. They depend more on the Internet and computers. The bill would protect them and it would be a big enhancement to industry and small business in Canada. However, it also has to be careful not to deter the legitimate work and communication with consumers about their business products and services.

The minister talked about the consultation being done with business organizations and the fact that the committee and MPs can hear from those organizations and see whether more amendments need to be made other than the good amendments there were made on Bill C-27 to make it now into this new bill, Bill C-28.

Much needs to be done. The committee highlighted the need for the government to play a central role in coordinating the actions of both government and the private sector. All actors agreed that spam needed to be stopped. Internet service providers, web hosts and online marketing agencies need a set of best practices for email solicitation.

The government must work in coordination with industry partners to establish a strong code of practice that prevents the proliferation of electronic emails that are unsolicited, unwanted and constitute spam.

These days spam is no longer a problem exclusive to email. In 2004 and 2005, when the committee was writing the report, spam was starting to move to other electronic platforms. Today Canadians must contend with cellphone spam, either by means of text message or something we may not all be familiar with, robo calling.

It is important that the act recognize the facts and is technologically neutral, encompassing all forms of commercial electronic communication.

The legislation must meet the test to ensure there is proper, effective and adaptable application to current, existing and future modalities that may be able to circumvent not only technologies to prevent and protect consumers in business, but also to remain faithful to the act.

That is why some hope the act can be revisited on a yearly basis as technology evolves. It is something the Liberal Party may look to see the government amend or to look into at committee.

Moreover, the issue of text message spam is being aggravated obviously by yet another announcement of a major cellular service provider recently to start charging for received text messages. There has been plenty of discussion among members of Parliament. It is obvious to everyone that it is unfair, to say the least, that consumers are charged for something they had no choice whatsoever in receiving.

Spam is not just a Canadian problem, as I indicated earlier. Given the borderless nature of the Internet, it means that spam can originate from anywhere and be delivered anywhere. It will not help a lot if we just do the controls here because then we will be flooded by people sending spam to Canadians, gumming up Canadian businesses. They will start sending it from an out of Canada site.

I strongly point out that the legislation takes measures in Canada. There has to be an attempt to work internationally with other partners so we can also go after those companies and organizations that do this remotely from other countries, which do not have the same level of proposed enforcement or legislation. We have to do a lot of work on the international scene, assign the resources to do that work so the good work that is before us now, brought to us by the industry committee, does not dissolve in a flood of spam from 180 other countries around the world.

As a result, because of the international nature of this problem, any government that is serious about combatting spam must be willing to engage other governments around the world in an international strategy to reduce this ongoing problem.

The government's ability to combat spam is not simply about legislation. My party calls on the government to show its concern by raising this internationally at all international fora and working with other governments to produce a coordinated international anti-spam and anti-counterfeit strategy.

The effectiveness of this law will be measured by the government's commitment to enforcement. I take the comments that have already been raised in the past, that we have to ensure there is adequate support for the enforcement of the legislation, which is being complimented and being recommended here. That is a tall order.

Some members are probably aware about all the fraudulent emails people get. If they send them off to the place to deals with them, they get a message saying that they cannot give them an answer because they are so busy, they are so inundated. If there are not enough resources to deal with enforcing this, and the minister mentioned the agencies where those resources would be needed, then the legislation is not going to have much effect.

There is no point in bringing forth legislation if there is a reasonable chance the legislation will not have the intended impact of deterring, stopping, correcting and preventing what is continuously more than just a nuisance, but a very costly one at that.

Policing Internet traffic is incredibly difficult because any Internet crimes crosses jurisdictions and borders, territorial, provincial and federal. That is why in an attempt to control or stop spam, the report called on the government to create a central office that would coordinate anti-spam activities.

I hope the government will move diligently on that if speedy passage is given to this legislation.

