Bill C-37 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Telecommunications Act

This enactment amends the Telecommunications Act to permit the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to administer databases for the purpose of its power under section 41, namely the power to prohibit or regulate the use by any person of the telecommunications facilities of a Canadian carrier for the provision of unsolicited telecommunications to the extent that the Commission considers it necessary to prevent undue inconvenience or nuisance, giving due regard to freedom of expression.
The enactment also establishes an administrative monetary penalty for the contravention of prohibitions or requirements of the Commission under that section.

Telecommunications Act

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the debate of Bill C-37, an act to amend the Telecommunications Act.

I noticed from reading the bill that it does not have a short title. If it did have one the bill would be known as the control telemarketers act.

If we were to ask the average Canadian to make a list of life's greatest irritations, telemarketers would surely be near the top of that list. In fact, so hated are telemarketers that when America's Federal Trade Commission set up a national do not call registry in the United States, on its opening day the registration button on the website received 1,000 per second. Clearly there is broad public support for a do not call registry.

At the same time, one of the least popular government agencies in this country is the CRTC, seen by a growing number of Canadians as blind to the increasingly rapid changes in the telecommunications industry, archaic in its approach to regulation and unresponsive to the needs of Canadian citizens. This is the agency that the government would like to put in charge of our do not call list.

To many Canadians this would be like putting the folks who ran Enron in charge of our health care system. All Canadians want health care but they do not have a lot of confidence in Enron style management.

To make matters worse, the CRTC's own officials have said that the agency is not equipped to administer such a list and does not have the power to enforce it properly. Moreover, even if the CRTC were the appropriate agency to create a do not call list and had the muscle to ensure that its rules were respected, it is having trouble dealing with its current responsibilities.

The CRTC is currently under considerable fire for its revocation of CHOI-FM's licence in Quebec, its handling of Al Jazeera and Fox News and its total bungling of satellite television policy. Ask most Canadians what they think of the CRTC's ability to conduct meaningful consultations and the results are less than encouraging. Some will tell us that the CRTC's decisions are virtually meaningless and have no real effect. Only the CRTC would give an ethnic channel at category 2 TV licence and require it to provide Canadian content while imposing the obligation to convince a cable or satellite company to carry it.

We have seen ethnic TV being bounced back and forth between the CRTC and various committees of this House with no meaningful resolution to the debate. Few would say that the CRTC has not conducted consultations but the link between those consultations and concrete policies that benefit Canadians is often tenuous at best.

Therefore I draw no comfort from the Minister of Industry's December 13 press release in which he announced his intent to table this legislation.

In the release he stated:

If the bill becomes law, the CRTC will then consult Canadians on the implementation of a national Do Not Call List. The Commission plans to start such a consultative process shortly after the bill is adopted by Parliament. Such consultations could include the question of whether any organizations should be exempt from a Do Not Call List.

However anyone who carefully reads Bill C-37 will be surprised to find that it actually contains no requirements whatsoever for the CRTC to consult with anyone. The operative clause would add a new section 41.2 of the Telecommunications Act, and essentially it reads:

The Commission may, for the purposes of [setting up a do not call list],

(a) administer databases or information, administrative or operational systems; and

(b) determine any matter, and make any order, with respect to the databases or the information, administrative or operational systems.

The more one reads Bill C-37, the more one becomes aware of its purpose: to allow the Liberal government to take credit for dealing with telemarketers without actually having done anything.

In fact, Bill C-37 is a smokescreen. It suggests that an agency with a poor track record of public consultation may consult with the public. It could require an overworked agency to take on new responsibilities without any additional resources. It ignores the CRTC's own claims that the agency is not equipped to administer such a list and does not have the power to enforce it properly.

The English version of Bill C-37 is just two and a half pages long and uses the word “may” 20 times. The CRTC may set up a list, it may delegate powers, it may impose penalties. It does not have to do anything, and moreover, it has told the government that it does not have the resources to administer this do not call registry.

If the government is really serious about setting up a do not call registry, Parliament must clearly define the parameters and provide reasonable exemptions provided for charities, political parties, polling firms and companies that wish to contact their current customers. We must also ensure that we provide the proper resources to the agency tasked with implementing and enforcing this idea.

In this regard it is helpful to look south to the United States at its legislative experience in this area. In 1994 the U.S. Congress passed the telemarketing consumer fraud and abuse act, 15 U.S.C., s.s. 1601-1608.

Section 3 of the act reads:

The [Federal Trade] Commission shall prescribe rules prohibiting deceptive telemarketing acts or practices and other abusive telemarketing acts or practices.

Section 10 reads:

Upon the expiration of 5 years following the date of the first promulgation of rules under section 3, the Commission shall review the implementation of this Act and its effect on deceptive telemarketing acts or practices and report the results of the review to Congress.

The U.S. legislation imposes obligations on the Federal Trade Commission and, more important, requires it to report back to congress, to the legislature.

The FTC reported back, and on January 28, 2003, representative Billy Tauzin of Louisana's third congressional district, introduced house resolution 395, an act to authorize the Federal Trade Commission to collect fees for the implementation and enforcement of a do not call registry.

Section 4 of the act requires the FTC to transmit detailed annual reports to various congressional committees. The report must include: an analysis of the effectiveness of the do not call registry as a national registry; the number of consumers who have placed their telephone numbers into the registry; the number of persons paying fees for access to the registry and the amount of such fees; an analysis of the progress of coordinating the operation and enforcement of the do not call registry; and, a review of the enforcement proceedings.

The very next day, January 29, 2003, the house of representatives committee on energy and commerce asked a very basic question: How much will all of this cost? It was a very basic question and one that the Liberal government has failed to ask with regard to the legislation.

On February 4, 2003, the congressional budget office estimated that fines would amount to roughly $18 million annually and that the net cost to the U.S. government would be approximately $13 million a year. President Bush signed HR 395 on March 11, 2003.

It is important to understand that the U.S. do not call registry does not affect charities, political organizations, telephone surveys and a number of very important industries. I do not think the government has given nearly enough thought to this legislation or has clearly understood or clearly consulted, and, most important for taxpayers, I think it is quite clear that the government does not understand the importance of having a proper cost benefit analysis of the legislation.

The U.S. do not call registry will offer genuine relief to Americans. The Federal Trade Commission has teeth to enforce it. The commission has punished companies such as California Pacific Mortgage and AT&T, and top offenders such as Faxes.com are facing up to $5.4 million in fines.

Large telemarketing companies, such as Mainstream Marketing Services, are challenging the constitutionality of the U.S. do not call registry stating that it violates the first amendment guarantees of free speech. Nonetheless, the U.S. Direct Marketing Association estimates that about 90% of the telemarketing activity has been stopped to the more than 50 million numbers on its registry.

I am very much in favour of a do not call registry. However what the Liberals are proposing would potentially prevent us from surveying our very own constituents. We only need to look at the same sex marriage debate to realize how important it is for members of Parliament to be in touch with their constituents and to reflect their values in the House.

I want the government to give us a truly effective do not call registry that can be fully enforced. I want a broad consultation process so that we can be sure that we get it right, and that we get it right the first time. The Federal Trade Commission created its do not call registry after a comprehensive three year review, numerous workshops, meetings and over 64,000 public submissions.

I am tired of being told by the CRTC that it is beyond our reach. If the government wants to create a do not call registry, I want significant parliamentary oversight over the process and the ability to ensure that the appropriate resources exist to effectively implement the registry.

Just like so many things with the Liberal government, it comes up with an idea, it offers a solution but it does not offer the real means in order to get it done. The Liberals boast about our armed forces. They stand in line with our armed forces and take photo ops with them but for them to do the business and the job that they need to do in order for the Liberals to be able to have those photo ops, they persistently fail to provide those resources.

