Bill C-27 (Historical)

Electronic Commerce Protection Act

An Act to promote the efficiency and adaptability of the Canadian economy by regulating certain activities that discourage reliance on electronic means of carrying out commercial activities, and to amend the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act, the Competition Act, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and the Telecommunications Act

This enactment establishes a regulatory framework to promote the efficiency and adaptability of the Canadian economy by regulating certain activities that discourage reliance on electronic means of carrying out commercial activities.
It enacts the Electronic Commerce Protection Act, which prohibits the sending of commercial electronic messages without the prior consent of the recipient and provides rules governing the sending of those types of messages, including a mechanism for the withdrawal of consent. It also prohibits other practices that discourage reliance on electronic means of carrying out commercial activities, such as those relating to the alteration of data transmissions and the unauthorized installation of computer programs. In addition, that Act provides for the imposition of administrative monetary penalties by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, after taking into account specified factors. It also provides for a private right of action that enables a person affected by an act or omission that constitutes a contravention under that Act to obtain an amount equal to the actual amount of the loss or damage suffered, or expenses incurred, and statutory damages for the contravention.
This enactment amends the Competition Act to prohibit false or misleading commercial representations made electronically.
It also amends the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act to prohibit the collection of personal information by means of unauthorized access to computer systems, and the unauthorized compiling of lists of electronic addresses.
Finally, it makes related amendments to the Competition Act, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act and the Telecommunications Act.

Electronic Commerce Protection Act

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

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for Timmins—James Bay for highlighting some of the good things in this piece of legislation but also some of the concerns.

I want to return to section 86 which repeals sections 41.1 to 41.7 of the act. Here it is in black and white.

The government may say it is in here, but it will enact it at some point in time. We recently had some experience in the House with the government embedding critical items in other pieces of legislation. I just need to point to the budget bill, Bill C-10. In that bill we saw the embedding of the Navigable Waters Protection Act with significant changes to it that impact on our environment, pay equity legislation where women can no longer in this country file a human rights complaint for equal pay for work of equal value, and significant changes to the student loans program.

Canadians will have to forgive New Democrats when the Conservatives say “trust me. It is okay. This is here but we don't really mean it”. What is that saying about deny, delay, and then go to jail.

What we have here is that it says “repeal”. It relates to the do-not-call registry.

My question for the member is this. Why does he think it was hidden in section 86 of the legislation, almost near the very end on page 56 out of 69 pages.? Why is it buried at the end of the legislation? Why was it not included in the government briefing documents?

I think it is an important piece to have a legitimate discussion.

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

Madam Speaker, the one thing we have begun to find with Conservative government bills is that we get neo-con spamming. It buries these Trojans. It is just like when they warn us about the emails, we have to be very careful what we agree to because there is something buried in it that will affect our computers. With Conservative government legislation, there is always something buried in the bills that will affect the fabric of what has been a great country.

For example, the Conservatives buried the attack on pay equity in its so-called budget stimulation package and an attack on environmental protection for riverways. What that had to do with an economic stimulus is still beyond me.

Here we have buried in the bill the provision to kill the do-not-call registry. I think it is buried in there because the Conservatives have a hard time admitting when they absolutely blew it, and they blew it on the do-not-call registry.

Rather than come out and say, “Yes, we blew it”, they hid it in the legislation. However, what is disturbing is when we asked them about it, we could not get a straight answer. First we were told no, we did not read the bill. We said, yes we did. Then they looked at it and said, that does not mean what it means. We said, yes it does. Sections 41.1 to 41.7 of the act are repealed. That is the act that represents the do-not-call registry. Then they said “Pass it. That does not mean that it is repealed. It will be repealed when we decide that it is repealed”.

Again, here is a government that allows itself leeway on legislation that it wants powers to be able to strike things, start things, stop things, and then bury them in other pieces of legislation.

The concern here is that this should be a bill that is focused on dealing with fraud artists and spammers. Let us do that, but if we are going to deal with the do-not-call registry and the debacle around that, either fix the do-not-call registry or say, “This bill is going to supersede the do-not-call registry because the do-not-call registry was a failure”.

I have not seen in the bill how it would actually become enforceable or actually utilized in terms of opting-in and opting-out clauses for commercial activity. I do not think the government has thought it through and that is very disturbing.

I would finally say in response to my colleague that perhaps I read too much into the Conservatives response. Perhaps they have not read the bill thoroughly. Therefore, we need to get it to committee so that all the members of the House, especially those on the government side, will actually know what is in their own legislation

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Madam Speaker, as I begin my remarks, I want to say that I am just as curious as the last member who spoke in relation to the revocation of the do-not-call list framework in this bill. A summary is a written piece customarily found within the leaf of the bill in a statutory document like this. There is no reference to it in the summary, at least in any way that one could identify it. I may not be quite so accusatory, but I am just as curious. Perhaps we could get something on the record here in this debate from the government's side about that.