Industry Canada is being designated as the official coordinating body. I would like to ask, perhaps in subsequent interventions from the government side, what kind of resources Industry Canada is being given to coordinate the other agencies that have responsibilities under this act such as the Privacy Commissioner, the CRTC and the Competition Bureau, as mentioned by the minister. When we talk about billions of emails, we need the resources for these agencies to deal with them and enforce the legislation.

What resources can we see coming from the government with respect to these offices so we can see spam corrected in our country?

It is extremely important that everywhere in Canada we can have confidence in legislation proposed by the government. I expect the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology will deal quickly with the issues before us because it has already reviewed the bill and improved it substantially, and I congratulate the committee for that.

Central to this issue is if the government passes legislation and walks away from the issue, all these proposed initiatives, well-intended, well-researched and up to date, will fail.

I believe legislation to be correctly brought forward must ensure that we have proper resources and effective coordination so it is understood how this will take place.

The more rapid response we can have to correct this problem will ensure that those who see Canada as an opportunity and a target will find another place.

However, we also want to ensure that the other place is blocked. We simply want to put an end, where possible, to those practices which have as their origins the sense of undermining the credibility and the integrity of communicating and the effectiveness of the legitimate use of the Internet, which belongs to us all.

As many members know, spam emails also contain viruses, various dangerous bugs, that can turn people's private home computers, people who perhaps do not understand computers that much, into very dangerous machines that then send out all sorts of emails, disrupting businesses and other Canadians, their friends and the people they deal with on a business basis, ultimately costing millions of dollars.

It is simply fraud when they send emails and disguise them so one will open it. Once again, it could have the unwanted effect of having to deal with an email that was unsolicited and businesses and individuals have to buy more expensive equipment, perhaps try to use spam filters which, as we all know, does not work on everything. One needs to have bigger storage because there are more emails on the machine and it leads to many more problems than simply getting an unwanted email. One's name and information can then be sent to all sorts of other sources who will then start sending these unsolicited emails.

It is just a pyramid scheme that is very bad for everyone. It can also lead to the exposure of one's personal information. Every member of Parliament knows from a previous bill how dangerous and how proliferating this is in the world. With very little personal information, one can become a victim of crime, Many thousands of Canadians have already become victims of crime when their information has been provided.

These types of emails can ultimately be used by installing unwanted illegal software on one's computer without one knowing it when one of these emails is opened.

In 1993 and 1994, the Industry minister at the time, John Manley, talked about the great opportunities of the Internet as the super highway, as it was called at the time because it was the wonderful dawning of a new age. Unfortunately, that super highway has become badly clogged to the point where I think it is fair to say that there have been serious traffic jams, if not serious accidents along the way.

Therefore, the legislation is timely, necessary and has a very reasonable opportunity to pass.

In the rural and northern areas, our access is sometimes through limited pipes, whether it be hard wire or through satellite. Expanding the usage by these huge amounts of unwanted, wasteful, almost illegal emails makes it so people do not get access or have very slow access and it can shut down the access that other people have in rural and northern areas.

The government must follow up on the legislation with real action and real enforcement resources. It must actively engage all partners everywhere in industry internationally. It must continue the consultation process and develop longer term opportunities to combat spam.

What plan does the government have in moving forward to engage industry partners and building strong codes of this practice? We will have to ensure that it is not just based on a blue ribbon panel that was struck some years ago but, in fact, that we have an ongoing ability to ensure that partners, stakeholders and consumers, those who have been tremendously affected by this, will be able to benchmark and give us feedback as to how effectively the legislation would be, particularly from the point of enforcement.

What plan does the government have to work with international partners in building a strong international effort to combat spam? Spam can be incredibly destructive. Besides consuming time and band width, spam is a delivery vehicle for malware, programs that access one's computer without authorization and can do a number of dangerous things. Malware includes viruses and spyware, which attack the individual user. However, some of these programs turn the user's computer into a zombie on a botnet which then can be used to attack major websites on the Internet.