From the health care system to bragging about its importance to Canadians and not giving it the funding, to bragging about our armed forces and taking the photo ops but not providing the funding, in area after area the Liberal government talks one way, walks another and fails to provide the resources in order to get the job done right.

Bill C-37 is a shadow of what is needed. I am voting to send it back to the drafters so that the government can bring it back in a way that respects the will of Parliament. The need for consultation, the requirement for enforcement resources and the teeth to ensure that a do not call registry would provide us with the same comfort that our American neighbours are getting are crucial for the legislation to have meaning and to stop telemarketers from invading our homes and causing us the kind of annoyances and headaches that all of us wish would just go away.

[Gurmant Grewal, Conservative, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today on behalf of the constituents of Newton--North Delta to participate in the debate on Bill C-37, an act to amend the Telecommunications Act.

This bill would enable the CRTC to establish and enforce a do not call registry. Specifically Bill C-37 would amend the section of the Telecommunications Act that deals with telemarketers by adding the power to establish databases and to make any order with respect to these databases. This power may be delegated to any person, including a body created by the CRTC. The person or body exercising the delegated powers may charge fees which are deemed by the bill to not be public money. The bill also sets out financial penalties of up to $1,500 per offending call by an individual and up to $15,000 for a corporation.

This bill was first introduced in the last Parliament, but it died on the order paper.

All of us have received unwanted calls from people attempting to sell a good or a service. The telemarketer could be pitching the local newspaper, a credit card company, a cleaning service, a charity, or even a politician wanting one's vote. Sometimes we may welcome the call. It could provide useful information on a product or service we are interested in, but other times it is nothing but an annoyance.

Many members may have experienced receiving calls at very odd hours. Sometimes we receive calls when we do not want them. I have received calls at four o'clock in the morning, and when I have answered the phone I have heard a fax tone. The next time I have turned on the fax machine I have found that it was a telemarketer trying to promote some sort of service.

In my constituency office I often receive faxes promoting products or services, but members' offices are not even remotely connected with those products or services. Sometimes it is annoying and a waste of time. On the other hand sometimes it is useful information that people want.

My first job when I came to Canada was with a telemarketing company. I worked for a couple of weeks for that telemarketing company. I found out that the company was calling seniors in the U.S. to sell lottery tickets. It was a scam. The company was skimming them of money. Seniors can become addicted to buying things like lottery tickets. They probably lose more money than they would gain. I thought it was a very unethical practice and I immediately left that job because I could not do that.

A survey conducted by Decima Research, undoubtedly by telephone, found a large majority of Canadians, 75%, wants the federal government to institute a do not call list to protect them against unsolicited telephone calls from marketers. I agree with the survey. People do not want unwanted calls. I agree with the principle of the bill, but as members can imagine, like many other bills this is a poorly drafted bill with no substance, just an intent. It is very poorly managed, contains lots of hot air and things are not practical.

That survey also found that Canadians do not want to pay anything to be included on such a list. Sixty per cent of respondents said they would not want to pay for this service.

To much fanfare in 2003 the United States responded to the annoyance of unwanted telemarketing calls by establishing a national do not call list. Our government is now attempting to follow the American example, of course.

There already are do not call lists in Canada. The Canadian Marketing Association has been registering consumers on its do not call list since 1988. In addition the CRTC already requires that each telemarketing company maintain its own do not call list. Consumers can ask to be placed on that list. The only hitch is they first have to be called by the company. These lists must be maintained for three years.

The first thing we notice when reading Bill C-37 is that there is very little to the bill. Most of the details have been left to the regulations. As a result, we do not know if there will be any exclusions to the list, how much it will cost, who will operate the list and so on. These are very important details that deserve our consideration.

How can we do our job as parliamentarians if proposed legislation comes to us with so little detail? The government is asking us to give it a tabula rasa. Unfortunately, this is not without precedent.

Legislation inevitably comes to this House without the accompanying regulations. Much of the law that affects Canadians is not found in the Statutes of Canada , but in the thousands of regulations made pursuant to powers granted by the acts of Parliament.

Each year the federal government introduces about 1,200 new regulations. Since 1975 the government has made over 28,000 regulations. That is more than 122,000 pages of regulations.

The government introduces bills that lack substance, which are vague in intent, often incomplete and written just in general terms. The regulations follow the acts that we pass and those regulations sometimes contradict the intent of the legislation. Sometimes the regulations are completely off track. We in Parliament have no control once the legislation passes, but the accompanying regulations come from any angle contradicting anything or whatever it may be.

This leaves the door wide open to put through regulations that define our laws without the proper checks and balances in place. By doing so the Liberal government has effectively gutted the parliamentary process of accountability and transparency in the formulation of laws. Parliament is no longer at the centre of the law making process.

Twenty per cent of the laws that we see in the country are passed in this House. The remaining 80% come through the back door by way of regulations, which are neither debated nor subject to public scrutiny. For practical purposes the Liberal government rules, not governs, Canada.

As members of Parliament we passionately debate proposed legislation in the House of Commons. After debate we vote either yea or nay depending on the merit of the proposed law. Regulations receive virtually no debate in the House. We do not see them attached to the legislation that comes to the House or in the other place. There is no public study or input. There is even no media scrutiny. This is an affront to democracy.

The Standing Joint Committee on the Scrutiny of Regulations does only a limited scrutiny as per the limited criteria. Members of Parliament and senators on the committee, legal counsel and staff work very hard scouring through thousands of pages of dry, technical, legal subject matter. In this thankless job they are unable to review the legislation in many general terms because their mandate is restricted and limited.

As parliamentarians most of us want to put an end to the nuisance of telemarketing calls, but the bill is poorly drafted and does not deal with the substantial issues spilling over from it.

There are many problems in this country which probably should get higher priority. People can have alternatives. The government's priorities are wrong. Its modus operandi is wrong. Therefore, I cannot support this proposed legislation. I need more information in all honesty. For one thing I need to know how much this scheme is going to cost and there are many other pressing issues.

In conclusion, I agree with the principle, but to make it work, we need more information. I will not be in a position to support this legislation until it is amended.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today in support of Bill C-37, an act to amend the Telecommunications Act.

Consumers will no doubt welcome a bill designed to give them an easy, effective way to curtail intrusive telemarketing. Many may turn to the do not call list as a means to preserve their privacy.

But what about the impact of this bill on the telemarketing industry? What about its impact on the call centres that provide jobs for Canadians? If this bill is such good news for consumers, does it spell bad news for the industry?

Canada has become one of the key locations for call centres. Canada's established reputation in the call centre industry is due to its highly skilled, multilingual personnel. Other advantages include excellent telecommunications infrastructure, competitive labour costs and overall lower business costs.

Many companies have located their call centres in Canada to take advantage of these opportunities. According to a 2004 customer contact centre study, there are more than 6,000 call centres in Canada employing 360,000 call centre workers. Between 2002 and 2003, an estimated 128 customer contact centre deals or expansions were made in Canada, creating 40,000 new jobs.

Are these jobs at risk if the CRTC implements a national do not call list? To find an answer to that question, I think it is important that the House understand the changing nature of the call centre industry. I would like to review the difference between outbound and inbound telemarketing.

Some call centres make so-called cold calls to potential customers, customers with whom no previous relationship exists. As I am sure my colleagues who have ever received a call from such a telemarketer will appreciate, these salespeople go through many no responses before they get a yes. That is the nature of cold call marketing. They must make many calls where the answer is negative before they find someone on the other end of the line to answer that they are interested in the product or service being offered.