In any event, I am very supportive of the bill. Certainly, my party also is in principle and we are quite desirous that this bill move through second reading and go to committee. Having said that, this bill, as I pointed out earlier in a comment, is going to have some problems at committee on a technical basis. In my view, it should have. There are some brand new concepts. As everyone knows, when we try to legislate something new in a brand new field in our Canadian society, and this is a relatively brand new field, there are huge problems in codifying concepts and getting them written down in law. I think there will be huge problems with this and I have outlined a few that I would like to cover in my remarks here this afternoon.

I am just flying randomly here, but I do want to go to subsection 2(4) of the bill which, as I read it, is defective. It is absolutely not ready for prime time. There is a verb missing. It is not a full sentence. Subsection 2(4) of the bill stands alone and it just says:

An electronic message described in subsection (2) or (3) that is sent for the purposes of law enforcement, public safety, the protection of Canada, the conduct of international affairs or the defence of Canada.

Somebody forgot to complete the sentence. That does not happen very often in a bill. I did not read the French version. That may contain some of the answer, but in the English version, this section is totally incomplete and needs to be fixed. There may be other sections in the bill that have the same problem.

I wanted to go through a similar list of things where I think special attention has to be paid. First, the definition of spam. Of course, the bill itself does not use the word spam. That might be a breach of somebody's copyright or something on their commercial product. Who knows? However, it does refer to the concept of a commercial electronic message. That is the commodity that is being restricted here. It is not messages; it is commercial electronic messages. It is okay to use whatever terms we want in a bill like this, but we are going to have to make sure that every commercial electronic message that is carried out there and is going to be subject to this restriction is legitimately restricted.

I am sure that the people who have drafted the bill have thought it through, but this is why we send things through Parliament. This is why we send it to committee. It is just to make sure that we have not gone too far and have not included things inadvertently that we really do not want to include.

The second thing I want to point out has to do with subsection 6(1). At the core of subsection 6(1), it attempts to restrict or regulate the unconsented electronic commercial message. I mentioned this earlier, but I do want to re-document it here in my remarks. It says:

No person shall send or cause or permit to be sent to an electronic address a commercial electronic message--

The place to which the message is being sent is an electronic address. It is not being sent to a person.

Just below that in the same section it says that commercial electronic messages cannot be sent unless “the person to whom the message is sent has consented to receiving it...”.

If the message is being sent to an address and not a person, how can there be a person to whom the message is sent? The message is being sent to an electronic address. Therefore, it is not clear who the person is who controls the giving or not giving of consent. A person, of course, can be a corporation. However, it is just not clear.

If someone is alleged to have broken this law, it is quite possible that the person will say that he or she did not send it to a person but to an electronic address. Nobody in the world could possibly know who is associated with that electronic address. The person might know or might not know. It might be the person registered to the email address but we do not know. It is left unclear. I see this as a problem, not in trying to understand the clause, but in trying to prosecute or enforce the law.

The third thing I want to mention concerns the business of consent. The statute is worded in a way that says that a person cannot send a commercial electronic message to an address unless that non-defined person gives consent. If there is to be enforcement and if there is to be a prosecution, the difficulty I see right now is proving the non-consent. It is easy in court to prove consent but it is more difficult non-consent because one must potentially prove a negative. I am not sure the courts are ready for this. Some prosecutors out there may have said, yes, that they can handle this, that they can prove a negative, but I know how difficult it is to prove a negative. As I read this, any prosecution would need to involve evidence of non-consent, which means proving that negative.

In the initial instance, the message is not from a person but from an electronic address and electronic addresses do not have personal identities. They cannot talk, they cannot communicate and they cannot give an address. It is not clear which person is the person empowered to give or withhold consent.

I see some members in the House are dozing off as I walk through this conundrum, but this is something the committee will need to deal with. I know, Mr. Speaker, you are listening intently and that you have question marks in there too.

I have suggested that it is tough to prove a negative, and we all know it is, but it is a very tough thing to prove in a courtroom.

On the next issue concerning defining what a commercial electronic message is, it refers to a message that has a commercial character. It does not go much deeper than that. Many different types of messages are out there, billions of messages moving around the globe, and if there is to be enforcement, the trick will be trying to figure out which have the commercial character. Some spams will be clearly commercial but some spam will not. Some messaging will be clearly not commercial but personal, and then there is the other stuff that falls right in the middle, a little bit of both, and that will be extremely difficult, in view of our charter and the way courts will handle quasi-criminal prosecutions, to actually nail down what is commercial and what is not, and what is a little bit commercial and what is a little bit personal. This will be a problem but I will leave that there. It is a matter that I hope the committee will look at.