This is something we could not have contemplated three, four, five years ago but it is currently taking place. Many consumers and many constituents have talked to me about this and talked to other members of the House. We need to ensure that we have a pragmatic policy, a pragmatic document that is capable of changing with the times as the Internet and electronic information becomes more sophisticated.

All these attacks have serious economic impacts when websites like Google and other information websites are brought down. Even for a few hours billions of dollars can be lost. Spyware can be used for identity theft which is a constantly growing threat in the Internet age.

Therefore, I call upon all members to support the bill to go to committee and get it through. I am sure all Canadians and businesses will be very happy to remove this aggravating and dangerous problem.

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Minister of Industry]

moved 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 now read a second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to begin the second reading of Bill C-28, Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act.

Hon. members will no doubt recall that this bill was debated extensively in this House and the other place in the last session as Bill C-27. Now it is Bill C-28, so we have moved up at least one notch in the world, anyway.

I should inform members that this bill has not changed substantially since the last session and remains as it was following its review by the House industry committee at that time.

At the outset I would like members to consider the bill in a larger context, as part of an overall plan to help put Canada at the forefront of the digital economy, in part through modernizing our framework of laws for the digital age.

Soon we expect to bring up to date other important legislation, including the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, and of course, the Copyright Act. Together these bills will contribute to improving cyber security practices by consumers and industry, to promote trust and confidence in online commerce.

As we know, the Internet has become the central nervous system for the digital economy. It provides a common global platform for communication and commerce. Its use by businesses and consumers has led to the emergence of a borderless international marketplace.

Since 2000, online sales for Canadian companies have increased nearly tenfold. Ten years ago, online sales in our country were less than $7.2 billion. In 2007, sales reached almost $63 billion.

Businesses and consumers have grown to depend on the Internet. They count on it to be safe and reliable. Online security threats can erode the degree of trust and confidence in the Internet as a safe and reliable environment for electronic commerce.

Our government is committed to building the necessary confidence. We understand what a harmful economic impact spam and other online threats can have on the online economy. We know that the government has an important role to play through legislative measures.

Threats to the online economy include more than just spam. They include spyware, malware, computer viruses, phishing, viral attachments, false or misleading emails, the use of fraudulent websites, and the harvesting of electronic addresses.

These threats are not just nuisances. Some are fraudulent, some invade privacy, and some are used to infect and gain control over computers. It is estimated that spam costs the worldwide economy $130 billion a year.

The bill before us contains important provisions that will protect Canadian businesses and consumers from the most harmful and misleading forms of online threats. It improves the privacy and economic security of Canadians in the electronic environment. It offers a host of clear rules that all Canadians will benefit from. It will promote confidence in online communication and electronic commerce.

The bill before us stakes out new ground in Canada. Currently we are the only G8 country and one of only four OECD countries without legislation dealing with spam. This bill will rectify that situation.

In developing the bill, we have been able to incorporate the best practices of other countries that have launched similar efforts.

We have seen, for example, how effective the private right of action has been in combatting spam in the United States. Under the bill before us, businesses will be able to sue spammers who use their brand to lure unsuspecting customers to divulge private information online as a result of unsolicited email. The bill enables class action suits by individuals who have been spammed or whose computers have been subjected to spyware or botnets.

We have learned from approaches taken elsewhere that a civil administrative regime is more responsive and therefore more effective than using the criminal law to combat spam. Other countries such as Australia, the United States and Japan use regulatory authorities rather than law enforcement to enforce anti-spam legislation. With this bill, Canada will have a comprehensive enforcement regime enforced by existing specialized agencies rather than the police.

What enforcement agencies will be involved? The new law will be enforced by the CRTC as Canada's communications authority, by the Competition Bureau as the federal agency that deals with false or misleading commercial messages, and by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, the agency tasked with the administration of PIPEDA. The bill specifically enables these agencies to work and share information with each other, as well as work with and share information with their international counterparts.