The chances of getting a yes improve significantly if these outbound sales people are working on a list that does not include the people who explicitly state that they do not want to be called. This is an effective way to reduce the number of unsuccessful calls and thereby increase the efficiency and productivity of the people in the outbound sector of the telemarketing industry.

In fact, the Canadian Marketing Association itself sees the creation of a national do not call list as a preferable form of regulation to the alternatives.

For example, under the current regulation, individual telemarketing companies must maintain their own do not call lists. This current system makes no one happy. Telemarketers are not happy because maintaining such a list is an administrative expense. Consumers are not happy because even if they register on one company's list, they are still going to be pestered by scores of other telemarketing companies.

The creation of a national do not call list will present a more cost effective and efficient way of regulating the industry. Consumers will opt into it. Telemarketers will pay to subscribe to it, thus supporting its maintenance.

There are also significant changes taking place in the call centre industry, which make the do not call list approach well timed. A transition to inbound calling is underway. Call centres for this new kind of telemarketing are called customer relationship management contract centres. These call centres make up the vast majority of the industry today. This fast growing sector consists of customer order and catalogue sales, assistance for online sales and service centres for handling inbound calls.

The bill before us would have no impact on inbound calls.

Perhaps it is useful to consider what has happened to the industry in the United States, where a national do not call registry has been in effect for more than a year.

In the United States, the percentage of outbound calls from call centres as a total of their business has been decreasing for several years, since 1998, in fact, five years before the passage of do not call legislation. The percentage of inbound calls has been increasing.

A similar trend has occurred in Canada, with 90% of Canadian contact centres having an inbound focus while only 10% are focused on outbound calls. The nature of the call centres in Canada has already changed.

I believe we will see this trend continue once the CRTC puts in place a national do not call list. The call centres will be more focused on giving the people at the other end of the telephone line better service for something they already have rather than making cold calls to try to persuade them to buy something new. I believe this is a much more stable business case on which to create jobs.

We want a regulatory environment where consumers have more control over who contacts them. We want a regulatory environment where a telemarketer that implements a well developed business plan will be able to succeed. That is the balance that is struck in the bill.

I encourage the House to support this legislation.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today on behalf of the constituents of Fleetwood--Port Kells to participate in the second reading debate on Bill C-37, an act to amend the Telecommunications Act.

The bill would enable the CRTC, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, to establish and enforce a national do not call registry similar to ones already existing in the United States and Great Britain. Bill C-37 would also give the CRTC the power to levy substantial penalties against telemarketers and to contract with a private sector third party to operate the service.

I want to support the concept, but the bill does not get it right. The bill, consisting of a measly five pages, is extremely light on details. It tells us nothing about possible exceptions to the list, how the list would be maintained, how telemarketers would check the list, how often they must check the list, who would have access to the list or any reporting on how the list would be run. All these crucial details are left out of the regulations.

The telemarketing industry employs more than 270,000 Canadians and $16 billion worth of goods and services are sold over the telephone in Canada annually.

The industry is important to the livelihood of many of my constituents. Last year, U.S. financial giant JPMorgan Chase & Co. became the latest company to set up a call centre in Surrey when it opened a customer service centre employing over 800 in Surrey City Centre. Call centres have added substantially to Lower Mainland employment levels in the last few years.

In addition to JPMorgan, RMH Teleservices Inc. now employs 1,800 workers in North Surrey, with plans to add staff this year. In August 2003 eBay announced plans for an expansion of its Burnaby call centre from 200 to 1,000 jobs within two years.

There are currently an estimated 14,000 call centre jobs in total in greater Vancouver. The centres hire numerous entry level workers. In addition to the mostly front-line clerical staff who earn from $9 to $13 per hour, they also hire supervisory, management, sales and information systems staff.

It is unclear what impact a national do not call registry would have on the Canadian telemarketing industry. The impact will depend in part on any exemptions that may be given.

In the U.S., industry officials expect more than one-third of workers will lose their jobs within the next two years under that country's do not call rules.

Already Canadian regulations require individual telemarketers to keep a do not call list and respect requests for three years. However, most people have not been aware of this fact and they just hang up when they hear a telemarketer on the line. If they remain on the line, the telemarketer will ask whether the consumer wants to be excluded from all lists maintained by the telemarketing agency, not just from a list used for a particular client. This was started last fall.

The Canadian Marketing Association, which 800 corporate members include Canada's major financial institutions, insurance companies, and charitable organizations and which has been a vocal supporter of a national do not call list, has operated its own mandatory do not call service for its membership since 1988. The list also restricts the number of marketing offers received by mail and fax and now includes more than 450,000 phone numbers. The list has little legal bite, even less publicity, and is currently only adhered to by 80% of telemarketers who are association members.

The American do not call list came into force on October 1, 2003. Millions of Americans have signed up since then and the registry now includes more than 62 million registered telephone numbers. Any telemarketing company that calls one of these numbers can be fined as much as $11,000 per call.

However, the American legislation exempts some of the biggest users of telemarketing, for example, long distance phone companies, airlines, banks and credit unions, insurance companies, charities, pollsters, political organizations. Also, the do not call list can be ignored if the company already has an existing business relationship with its client. With all those exemptions, I am not quite sure whom Americans will be avoiding by signing up for the registry.

The CMA, along with the Canadian Bankers Association, argues that the current regulatory regime put in place by the CRTC is costly, ineffective and too broad. They want the regime scrapped and replaced with a U.S.-style do not call service. Besides requiring do not call lists, the CRTC also now requires callers to first identify themselves and the entity they represent and to offer a toll-free information line to be staffed during business hours, all before the sales pitch begins.

The CMA and the Canadian Bankers Association feel these regulations should not apply to a company's existing customers. CMA president John Gustavson suggests that these regulations would be bad for industry and would help make customer frustration fester.

Bill C-37 would do little more than allow the CRTC to establish databases, make orders regarding databases, delegate those powers and enforce those powers with financial penalties. The legal text on the penalties is far more extensive than the text on the databases that may be created.

The details on the operation of the do not call list are left entirely to the discretion of the CRTC. I consider this an affront to Parliament. As members of this chamber, we should be debating more than the mere idea of a bill. We should be considering the details of the proposed legislation as well.

We may agree with the idea of a do not call registry, but before we can support this bill we also need to know, for example, how or if the law would apply to charities and pollsters, how or if the law would apply to candidates who attempt to contact voters during an election campaign, whether the law would apply only to live sales pitches or to recorded messages and faxes, and what charges are to be paid by telemarketers to access the database.

The whole question of money is of particular concern. The government claims the registry would be self-financing, but it provides no further details. We must be mindful that the do not call registry does not become another gun registry in terms of both cost and management. My constituents are fed up with telemarketers calling them but do not want another $2 billion fiasco either.

As a consumer, I do not like receiving these calls from telemarketers. A do not call registry offers consumers a tool with which they can protect their homes against intrusions which are particularly invasive. Simply put, it gives consumers an option.

As parliamentarians, we must safeguard personal privacy and reduce the danger of telemarketing abuse. However, this must be done with clear legislation that spells out exactly how a do not call service would work, including any exemptions and how much it would cost taxpayers.

Bill C-37 is short on details. Almost everything is being left to the regulations. It would be irresponsible for me as a member of Parliament to allow this bill to pass in its current form. I will therefore be opposing this bill unless it is significantly amended to provide the full details of the proposed list.

[Paddy Torsney, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Cooperation]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-37. It was very important that the minister introduce this bill. I was quite surprised, during this debate, to hear the member for Saskatoon—Humboldt.

Saskatchewan is one of the provinces that has been leading the way in assisting consumers to put themselves on a list. SaskTel has a specific service to aid consumers who want to stop these unwanted calls.