I want to mention clause 47 of the bill, which I will describe as brilliant. From my perspective, this is the best part of this bill because it purports to create a private right of enforcement. This would allow a person to make an application to a court where the person believes that he or she has been harmed in some way by this unauthorized, non-consented to, commercial electronic message, or some other offence described in the statute. By creating that, it frees up all of that enforcement mechanism that the state would otherwise need to create. It gives a citizen the ability to initiate something, go to court and get a response from the court without dragging all the federal or provincial prosecutors along.

Of course, that enforcement action would be freed up from a lot of the additional baggage that is sometimes imposed on our enforcement authorities by application of the charter. Sometimes in our system of governance, the charter, as interpreted by the courts, places obligations on governments to do or not do things as it enforces the law. Be that as it may, this creation of the private right of enforcement will allow the enforcement to be borne at the instance of an informed citizen, who has a grievance with respect to some of the things prohibited here, to take that to a court and, hopefully, get a fairly decent response.

I must say that, given the issues I raised earlier about definitions and procedures, a citizen might encounter the same kinds of problems in terms of definition and enforcement, but we all must acknowledge that this is a new area of law and we will need to deal with these new concepts and new definitions.

I am pleased to see the private right of enforcement. Who knows where it will all end up but so much of the electronic universe is taken up with individuals and individual initiatives. It is kind of like the wild west. When it comes to enforcement, the individual will become the enforcer. Who knows if some individual out there will actually go into the business of being the enforcer? “Show me your illegal spam and I will take it to court and get the judgment”. Some enterprising citizen out there is quite likely to take on that task. We may have created a new industry here with this private right of enforcement.

In terms of these points, I want to go to subclause 2(3) because I have a concern about it. This clause is part of the clause that describes what a commercial or electronic message is. For greater certainty, it states:

An electronic message that contains a request for consent to send a message described in subsection (2) is also considered to be a commercial electronic message.

That means that a party that wishes to send a commercial message is not even allowed to ask for consent to send a commercial message. If I interpret that clause properly, an electronic message that contains a request for consent to send a message is also a commercial electronic message.

That, unfortunately, raises what I would call a catch 22. No one can send a message without getting consent and no one can send a message asking for consent because that would be a commercial message.

I have a feeling that might be a problem when it comes to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It might not be but if the government is firm on this, if the people who have drafted these laws have come to the conclusion that must be in the bill, then I suggest that the provision may need to be buttressed by some additional wording or with a preamble in the bill that would give some weight to defend against a charter-based challenge that would say that this is a catch 22 provision.

There would hardly ever be a commercial message again on the Internet because no one could even ask for consent. We need to be able to ask for consent, otherwise we would never be able to send a commercial message. It says pretty clearly that an electronic message that contains a request for consent is a commercial electronic message, which the statute prohibits.

I really would like to hear from some of the government members or from the parliamentary secretary, if not today, then later, as to why the do-not-call list provisions, clause 86, are now being prepared for revocation. I would not even mind knowing why it was kind of buried in the statute and not referred to in the summary. I am sure there is a reasonable explanation for that. The record will show the questions I have raised on these small, picky, but real issues.

I will just confirm that, notwithstanding all of these minor points that I have raised, there is a great deal of support for legislation of this nature and my party will support it to get it to committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed the member's comments and observations. I, too, would like to hear from some government members and to ask them questions for more clarity.

The question, what is commercial and what is not, is a very interesting question. If a broker asks a person to go for lunch, is it a personal question or is it a business question, because clearly the broker is trying to ask the potential customer out to discuss business?

The question also is: Who decides whether it is spam or not? In a lot of cases, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. I see big problems here for small businesses and the opt-in approach. What is a business supposed to do, wait until the customers come in because the business person is fearful that he or she cannot contact his or her customers without a consent form being signed?

We have a potential here for huge costs unless we have a grandfather clause saying that if a business has 1,000 customers, it is allowed to contact those customers. The customer list would be grandfathered in as of the proclamation date of the bill. Otherwise, we will have huge costs for small businesses that need to contact each one of their customers as they come in to get them to sign permission forms so they can contact them in the routine business relationship that many of them have had with a company for many years.

What happens if one of those customers gets mad at the company for whatever reason? The previous member talked about buying a hard drive three years ago. What happens if a business sends the customer a message and he or she takes offence? Has the business done something wrong?

Those are a lot of interesting questions and I would ask the member to give us a fuller explanation on some of his concerns about this very important question.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the electronic messaging business is not an area in which I normally spend a lot of quality time, but I rely on electronic messages throughout the day. I just checked my BlackBerry and there are seven emails waiting for me. I should check to see if any of them are spam.

As I try to answer the question, or at least address the comment, I read the French version of subclause 2(4) and it is properly written. There is a verb in the French section, but the English version has to be corrected.

