Bill C-11 Committee on March 13th, 2012

[The Chair, NDP, Glenn Thibeault]

Mr. Angus, we're moving on.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

--is not getting an answer to the question.

[The Chair, NDP, Glenn Thibeault]

Is there any further discussion?

Go ahead, Mr. Moore.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

I think the onus is on the member bringing the amendment to explain the amendment. Mr. Angus has an amendment, so explain your amendment. Explain the rationale for your amendment, and we'll decide whether we're going to vote for or against it. But there's no point criticizing officials here.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Can I explain it?

[The Chair, NDP, Glenn Thibeault]

Sorry, Mr. Angus, you're well over your time, unfortunately.

I have Mr. Regan.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

I want to express my appreciation to the officials for being here today in difficult circumstances. I think the government at times seems to be asking you to give support to their policy position, but you've been very careful to stick to what's actually in the bill, and I appreciate that. And I understand the difficulty you have. I'm sure that all my colleagues would endorse that.

[The Chair, NDP, Glenn Thibeault]

Thank you, Mr. Regan.

(Amendment negatived)

We will move now to amendment G-8.

Go ahead, Mr. Lake.

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

I will move this amendment and turn to the officials for an explanation of how this impacts the piece of legislation before us.

[Robert DuPelle]

This motion would relate to several provisions in the bill, the first dealing with the proposed notice-and-notice regime with respect to ISPs. In addition to some consequential amendments with respect to numbering, there is a change with respect to the timeframe by which an ISP would need to forward on a notice that it received to a subscriber.

The modification is to change the language from “without delay” to “as soon as feasible.” The objective is to ensure that ISPs have a suitable amount of time in order to comply with the obligation, particularly if there are unforeseen circumstances.

There are also a series of proposed amendments in the motion with respect to the conditions that information location tools, also known as search engines, would need to comply with respect to their caching—in other words, copying—of content in order to provide their search service. It's a very similar amendment to what was proposed in relation to the safe harbour for Internet service providers in relation to the caching of content, and it relates to only having to comply with this obligation in relation to industry standards and industry practices.

The third set of changes proposed in the motion relate to, again, the safe harbour for information location tools. They relate to new conditions and factors with respect to determining the scope of permitted injunctions that are available against an information location tool pursuant to the safe harbour.

[The Chair, NDP, Glenn Thibeault]

Thank you, Mr. DuPelle.

It's back to you, Mr. Lake, for any further discussion.

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

No, I do not have any.

(Amendment agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]

[The Chair, NDP, Glenn Thibeault]

We're now moving to Liberal amendment 15.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Yes, Mr. Chair, I'd like to move this amendment.

The difficulty is that where you have Internet service providers and they have been asked to give notice, you can foresee a situation where they're going to have thousands of requests per day to give notice. If they had a technological problem that means their software is down for a while and therefore a few thousand get by, then it seems to me that these numbers don't make sense any more. You can still have an effective penalty against ISPs that don't do their job properly without having them face a per-incident charge in the numbers we'd be talking about without this kind of amendment.

I don't see a proposal from the government to revise this. I'm a little surprised at that, because I do think that's a legitimate point they've raised, and I certainly look forward to hearing from the officials on what they feel the impact of this provision would be. I'm not going to ask them whether they think it's a good idea or not, because that would be policy.

[The Chair, NDP, Glenn Thibeault]

To the officials, are we clear on Mr. Regan's question? If we are, I'll hand the floor to you.

[Gerard Peets]

As we understand it, the proposal would remove the government's ability to lower the minimum damages to less than $5,000.

[The Chair, NDP, Glenn Thibeault]

Thank you, Mr. Peets.

It's back to you, Mr. Regan.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Can I have a moment, please, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, NDP, Glenn Thibeault]

You sure can.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, NDP, Glenn Thibeault]

Just very quickly, we'll take a five-minute suspension. We'll come back in five minutes.

[The Chair, NDP, Glenn Thibeault]

Welcome back.

That was a little more than a moment, Mr. Regan, but that was at the discretion of the chair.

I'll hand it back to you, sir.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I realize that this amendment will be defeated by the government in any event, by the Conservatives, but I'm going to be withdrawing it. I withdraw the amendment.

[The Chair, NDP, Glenn Thibeault]

I need unanimous consent for that.

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.