Let us be clear. The telemarketing industry is an important industry in Canada. It has a very legitimate place in the marketing grid. Marketing is important. Marketers have to get their product to the right people at the right time and in the right place, but they want to ensure that they do not annoy customers. All of us as members of Parliament have heard from constituents who are spending precious time with their families, trying to instill good values and have some quiet time, yet are being inundated by callers. They need a do not call registry.

The other day I was helping out somebody who had been away for a couple of days. I opened the individual's voice mail and found that seven out of ten calls were from unwanted telephoners. They are the kind that I want the minister to include in the legislation, the kind that are dumped in, as somebody mentioned earlier, to the voice mail system.

Telemarketing is important to our country. It provides important jobs. It is important to the business community. That is why the business community particularly supports the bill. The Canadian Marketing Association and I have been working on this. My private member's bill, Bill C-520, was introduced in the last Parliament and enjoyed support from consumer groups and businesses. They want to clean up the industry.

Right now they are maintaining, as individual companies, a whole series of registries to avoid calling people who do not want to be called by these individuals. It will be cheaper, more effective and more efficient, particularly for Canadians, to have one do not call registry, one that would list their names, addresses and phone numbers in case there are two people living in the same location sharing a phone number. It has to be specific to the individual and to the address in case phone numbers are reissued to other individuals.

The member for Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel also has a private member's bill in Parliament on this issue. I would encourage the members of the House to vote for Bill C-37 and for the private member's bill to ensure that both bills are considered and that the details of how we deal with the registry, how we instruct the CRTC to consult on this, and I hope they will do it forthwith, will ensure we get a call registry up and running as quickly, as efficiently and as cheaply as possible. One registry for all Canadians will make sense.

The member for Saskatoon—Humboldt talked about exemptions. My bill exempted charities, and I believe they should be given that exemption. It should also make an exemption for businesses that are calling current customers. Let us face it, that makes sense.

I was telemarketed by the Globe and Mail , which I am a subscriber to on Fridays and Saturdays in my constituency. It called me with a great offer for the Sunday New York Times , a legitimate, perfectly positioned telemarketing call. It was on the money. I was happy to hear from it and to get that service. To have continued to call me when I did not want its services, would have been a bad business practice. The businesses in the first case should be exempt, but in the second case they had better be sure to take off customers who do not want to hear from them.

There has been a lot of discussion about the need for this bill. I encourage all members to participate in it. Again, we need to recognize that there is some concern in the industry from those who are operating call centres in all our constituencies. If we can single out the calls that are on the money and that are directed at the right people, it is more efficient and more effective, rather than all the noise coming at people right now.

It is the same thing with direct marketing and the flyers that come in our mail. We will see the ones we want to see if we clean up the industry. I had a private member's bill that good pieces of consumer protection legislation, which were adopted by the minister of industry of the day, in this case a do not call registry in the last run through of the Competition Act, to ensure that we cleaned up and had the highest standards for Canadians and that we ensured the industries that were marketing, marketed effectively. They are important.

We have an example, as the Bloc Québécois member mentioned. He talked about how important it was to look to our neighbours to the south. They have had this registry for a number of years. They still have a vibrant telemarketing industry. They still provide an opportunity for people to market through the use of the telephone. More important, there is an opportunity for consumers to take their names off these lists and to be protected so they can have quiet time and not be harassed by nuisance calls.

When the CRTC does this consultation, I want to be sure that it includes, contrary to what its most recent ruling was, the kind of calls that dump a message into our voice mails when we are not there. This type of call is causing great concern, particularly among a number of constituents who do not understand how they necessarily work, especially when a person receives a call from a moving company. It is a bit disconcerting when a person has not heard the phone ring and all of a sudden the company is trying to move that individual out of his or her place of residence. We have had concerns from constituents who are not quite sure what this is.

For anyone who is exposed to the possibility of dealing with the experiences of loved ones in some early stages of dementia, it can be extremely disconcerting. We need to protect consumers.

Some of the calls that are more harassing in nature are also a real concern to me. Again, guidelines by the industry are important. However, not everyone in the industry follows the guidelines.

Under this system, everyone will have to follow the guidelines or there will be punishments. In the minister's bill there is an infraction per call per day. In my bill there were very strict penalties: $25,000 on a summary conviction, a maximum or an imprisonment of six months or on an indictment, a fine of not more than $1 million or imprisonment to a term not exceeding five years.

It is important to ensure that we clean up the industry. We must have everyone follow the same rules. We have to ensure that people are not harassed into giving money or buying products for which they are not interested. However, we know they become quite intimidated by the callers. As I said, yesterday seven out of ten calls were an annoying waste of my time and that of the individuals.

There is also the ability for people to fax when we are least expect it. That costs money. It costs money for the cartridges and paper for the fax machine. Those companies too must follow these guidelines. I send back the faxes, just as all the members of this House have, and ask to have my name removed from the list. However, I still manage to get them.

Before the legislation goes through this House and the Senate, I want CRTC to begin consultations. Canadians are ready for the bill. We have a need for the legislation. We need protection of consumers. We need to ensure that telemarketing and other forms of marketing are as effective as they can be.

Why not set the highest standard possible? Why not have one system for the whole country? Why not make it easy for people to follow through on this?

I have received a fair bit of correspondence on this. SaskTel has a system where a person can get a tracing of the numbers that have called. That will be an important piece of this, to ensure that when we take our names off a list, we will have those convictions. If we are to have those high standards, we need the ability to track from where the phone calls come.

Ironically, I called a telemarketer who had called the number I checked yesterday. Unfortunately, I had to call another set of numbers to remove those calls. That is more time and money. They were long distance calls for me.

Finally, ironically, like most people in this House, I am never home. I rarely receive telemarketing calls. Lately, however, I have been inundated. I would ask those telemarketers to take my name and phone number off their list. I am happy to buy their products, but only if I they do not call me.

This has been interesting. As a consumer, I am interested to hear what my constituents are subjected to on a regular basis. I get a lot of hang ups because I am not there.

Also, as a member opposite mentioned, we are put into a locked in system that ties up the phone line. This has implications for people who have emergency situations. It has implications for those of us who have people trying to reach us. We need to clean up this industry with one easy registration system for constituents across the country.

I commend the Minister of Industry for getting this legislation to the House. It is important consumer protection. I hope the bill will proceed to committee as quickly as possible and that it will look to other examples of private members' bills that address the issue as well.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today to address an issue that is of interest to many Canadians.

It would be safe to say that few people enjoy receiving a call from a telemarketer during supper hour. In fact public frustration with the persistence of ill-timed incoming phone calls has entered the realm of popular culture. I am not sure if members remember the Seinfeld episode where Jerry Seinfeld turned the tables on the telemarketer by saying he was too busy and asked the caller for his phone number so that Jerry might call him back during the caller's supper hour. This amusing sitcom moment illustrates the intrusion felt by many of my constituents when the phone rings as they are about to sit down for dinner or do something with their children. Someone is either trying to sell them something, probe them for information, or leave them listening to a recording.

Clearly the Conservative Party and I as the representative for the riding of Saskatoon--Humboldt do not support such invasions of privacy.

Let me say that the principle of this bill, the underlying goal, is very good. However the do not call legislation under discussion has some serious problems. Legislation that is flawed but good in principle must be amended. It is typical of the government to produce such legislation.

As has been pointed out too often in the past, Liberal governments try to deal with important issues by designing half-baked solutions. Ask any farmer in my riding about the prospect of losing their land without guaranteed compensation under the Species at Risk Act and members will get an idea of what I am referring to by poorly crafted laws.