The CRTC will enforce the provisions against sending unsolicited commercial messages. It will also have responsibility for the provisions that prohibit the altering of transmission data without authorization and the unauthorized installation of computer programs.

The Competition Bureau will address false or misleading representations online and deceptive marketplace practices such as false headers and website content.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner will address the collection of personal information without consent through unauthorized access to computer systems and the unauthorized compiling or supplying of lists of electronic addresses, commonly referred to as address harvesting.

The bill provides that both the CRTC and the Competition Bureau can seek what we call “administrative monetary penalties”, AMPs, against violators. The maximum AMP for the CRTC is up to $1 million per violation for individuals, and up to $10 million for businesses.

The Competition Bureau, through application of the Competition Tribunal, may seek AMPs under the current AMPs regime in the Competition Act. That regime specifies AMPs of up to $750,000 for the first violation and up to $1 million per subsequent violation in the case of individuals, up to $10 million for an initial violation by a business and up to $15 million per subsequent violation.

These AMP regimes demonstrate that we are serious about driving spammers out of Canada.

Industry Canada will have oversight responsibilities and will ensure that the work of the three agencies is coordinated. A spam reporting centre will be established to help the three enforcement agencies in their investigations and to give businesses and consumers a one-stop shop where they can report spam and other online threats.

I would remind hon. members that after wide-ranging discussions in this place and in the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology we were able to pass the predecessor, Bill C-27, as amended, with unanimous consent at third reading during the last session.

The amendments that have been incorporated into this bill, based on the thorough review done at committee for the previous bill, fine-tune this legislation so it strikes the right balance between protecting consumers and giving them control over their inboxes, while effectively enabling online commerce.

Hon. members may recall that we took a careful look at how to ensure that companies that use email to keep in touch with customers do not inadvertently find themselves in violation of the law. The purpose of the bill, after all, is not to limit legitimate online business. It is to promote electronic commerce by increasing confidence in the use of the Internet to carry out business transactions.

The implied consent provisions were expanded to include the conspicuous publication of an electronic address such as a website or a print advertisement, provided that the sender's message relates to the business or office held by the recipient. This is consistent with provisions under PIPEDA and accepted in the current code of ethics of the Canadian Marketing Association.

Under the bill, no commercial electronic message can be sent without some form of expressed or implied consent. Implied consent is also extended to existing business and non-business relationships. We have, I believe, preserved the ability to extend by regulation the situations in which it is reasonable to believe that consent to receive commercial emails is to be implied.

Hon. members will also remember that after the committee hearings, the bill was amended by the committee to ensure that legitimate businesses can periodically install updates to their software and that businesses and consumers can continue to use navigation features on the web.

The effect of these amendments was to make a good bill even better. Each of these provisions has been brought forward in the bill before us.

Nonetheless, I want to point out that in addition to these changes made at third reading during the last session, we also incorporated a number of technical changes and clarifications to the bill before us today. Two changes in particular are worth going over in greater detail because they are more important.

The first deals with the order of precedence of two laws that affect privacy: the bill before us; and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, PIPEDA. Hon. members may be aware that PIPEDA contains a primacy clause that otherwise ensures its provisions take precedence over subsequently enacted bills when dealing with personal information or consent. This primacy provision ensures that the efficacy of PIPEDA is not undermined by other legislation with weaker consent requirements.

Compared with PIPEDA, the bill before us has stricter rules regarding consent when dealing with personal information respecting email addresses. Its rules are also more strict when dealing with consent to the receipt of commercial messages. This bill must take precedence.

Accordingly, a new clause 3 clarifies that in the event of a conflict between the provision of this bill and a provision of Part 1 of PIPEDA, the provision of this bill, the Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act, would take precedence. Hon. members, I should add that the Office of the Privacy Commissioner supports this amendment.

The second amendment I wish to discuss responds to an issue raised concerning the former Bill C-27. An amendment was added before the bill went to the committee in the other place, but Parliament was prorogued before it could be discussed there. It involves provisions of PIPEDA that prohibit the collection and use of personal information through unauthorized access to a computer system.

