My view is that it is an issue that has evolved. At the time when we were on the spam task force, the Federal Trade Commission spam centre--fridge or freezer or whatever it was called--was seen as a useful tool for investigative purposes, and there was the sense that we ought to create a Canadian equivalent. I think it was the fridge, and we were going to be called the freezer. Today I'm not sure that is as necessary, but what I think is necessary is empowering Canadians generally with something to do. I get this a lot in some of the other areas I'm involved with. People get these spam messages. They know there is spam legislation out there. They want to do something. Creating a spam reporting centre that can engage in some analysis and that can actually track incidents of spam and perhaps try to identify where some of those Canadian sources are would be of some value.
To give the parallel on the do-not-call situation, in my office I have literally 2,000 pages obtained under access to information that show four months' worth of the complaints that have been filed with the CRTC under do-not-call. They go by date, and you can actually see the telemarketing campaigns as they wave through the country. All of a sudden, over a week, you will get--I won't bother naming the companies--a particular company about which there are suddenly dozens of complaints in a segmented time. That could be very valuable to someone for investigative purposes if we were dealing with something that was illegal.
Creating that kind of spam reporting centre has some of those benefits and also gives people a bit of empowerment in terms of having something they can do when they receive these messages.