Let me pause for a moment in order to say one thing about the Species at Risk Act to illustrate the problem of poorly thought out legislation. If only the federal government had had the presence of mind to work with farmers and ranchers, the protection of wildlife habitat could have taken a quantum leap forward across this country. We in the Conservative Party recognize that our farmers and ranchers are stewards of the land. They are quite willing to preserve the habitat, to cooperate with groups such as Ducks Unlimited Canada, yet the Liberals in their anti-rural and often unthinking way with their legislation showed evidence of not following through on the details. In bills like the Species at Risk Act the devil was in the details, as it is with this legislation.

Bill C-37 is poorly drafted legislation because the bill is very scant on important details. Bill C-37 would allow the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the CRTC, to create a national do not call list. The CRTC would be empowered through Bill C-37 to hit telemarketers with substantial penalties. Bill C-37 does not spell out how this national do not call list would be maintained. There are no details in this bill concerning what information would be required from consumers to build the list into an effective database. There are no details in Bill C-37 setting up how telemarketers would check the do not call list in order to comply with the law. There are no details in Bill C-37 setting out how often telemarketers would have to check the list to be operating within the law. These are all important details, and details can change legislation.

In summary, under Bill C-37 telemarketers could be fined $1,500 per offending call, for individuals. The penalty for corporations that do not respect the do not call list is $15,000 per offending call. However there are no details in Bill C-37 setting out how telemarketers would check the national do not call list in order to comply with the laws.

In addition Bill C-37 does not explain who would have access to the do not call list. Imagine that, a national database of telephone numbers, callers' names, and who knows what other information provided by callers, and there are no legal parameters spelling out who has access to this information. We must be sure in this legislation that we do not, in seeking to protect privacy, end up invading privacy even more severely.

To top this all off, Bill C-37 does not have any reporting requirements on how the list is being run. Let us consider the implications of this. It would be a massive database with no reporting requirements. It is rather odd that there is nothing in Bill C-37 about these reporting requirements.

I thought the Prime Minister was going to have more government transparency and accountability as hallmarks of his government. Apparently, the timely reviews of government programs are not a priority of the Liberals. We need to know the details. We need to have proof up front about how the bill would work.

Too often we have seen that there are promises made and they never seem to be delivered. As another example of other government activities, I point to what my colleague from Edmonton—Leduc is still waiting for, a full review of Technology Partnerships Canada. It is a review that has been promised to be undertaken by three industry ministers.

Canadians watching this debate will be pleased to know that the Liberals have strived to recover a stunning 5% of the $2 billion in Liberal taxpayers' money spent on TPC since 1996. The government is following up this excess with the national do not call list, with no reporting requirements. Promises must be spelled out so that promises are kept.

We think of another registry, the national gun registry, a $2 million program that ballooned to $2 billion. Now the Liberals want to create another mega database of information, allowing the CRTC to create and regulate a do not call list as it sees fit.

Will the do not call list turn into another gun registry in terms of costs and management? I certainly hope not, but with this government, it is more than possible. Is the creation of a do not call list, its administration and enforcement including the penalty phase, within the CRTC mandate?

Finally, I want to talk about the bill's effect on charities. There are no exceptions in the bill for charities or companies that wish to have a relationship going on between themselves and their current existing clients, whether it is a charity or other groups that use the telephone to contact their members or clients.

In addition to a wide range of charities, this group could include telephone survey, polling companies and political organizations such as parties. Many charities and not for profit organizations rely on telemarketing campaigns. Without proper thought, exemptions for charities, Bill C-37 is going to severely restrict the good that a lot of groups do for our fellow Canadians, and people abroad like tsunami victims.

Personally, I do not know what the Liberals have against charities and volunteer groups. They drew up Bill C-21, the Canada not for profit corporations act, a bill which places a heavy burden, a continual bureaucratic burden, on not for profit corporations to keep up with all the reporting requirements stipulated by Industry Canada.

The legislation has been described as very detailed and technical, even by officials at Industry Canada. Bill C-21 is thick with regulations. Volunteer groups and service clubs will have to change their bylaws and their constitutions in order to comply with this new act. The legislation with its long list of requirements would make it harder to attract good volunteers and good directors for not for profit organizations.

Now the Liberals have brought forward Bill C-37 without any exemptions or exceptions for charities. What we have here is another Liberal example of symbol over substance. The PMO is quite happy to have a photo op showing the Prime Minister drinking purified water by the DART members, quipping meanwhile that he needs a little scotch while the troops are in, of all things, a dry camp.

While the Prime Minister is touring tsunami ravaged areas, the Liberals back here in Ottawa are pushing forward legislation that would hurt charities and not for profit groups to raise funds for others. I hope this is pure thoughtlessness.

A do not call list of some fashion would provide relief to people across our country who do not want their family time, their meals or TV programs interrupted by someone on the other end of the telephone selling some unsolicited service. I support the principle involved, but I believe the details need to be adjusted.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak in support of Bill C-37, an act to amend the Telecommunications Act.

This is a bill that responds to the needs of Canadian consumers. They are fed up with unwanted and unsolicited telemarketing calls. I am sure that every member in the House could give anecdotal evidence of the frustrations felt by our families, friends and neighbours. Many of us could speak from personal experience. Everyone can tell a story about being interrupted by telemarketers in the middle of dinner or in the midst of putting the kids to bed or some other quiet time.

There are times when we are willing to listen to people who want to sell us something, or want us to donate to a worthy cause. There are other times when these pitches are intrusive and a nuisance.

But we no longer need to rely upon anecdotal evidence to tell us what Canadians think about telemarketing. In 2003, Environics conducted a survey on consumer attitudes toward telemarketing, and 81% of respondents reported receiving unsolicited calls. On average, respondents received 3.43 unsolicited calls per week.

Of those consumers who receive at least one call per week, 44% are more likely to report receiving calls from charities; 24% report receiving calls from firms they have done business with in the past; and 27% report receiving calls from firms with which they have not done business.

Hon. members will not be surprised to learn that many Canadians do not like receiving unsolicited telemarketing calls. The poll tells us that 38% tolerate them; 35% are annoyed by them; and fully 24% say that they hate them. In fact, some 14% of the people Environics polled reported that they had tried to make a complaint regarding an unsolicited call.

Among this subgroup 39% indicated that the complaint was resolved. A significant majority, 59%, said that their complaints were not resolved. This is an indication of a system that simply does not work. When nearly three out of five complainants state that their complaints were not resolved, we know that there is something wrong with the framework laws that govern telemarketing.

It is time to present some accountability and consumer response to the telemarketing rules. That is precisely what the bill does. It provides Canadians with an effective, easy way to curtail intrusive telemarketing and establishes the authority to set fines against those telemarketers who ignore the rules.

At the heart of the bill is the government's decision to create a national do not call list. The Environics research indicates that 79% of those surveyed would support a national do not call list, and 66% likely would sign up for the service.

The bill gives the CRTC the authority to set up an arm's length administrator for that list, and the authority to fine those telemarketing companies that persist in calling people who have registered on the list. The bill also provides the CRTC with the authority to establish fees to recover the costs of maintaining this system.

Once this bill has been passed, the CRTC will undertake public consultations to work out the implementation details. It will seek public comment on what types of organizations should be required to use the do not call list, and on who should pay for the operation of the list.

To get an idea how this system would operate, we need only look south of the border to see how a comparable system in the United States works. Media coverage has made the Canadian public well aware of the success of a national do not call registry to regulate telemarketing there.

In the U.S., telemarketing businesses are required to register with a regulator. A minimum of once every three months they must download an updated list of registered telephone numbers. These registered telephone numbers will come from consumers who have requested to not be called. The telemarketing businesses are required to delete any registered do not call telephone numbers from their call databases.

In Canada there would be penalties for telemarketers who violated the do not call list. The penalties would be $1,500 per offence for a person and $15,000 per offence for a corporation. The CRTC's decisions to impose penalties would be subject to review by the CRTC itself and may be referred to the Federal Court of Appeal.