Our goal is to increase the protection of personal information stored on personal computers or private business networks. The bill requires private sector firms and investigators to obtain consent to collect that information. It includes a provision that private enterprises do not have the right to collect personal information through access to a computer system “without authorization”. The main focus of the amendment is the term “without authorization”.

In drafting the bill, it was never our intent to limit the ability of private investigators and search engines to access and collect personal information that is already available to the public on the World Wide Web or other similar networks.

Several witnesses have expressed concern that the term “without authorization” clouds the issue. It leaves a great deal to interpretation by the courts. For example, persons who post terms of use on a website could easily render the collection of information from that site “unauthorized”. This could leave industry at risk of civil lawsuits by those seeking statutory damages under the private right of action contained in this bill.

We have consulted with privacy advocates, telecommunications carriers, search engine companies, copyright-dependent industries, and other stakeholders. They agree that an amendment is necessary. As a result, we have changed the wording so that instead of “without authorization”, the bill now reads, “in contravention of an Act of Parliament”. That is, there will be no exception to PIPEDA's consent requirements for: “the collection of personal information, through any means of telecommunication, if the collection is made by accessing a computer system or causing a computer system to be accessed in contravention of an Act of Parliament”.

I believe hon. members will agree that this amendment respects the spirit of the bill as originally passed in this House in the last session, and improves upon it.

Finally, we have travelled a long journey toward bringing anti-spam legislation to Canada. From the work of Senators Oliver and Goldstein to the recommendations of the Task Force on Spam, there have been many different sources of inspiration for this bill. It was very close to receiving royal assent in the last session, and I hope we can move it through this session quickly.

This is a bill that will benefit all Canadians who use the Internet, but it is also a major piece of a much bigger agenda to put Canada in the forefront of the digital economy. If we get this right, we will do more than simplify participation in the digital economy; Canada will be a leader.

I urge hon. members to join me in supporting this bill.

Business of the House

[John Baird, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to officially congratulate the House leader of the official opposition on his first Thursday question and of course on his appointment as House leader. As I have already said, we want to make this Parliament work for Canadians and co-operate with all the opposition parties.

Let me also tell him, and particularly his leader, how very disappointed I am that I will not have the chance to work shoulder to shoulder with the great, wise helmsman from Wascana.

Let me take this opportunity to once again, in English, officially congratulate the House leader of the official opposition on his first Thursday question. As I have said in the past, we all want to work hard, we all want to work collaboratively to make this House work, and not just with him.

We also want to do so with our friends in the Bloc Québécois and the New Democratic Party.

As government House leader, one of my very first acts on the day of the cabinet shuffle was to reach out to my opposition counterparts. Since then, I have had the opportunity to sit down with each of them and to hear their views about making Parliament work. I look forward to working with them over the coming days, weeks, months and years to do just that.

As for the House schedule, we will continue debate today on Bill C-5 (International Transfer of Offenders), followed by Bill C-31, Eliminating Entitlements for Prisoners, and Bill C-22, Protecting Children from Online Sexual Exploitation.

On Monday, we will call Bill C-8, Canada-Jordan Free Trade Act, and Bill C-28, Fighting Spam, an important piece of legislation presented by the Minister of Industry.

Tuesday, September 28, will be an allotted day, and on Wednesday and Thursday, the order of business will be Bill C-8, if not already disposed of on Monday, Bill C-46, Canada-Panama Free Trade Act, and Bill C-28, Fighting Spam.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Vinet and Mr. Garneau.

We still have 25 minutes to go in the meeting. If it is the wish of the committee to hear more questions and comments, we are free to continue. It is your call.

Are there other committee members wishing to ask questions? Very well.

We'll continue. I know there are certain members who want to adjourn just before 11 o'clock because of the briefing that's to be held at that time on Bill C-28 and C-29.

Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

moved for leave to introduce 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.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)