Industry Committee on June 9th, 2009

[Helen McDonald]

I'm just trying to be precise here. The two-way voice communications is the carve-out we've made to keep the do-not-call list whole. I'm not familiar enough with what a ghost call is. Would that be a computer-generated call?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

They often use a computer system. Somebody calls you first for telephone marketing and they hang up on you. Often they use a computerized system to pull the numbers up, and then if you're home, they call again.

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

I know those calls, believe me. We're all victims of those calls. I'm waiting to strangle the Captain Stubing guy with the wonderful ship in the background tooting its horn. That's the one that bugs me the most.

[Helen McDonald]

We've had the clarification. The ghost call would be covered under the do-not-call list.

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Oh, lovely. It's under the do-not-call list.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Masse.

Mr. Rota.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Minister, for coming out today.

I think spam is something that concerns all of us, and we want to see some kind of legislation out there that would prevent unwanted spam.

One of the things you mentioned earlier in your speech was that you wanted to encourage the growth of electronic commerce. I think that's something that has to be encouraged, and it's a wave of the future. One of the things that has come up in discussions with some of the people who are directly affected by this legislation is that the legislation doesn't zero in on one activity or certain activities and stop them. It basically throws a wide net out there and stops everything. Basically, everything is illegal except for a small list of activities that are permitted.

That's the way it was described to me by someone who's affected directly by this. I was wondering if you can comment on that, because in this changing world of electronics, we have new products, new actions, and new ways of doing business coming about on a regular basis.

So, first, could you maybe comment on this wide net that allows only certain activities through? And second, with the intervention of new activities or new ways of doing business, how long do you see it taking to make a change, so that it can adapt to a changing world?

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Thank you for the question.

Certainly, if you look at the structure under clause 6, you're quite right. It's saying that no person shall do this unless they fit into the category. I would argue that that's the appropriate way of doing it, for the following reason.

This area, obviously, is changing rapidly by the year, by the month, by the week, and if we tried to itemize the things that were accepted rather than having a blanket prohibition, we'd be getting into a situation where the legislation would almost be out of date by the time we got around to getting royal assent. That would be my fear. You'd be constantly seeking exceptions to the general rule of openness--which would be the opposite of this--because other methodologies would come forward that would be legitimate methodologies, or, in your case, other things would come forward that are bad--some new form of malware, some new form of spam--and then we'd have to plug the hole and say no, that one's excluded too.

So I think it's better to exclude everything and say no, everything's excluded. Assume it's spam or malware, unless you fit into what we know is legitimate commerce or legitimate communication under this particular bill.

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

You can understand the concern, though. If somebody's doing business and they say okay, we're going to do business a certain way, and they're restricted because it's not part of the legislation, and it's not defined, that's a real concern.

I just had someone from the real estate board asking what would happen if a certain real estate agent heard through a friend that an acquaintance of theirs was looking for a house. If they had a house for sale within their portfolio, it would be illegal for them to contact that person to offer them a house or to say, “Look, I understand you're looking for a house, and is this something that would interest you?” Would that be something that would be blocked?

[Helen McDonald]

I'm sure there are many ways in which the real estate agent on this particular issue could express it or make it known through a friend. We're talking more about the mass sending of the kind of e-mail that—

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

You're telling me that the real estate agent would be caught in this vast net that covers absolutely everything if it's not defined. If it's not defined in there, that person can't do business. You're preventing someone from using a tool that would be very useful to them to do business.

[Helen McDonald]

I don't think we've quite worked out the precise example, not being at the meeting, of how they positioned this—whether there was an implied consent like “I know a real estate agent; if you like, he can call.”

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

Basically what happens is someone tells you they have a friend who's looking for a house. If that person gets an e-mail from you, all of a sudden that's illegal. That takes the place of—

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

We'll get back to you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

I think Mr. Simpson might have something to add to this.

Mr. Simpson.

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Just looking at it quickly, I think at the very least you have the ability under regulations to deal with some of these examples. Paragraph 6(5)(c) would give us the power to say these are acceptable commercial activities, these cases.

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

You know as well as I do, Mr. Minister, through you, Mr. Chair, that around Parliament things don't happen instantaneously. We find holes and it takes forever to change them. Meanwhile, industry comes to a grinding halt because we have tools we can't use. That is my concern with this legislation. It's the fact that it has a very wide net that impedes business. When I look at what's going on with the economy today, the last thing we need is another break in the economy. In going through Bill C-27, that's what keeps coming up. I feel this legislation has been put together in haste and there are problems.

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

This legislation has been kicking around this department for a good long time. Previous governments have tried to do legislation like this but have never got around to it. I would reject the idea that this is put together in haste.

I would say this, however. You can come up with examples and I won't know the answer immediately to a particular example. But I will say that if you want a situation where everything is open unless it's specifically excluded, then the bad guys will find a way to be excluded and this legislation will not work and it will not protect anybody. It will not protect commerce, it will not protect business, and it will not protect consumers. I still abide by the philosophy that you exclude everything unless it is a legitimate form of communication, in which case it's fine. I think that's a better way of looking at it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Rota, for those questions.

Mr. Wallace.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank you, Minister, for coming, and for having folks here.

Can you follow up a little on Mr. Rota's example? I think Mr. Rota's example is exactly what we're trying to resolve in this. If I'm a homeowner talking to my friend about maybe moving and I get a slew of unsolicited e-mails from real estate agents, I'm not happy about it. That's the whole idea.

I don't have any problem—that is my privacy and there are other ways for real estate agents. Now if I give permission to my friend to tell that real estate agent to call me, e-mail me, mail to me, or come to my door, that is a different story. Without permission or consent, I don't agree with it.

I'm happy with the legislation. It has been kicked around for a while. Could you give me a sense of whether that's a year, two years, or three years? Do you have any idea how long you've been working on this? I don't mean you, Minister, but the staff.

[Richard Simpson]

The origins of the bill actually go back to the work of the spam task force, as one of the members mentioned.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

How long ago was that?

[Richard Simpson]

It was in 2004.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

That was in 2004. Thank you very much. I don't need more information.

This has been working around. We have had support from our colleagues. I know there are some issues. My question about the issues that you've heard today really breaks down to two, as far as I can tell from the people I've seen and the reading I've done.

First, if you have a software package and they do an overnight update on it, and they drop cookies down or they drop something on there, is that covered off? I need to know, do you need word changes to this bill, or do we pass it the way it is and make a commitment to fix that during regulation? That's my first question.

The second area that I think you've clarified considerably is that we will not give royal assent or declare, whatever you call it, the section to deal with...because I think one clause, clause 86, actually repeals the section that has the do-not-call list in there. So if we don't declare it, or whatever we call it, it will stay in abeyance until we need it.

We had a great example at our own committee, of most of these members who are here today, of a country in Africa where you don't need a card of any sort to do your banking because they do it by phone. Who knows what's coming next in this country or any other country in terms of spam? That's fully integrated with their phone, and that could be coming here--those kinds of things.

Is there specific wording that you've been working on or that you need changed at committee? I don't even know if we can do it at committee, but from a process point of view, how...? I'm a little bit with Mr. Masse on this. I'd like to see this passed relatively quickly. We have our witnesses in the next few days. I think we should get on with this process. It has been hanging around way too long. That's why people get frustrated with government, because we take forever to find issues when we need to move on to other projects.

I'm happy to debate Mr. Masse's bill when it eventually comes back here.