Consumer groups, including the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, already favour the creation of a national do not call list. We know that 79% of those surveyed by Environics also said they would be in favour of a national do not call list. I am sure that if hon. members canvassed their constituents they would find them solidly in favour of a national do not call list.

I know that many of my colleagues on the other side of the House have also favoured this approach to regulating telemarketing. I especially want to acknowledge the work done on this issue by the hon. member for Vancouver Island North.

Occasionally the House has the opportunity to do something good, something great, for many Canadians. Sometimes these issues have enormous magnitude, such as improving the quality of our health care system, or ensuring that Canadians from low income families have an opportunity for higher education. However, I venture to say that there are few bills that would receive such widespread support as the one we are debating today.

It would create the right regulatory environment for sensible, smart telemarketing. It would safeguard the privacy of Canadians and their right to choose with whom they wish to communicate. For thousands of Canadians who may opt to register on a national do not call list, it would mean quiet evenings with their families free from commercial interruption.

I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak on the referral stage debate of Bill C-37, an act to amend the Telecommunications Act. The goal of the bill is to create the right regulatory environment for sensible, smart telemarketing. We want to safeguard the privacy of Canadians and their right to choose with whom they wish to communicate.

Bill C-37 deals with unsolicited telemarketing and proposes to create a national do not call list. Such a list, administered by the CRTC, is preferable to other more regulatory approaches. Through the bill, the government is taking steps to give Canadians an effective and easy way to curtail intrusive telemarketing and protect their privacy.

Canada is not alone in facing the challenge of balancing the wishes of consumers with the needs of the telemarketing industry. I would remind the House that telemarketing activities span a very broad spectrum, from legitimate commercial enterprises with existing customers to fraudulent calls that prey on seniors and the unsuspecting.

Legitimate telemarketers and the marketing industry require an environment where they can conduct their business in a way that is acceptable to most Canadians. They have asked for a regulatory environment where their integrity is not undermined by the activities of the less scrupulous telemarketers.

The bill before us creates a model that would promote a positive atmosphere for legitimate businesses to undertake commercial communications within a well regulated structure. The amendments would strengthen the role of the CRTC under the Telecommunications Act with respect to the regulation of telecommunications facilities for unsolicited telecommunications to prevent undue inconvenience or nuisance.

Public opinion polls tell us that unsolicited telecommunications have become an inconvenience and a nuisance for many Canadians. In fact, during a survey conducted in 2003, 97% of respondents reported a negative reaction to unsolicited calls, with 38% saying they tolerate the calls, 35% reporting being annoyed by them, and 24% saying they hated receiving them. The majority of respondents, nearly four out of five, supported the creation of a national do not call list. Some two-thirds indicated they would likely sign up for a do not call list service.

I would like to remind the House that the CRTC imposed limitations on telemarketing in 1994. These limitations included a requirement that telemarketers maintain individual do not call lists. This provision, however, required consumers to enlist with each telemarketer separately, and there may be hundreds of telemarketers. The consumer has no way of knowing when his or her number may find its way onto another telemarketing list. It is not surprising, therefore, that many consumers consider this practice unsatisfactory.

Earlier this year, however, the regulator rendered Telecom Decision CRTC 2004-35, “Review of telemarketing rules”. In this decision, the CRTC concluded that a national do not call list had considerable merit and recommended a do not call list as approach that is preferable to other regulatory approaches. In its decision, the regulator also noted that changes to legislation would be necessary to enable it to operate a do not call list effectively.

What is required?

The bill before us would enable the CRTC to do three things: first, impose fines for non-compliance; second, establish a third party administrator to operate a database; and third, give the ability to set fees to recover costs associated with maintaining the list.

When the bill has been passed, we expect that the CRTC will undertake consultations to find an administrator of the do not call list. It will also determine how the list will operate and how much it will cost.

The CRTC will also consider whether any types of calls should be exempt from the do not call list.

In particular, I would like to make a recommendation that was raised by one of my constituents of Don Valley East. At all hours of the day and night he is harassed by unwanted fax transmissions. Similar to unwanted telephone solicitations, unwanted faxes can be equally intrusive and a waste of paper in home offices.

When the CRTC announced interim rules on telemarketing as a result of telecom decision CRTC 2004-35, the industry stakeholders maintained that these rules imposed too high a regulatory burden. The industry itself prefers a national do not call list. The CRTC has stayed its interim rules and awaits the passage of this bill before implementing a new regulatory regime.

In fact the industry may become more efficient and productive as a result of the creation of a do not call list. This would eliminate calls to individuals who do not want to be contacted and thereby reduce the number of unsuccessful calls. By passing the bill we would enable the CRTC to move forward on this issue.

Telemarketing has become more and more pervasive. There is no sign that it is going away. The inability to control a telemarketer's access to phones in our homes and businesses has become a source of frustration for a large percentage of Canadians. With this bill we provide the CRTC with the necessary tools it requires to enforce a national do not call list. In that way we give Canadians an easy and effective way to curtail intrusive calls. We will take steps to protect their privacy.

I urge hon. members in the House to support the bill.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure speak today to Bill C-37, the creation of a suggested do not call list, something that we as New Democrats actually had in the election platform, as well as other initiatives for consumers, including the reduction and control over credit card interest rates and lowering the GST, as part of a package relating to consumer initiatives that we were putting forth.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased, on behalf of the Bloc Québécois, to speak to Bill C-37. Let me read the summary to this bill that amends the Telecommunications Act:

This enactment amends the Telecommunications Act to permit the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to administer databases for the purpose of its power under section 41, namely the power to prohibit or regulate the use by any person of the telecommunications facilities of a Canadian carrier for the provision of unsolicited telecommunications to the extent that the Commission considers it necessary to prevent undue inconvenience or nuisance, giving due regard to freedom of expression.

The enactment also establishes an administrative monetary penalty for the contravention of prohibitions or requirements of the Commission under that section.

This bill follows polls conducted across Canada and Quebec. Indeed, an Environics poll mentioned that 79% of Canadians said that they supported a national do not call list.

For those who perhaps did not understand, the purpose of this bill is to allow Quebeckers and Canadians who so wish to exclude themselves from any telemarketing promotion. Whether through faxes, e-mail or telephone, we are inundated by telemarketing companies that want to sell us the best product in the world. This often has its disadvantages, causes a lot of communications, clogs our e-mail accounts or overwhelms us with paper.

The public wants to have a way of avoiding such solicitation and Bill C-37 would give it to them. The Bloc Québécois will of course be in favour of the principle, and we agree that Quebeckers ought not to have to put up with such calls and ought to have the possibility of adding their names to a do not call list to be administered by the CRTC, if they so desire.

Automatically, if we were on such a list, all companies would no longer be entitled to solicit us, on pain of some relatively severe penalties and fines. The penalty would be $1,500 in the case of an individual and $15,000 for a corporation. Obviously, the employer is responsible for the mandate he has entrusted to a designated person, or in other words the company is responsible for the actions of its employees, hence the heavy fines for failure to fulfill this obligation.

We do, however, question one specific reality. The CRTC has already admitted that it was not in a position to administer this program, and would need a sizeable budget to do so. We feel it should be required of the companies to provide part of their telemarketing profits to maintain this do not call list.

Moreover, the Canadian Marketing Association has already admitted that it would be easier for them if they knew in advance if people did not want to be called. This would reduce costs of staff, faxes and e-mail. Because of these savings, the industry would be prepared to meet the costs of such a system.

On the other hand, there is still one major question that remains if a registry is administered by the government. We just need to think back to the huge amounts of money swallowed up by the firearms registry. I realize that the industry will want to know the costs up front, so as not to get into the incredible overspending that occurred there, with a predicted $2 million cost that has now escalated to over $2 billion.

It is important for us as members of parliament to be able to determine the framework for this registry. Companies would have to make a reasonable contribution. More important than that, members of the public would have prompt responses to their decision to be put on this do not call list.

We also want various amendments to be made to the bill. It must set out exclusions, in other words, establish clear parameters in the legislation, not currently included with regard to the groups that would be excluded.

It must be understand that, if such a list is created, people could be on the do not call list for everything. Charity begins at home. The political parties have asked that individuals not be able to exclude themselves from getting communications we may send them.

Often, people get information from their MP. Since the members of the Bloc Québécois have a close relationship with the public, we regularly send out information explaining the work being done by the charming men and women in the Bloc Québécois who are dedicated to Quebec.

Obviously, we would hope that political parties will always be able to communicate with the public.

There are non-profit charitable organizations too. All too often, the only way for these organizations to obtain funding is by having a direct link with the public. They often send us requests for donations by mail or in some other way. Permission must be given so that charitable organizations can continue to correspond with Quebeckers, who are extremely generous, as we have demonstrated in the past and as we will continue to demonstrate whenever the need arises.

There are also companies that already have an established business connection with their clients. We would not want banks and phone companies—be it only the yellow pages—to be unable to communicate with businesspeople in order to sell advertising space. This concerns, above all, cases where there is a relationship with an existing client. We want a framework to allow businesses to be able to communicate with people with whom they have done business in the past without being penalized for their actions and for the way they do business with their clients.

If these principles were clearly set out in the legislation, if the protection were ensured at a reasonable cost—that is what I want and what the Bloc Québécois will do in its proposed amendments. We will make sure that there is a registry. We will also ensure that this registry allows all Quebeckers and Canadians—those who want to, of course—to opt out of marketing advertising, and that the businesses that have to pay are charged reasonable prices, that the registry has the government's support and that its management is not entrusted to private enterprise. This was requested by the Canadian Marketing Association, among others; otherwise, it would like asking the wolf to watch the sheep.

Hon. members will have gathered that what we want is an entity operating at arm's length from industry, supported by industry at reasonable costs known ahead of time, so that we do not end up with another gun registry and that groups already doing business with the public can continue doing business. We are thinking of charities, political parties, banks, telephone companies and other businesses already using means of telecommunication to contact their clients. They have to be able to continue. If this is provided in the bill, the Bloc Québécois will gladly support this bill, which will be very useful and will prevent Quebeckers from being harassed to get things they do not want.

[James Rajotte, Conservative, Edmonton—Leduc, AB]

As the member from Kelowna says, it made sense. It was a good model. The government should have used it.

The other issue is really the administration and maintenance of a registry in Canada in general, because as so many MPs and Canadians across this country know, the government has been rather lacking in the whole establishment and maintenance of registries, the firearms registry being of course the most obvious example of what not to do in setting up a registry.

There are certain questions that I believe we as legislators should ask at this point. How will this list be maintained? How will the list be accessed? Who will maintain the list? If it is not the CRTC, which organization will do it? What will be required of telemarketers? How often must they check the list? Will there be a maintenance fee for telemarketers? Who will pay for the list? Who will pay for updating, monitoring and enforcing the list?

These are all questions that are not answered in the legislation and they must be before Parliament passes it.

Why is there no requirement for an annual report to Parliament on the cost of the administration of the list? The fact is that we in Parliament must have more details on how the CRTC plans to set up, administer and regulate this do not call registry.

In addition to the private member's bill I mentioned, there are two excellent examples of do not call registries, one in the United Kingdom and one in the United States. I want to touch briefly on the American list because I believe it offers Canada some guidance.

The American act is called the telephone consumer protection act. It is extremely detailed. It restricts the use of phones and fax machines to deliver unsolicited advertisements and it limits the hours during which telemarketers can call, something that was referenced by the previous speaker; we get the same complaints when telemarketers call on Sunday mornings or late at night. These are reasonable restrictions that we can put on telemarketers.

However, my point is that this is all laid out in the American legislation. The Americans did the proper thing. They laid it out in detail instead of just introducing a bill with no details and hoping that the committee could fix it.

On June 26, 2003, the Federal Communications Commission revised its rules implementing the telephone consumer protection act. The FCC established, in coordination with the Federal Trade Commission, a national do not call registry. The registry is nationwide in scope and includes virtually all telemarketers, with the exception of political organizations, charities and telephone surveys, three of the exemptions that I mentioned.

A telemarketer or a seller may call a consumer with whom it has an established business relationship for up to 18 months after the consumer's last purchase, delivery or payment even if the consumer's number is on the national do not call registry. Consumers registered on the national registry will be able to provide prior express permission in writing to companies from which they wish to continue to receive telemarketing calls.

The initial legislation tabled in Congress looked a lot like Bill C-37. The major difference was the oversight embedded in the bill by Congress. The FCC and FTC had to report to the House of Representatives within 45 days of the bill becoming law with an analysis of the telemarketing rules, any inconsistencies between the rules and the effect of such inconsistencies on consumers and persons paying for access to the registry, and proposals to remedy any such inconsistencies.

In addition, the American legislation required an annual report and includes some details required of the report, such as the number of people using the list, the fees collected for access to the registry and an analysis of the progress and the operation and enforcement of the registry.

This is a piece of legislation that the Conservative Party believes we can model our legislation on. We can certainly model our legislation on the private member's bill of the member for Burlington from the last session. It would be interesting to find out why the government in fact did not model Bill C-37 on either of those previous pieces of legislation.

In conclusion, I want to state very clearly that the Conservative Party will support the establishment of a national registry as long as it is detailed in the legislation, as long as the parameters are set by Parliament, as long as we know exactly who is going to administer the list and the details are set out, and as long as there are some reasonable exemptions provided for charities, for political organizations and for companies that wish to contact their current customers.

I think those are all reasonable requests that our party is making. We certainly hope that we can fix this bill at committee and that this type of legislation or this concept of a registry will become law in Canada in a very short time.

[James Rajotte, Conservative, Edmonton—Leduc, AB]

Madam Speaker, I will try to put forth all my points within the 10 minute time period.

It is my pleasure today to rise to speak to Bill C-37, an act to amend the Telecommunications Act. At the outset let me state very clearly the Conservative Party position on a do not call registry. The Conservative Party supports the establishment of a do not call registry within the parameters that are clearly defined by Parliament and with reasonable exemptions provided for charities, political parties, polling firms and companies that wish to contact their current customers. Unfortunately, these exemptions are not laid out in this particular bill. Furthermore, the power to determine these details has been delegated through regulatory powers rather than elected representatives.

A second point to make is that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission released a decision in May 2004 which stated that it was not feasible for the CRTC to create and run a national do not call registry properly. The decision went on to say that even if it did have the appropriate tools to run a national registry, the CRTC would recommend a separate administrator, not the CRTC itself. Thus, it is somewhat confusing with regard to this particular piece of legislation because Bill C-37 empowers the CRTC, and I am quoting from proposed section 41.2 of the bill, to “administer databases or information” for the purposes of creating a national do not call list.

My concerns are that the parameters are not set by Parliament in this legislation--in fact, this legislation is very short on details--and that no exemptions whatsoever are provided. We in the Conservative Party will support the establishment of a registry as long as there are parameters established by Parliament. I understand that this bill will be going to committee before second reading, basically on division, so we will try to fix the bill at committee.

I do want to identify some of the exemptions that we believe should receive notice in the bill. Perhaps others will come forward at committee stage.

First of all, we have the charities. Most charities in Canada will tell us that the most effective way for them to solicit donations is to do so through telemarketing. The fact is, I think, that most Canadians would not object to this practice.

Second is the issue of political parties. As currently written, the bill would make it illegal for political parties and political candidates to communicate with the public by phone. As we all know, we contact voters, certainly on election day in getting out the vote. Under this bill, if it is left in its current form, we believe that would not be allowed in Canada.

The third issue deals with polling companies that seek to gain Canadians' input on various issues.

The fourth exemption that we would like to see is for companies communicating with their current clients. For instance, a bank, a financial institution or a phone company that actually has us as a current client should be able to contact us. That is a reasonable exemption. Most of these exemptions are in the American legislation, which the previous speaker referenced. It is interesting to hear the government saying that the American legislation was its model, because in fact it is much more detailed than the legislation before us in the House today.

I want to use some examples to make this practical for people. For example, the group Mothers Against Drunk Driving is certainly an excellent organization. I think all members would agree. Not only would this group have to cancel any calls to current members, because it would not be able to contact their current members, but under this legislation it would be illegal for Mothers Against Drunk Driving to call anyone to ask for a simple donation. We as legislators should be able to empower Mothers Against Drunk Driving to communicate with its own clients and to solicit donations by phone.

In addition to this, the bill as it is currently written would make it illegal not only for political parties or candidates to launch get out the vote campaigns, but also for not for profit organizations such as Egale, the Canadian Auto Workers, Campaign Life or any organization regardless of where one stands on the political spectrum. They would not be able to contact members or non-members by phone, which seems rather undemocratic to me.

Members who were in the House in the last session of Parliament also had an opportunity to debate a private member's bill from a government member, the member for Burlington, who actually did provide exemptions on some of these issues. I do not understand why the government did not use her bill as a model to provide these exemptions. I suppose we will find out at committee stage.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to begin the referral stage debate on Bill C-37, an act to amend the Telecommunications Act. This bill would augment the powers of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, CRTC, to establish a more effective regime to protect consumers against unsolicited telemarketing in Canada.

The essential issue before us is the creation of a national do not call list for telemarketers. I am sure a number of us have received such calls, probably over the last weekend.

I want to assure hon. members that we are proposing a proven model for regulating telemarketing through this bill. It is similar to the model already in place in the United States of America. In the event that some colleagues want to say that this infringes too much on business being able to work, it in fact exists in another jurisdiction.

It is a model that seeks to balance the wishes of Canadian consumers for privacy and protection from unwanted calls, sometimes in the middle of the night, while at the same time recognizing the need for legitimate telemarketing companies to conduct their business in a regulatory framework that enables them to compete.

Let me assure the House that consumers would support this bill and 79% of respondents in a recent Environics survey indicated that they would support the creation of a national do not call list. The industry would support a national list as well as a more efficient and cost effective way to manage the lists of those who will not be receptive to their pitches.

Let me explain to the House the current legislative and regulatory framework governing unsolicited telemarketing. Section 41 of the Telecommunications Act gives the CRTC broad authority to prohibit or regulate the use by any person or telecommunication facility for unsolicited telemarketing. The section gives the commission authority to prevent undue inconvenience or nuisance given due regard to freedom of expression.

In 1994 the CRTC implemented rules that defined a call as unsolicited when explicit consent had not been obtained from the called party prior to the call. Solicitation was defined as “selling or promoting a product or service or soliciting money or moneys whether directly or on behalf of another party”. However, the CRTC restrictions do not apply to unsolicited calls that do not solicit. This includes for example, call for emergency purposes; account collections; and market and survey research.

Finally, under the 1994 rules, telemarketers are required to maintain individual do not call lists. In other words, ABC telemarketers may be notified that we do not wish for them to call, but DEF telemarketers do not know about it and they keep on calling the next weekend after the previous ones were informed not call.

These rules are now in place but in the past 10 years since they were implemented by the CRTC, they have been found to be ineffective and generally for three reasons. First, the rules have resulted in some confusion among consumers. For one thing, few consumers know that they have the right to register on a do not call list or how to go about it. Some 14% of Environics respondents reported that they had tried to make a complaint regarding an unsolicited call, but even for those consumers who wish to take advantage of these lists, the task is simply daunting.

Consumers who do not wish to receive calls need to manage their registration on the do not call lists of hundreds of companies and telemarketing agencies, the problem that I just described a while ago. These registrations are in place for three years after which the consumer must register again.

As if that is not confusing enough, some of these calls are made by way of a fax. We have had this experience. My son was describing the situation in his own home whereby a company attempts to market something or other, and of course he does not know what it is, by way of sending him a fax. That fax usually arrives in the middle of the night, but my son does not have a fax machine, so the phone rings.

However, as for the fax message that would come out on which it says how to deregister, if I can call it that, so he does not get called again, of course he does not get that because he does not have a fax machine on which to get it. The message keeps coming in and coming in. The family has a seven month old baby. The family is awakened often in the middle of the night. It is absolutely horrible to have to deal with this kind of thing.

My son has tried with the telephone company and with all kinds of people to get hold of these culprits who are doing this, but of course he cannot find out who they are. There are essentially only two ways of doing it. One is to buy a fax machine so that he could receive the first fax and then phone them back to tell them not to do it again. Alternatively, he could subscribe to the telephone company messaging service by which he could get hold of the telephone number. This is assuming that he could ever get back to that phone number because of course some of these phones can only dial out. He would not be able to dial back in even if he did that.

This is just an example of how sometimes consumers are prisoners of these kinds of things that are inflicted upon them.

That is why we need to improve the do not call database in the way that the government has recommended to us. That is why the Canadian Marketing Association is advocating a national do not call list. That does not mean that all telemarketing is wrong or fraudulent or anything like that, but there are some people who practice that trade whose ethics have some elasticity of a kind that I have just described.

The current regime, as I have said, is not very effective because it is difficult to enforce. When customers receive further calls from firms for which they registered on the individual do not call list it is hard for them to prove that they were registered on the specific company's list. I have had that problem. In most cases in my own house, the calls are always faxed messages. There is a phone number at the bottom of the fax. One can phone back, but like most people, after we phone to register with them that they should not do it again, if that is what we want to do, we usually throw out the piece of paper. Then when they start it again a month later, it is rather hard to prove that it was the same company.

In any case, if people have received some of this solicitation they know that the letterhead seems to change quite often anyway. I am not sure that a person would ever recognize whether it is the same people making contact or a different group of individuals altogether.

The telecom carriers such as Bell or Telus have the responsibility for enforcing the do not call registrations, but again, these companies are trying to compete for the business of telemarketers. It puts them in a rather difficult situation.

In any case, I am not sure that for the actions I described a moment ago, at least the ones I and other members of my family have personally lived, that we could ever do anything with the phone company about them, because there is no log of a call that has already been made, at least not that I know of.

The telecom carriers are reluctant to pursue action against the company. From the perspective of the consumer, it is difficult to determine with which telecom carrier to lodge a complaint. In short, then, as for enforcement, perhaps non-existent is a strong word, but it is very complicated at best.

The time has come for a more effective approach to regulating unsolicited telemarketing, an approach that will benefit both consumers and the telemarketing industry and one that will be easier to enforce. That is why I am supporting this bill.

[Jacques Saada, Liberal, for the Minister of Industry]

moved:

That Bill C-37, an act to amend the Telecommunications Act, be referred forthwith to the Standing Committee on Industry, Natural Resources, Science and Technology.

Criminal Code

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed)

(Bill C-37. On the Order: Government Orders:)

December 13, 2004--The Minister of Industry--Second reading and reference to the Standing Committee on Industry, Natural Resources, Science and Technology of Bill C-37, an act to amend the Telecommunications Act.