I acknowledge the member's comments that the bringing into place of this statute and its execution could create some huge costs for people who are recognized as being in the business now, large commercial organizations. I am pretty sure they will find a way to communicate with parliamentarians at the committee level as this thing goes forward.

Most of Canada's large commercial entities and SMEs are organized into groupings. I am pretty sure they will be able to outline potential costs to them and there may be an adaptation that can be made to accommodate the serious concerns consistent with the goals of the bill.

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague raised a good point, which is that an address is not a person. Even if the address from which the message was sent is available, how can we find out who was responsible for sending it? That is an address too. Of course, if it is an advertisement, there will be a name, but we must not forget that, much like the problems we had with fax machines a while back, large telecommunications or communications companies often send messages on behalf of insurance companies or other companies. So who should be held responsible? Such companies often have several numbers and addresses. How are we supposed to trace it?

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I suspect in the big picture that those whose job it is to enforce the anti-spam provisions will look for the large offenders first. The large offenders have probably already crossed the line a billion times. Locating those egregious, manifest, massive breaches of the statute, as it may come to be in force, will be fairly easy to find in the big picture. It is a question of dealing with it first in Canada and then abroad, with co-operation internationally.

My gut tells me the bill is not ready for prime time, it will have difficulties. However, I am pleased that we are taking steps to move it in that direction. Let us hope that when we make the move, we will not spend $25 million in a prosecution and then lose it. Let us move carefully toward enforcement. We should discourage the government from seeking quick, expedited passage of the bill. We should take our time and try to do it right so the product is what we need.

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

Mr. Speaker, several of the members today, including members of the Liberal Party, have brought up concern about the whole issue of whether the government is capable or will be capable of enforcing this act, given what happened with the do-not-call legislation and given that it was brought forward just before the last election. There was a lot of good press on the issue. Now we find out a year later that it is really not very viable as a bill.

There should be some concern. We can pass the best legislation in the world, but if the free enterprise government has no real interest in executing and being tough on enforcing the law, then what have we gained in the process?

Are there things we could do to the bill to make it tougher for the government to get out of enforcing it in a tough way? It was suggested by the member for Timmins—James Bay that maybe we should be looking at a police influence as opposed to letting the CRTC and other government bodies deal with the issue.

Could the member deal with that question?

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, let us not forget that the bill contains a private prosecution mechanism. There is an alternative, where a citizen might just succeed in doing what the government would find very expensive and difficult to do. Let us all keep in mind this statute is not going to be handed over for enforcement to municipal police forces or provincial police forces. Under the bill, as I understand it, this could only be investigated by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It would be a federal prosecution, as I understand it.

To get something going here, we are going to have a complaint and we are going to have an investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. We are going to have take police officers and get them onto the Internet and start gathering all of this data. It can be very expensive. Fortunately, they can probably do it from behind their computer, but they may need a few warrants. However, it will be a federal prosecution.

Then we have to get a federal prosecutor to take something from a brand new law. It could take a year or two to develop. I think there is a statutory limitation on prosecutions, as well. They would have to do it within that limit.

It is going to be tough, but let us get something in the hopper and start working on it. I have a feeling it will be the private prosecution piece that will be the secret weapon, that some individual will take this and run with it and we will have an evolution of enforcement on the private side that will beat the government by a country mile. That is why I do congratulate inclusion of this in the bill.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise today on this issue.

It was said that email is becoming more and more common in our societies. I am an enthusiast myself. It has the advantage of enabling us to do several things at once. While listening to the debate, for instance, I had my computer open in front of me. It makes it possible to communicate with people sometimes at the far ends of the earth, whom I have not seen for a long time. It is also possible to communicate with people who are very close by, such as colleagues in the House or even the lobby coordinator, Marie-Ève. I want to salute her on behalf of all Bloc Québécois members because she does a fantastic job, like all the people who work around us and support us in our tasks.

When viewers watch us on television, they see us proceeding efficiently and think we are all very good and know what to do. The reality is that we would often be lost without the coordinators in the lobby and all the parliamentary personnel who help us. I want to thank them very much for the work they do.

Having made this aside, I want to comment on BillC-27, Electronic Commerce Protection Act. Spam is of ever greater concern in our economies and that is due in large part to the fact that email is free. I want to assure the House right away that I would not dream of changing that. However, individuals who want to send unsolicited documents, mail or advertising can easily do so. They can send them to very large numbers of people at no additional cost. Spam is not very interesting and just a tiny proportion of people pay any attention to it. The volume is so immense, though, that only a small percentage is enough to get some potentially attractive customers, while the user would have to pay for traditional methods of promotion.

If someone wants to send an advertisement to every house by regular mail, there are no laws against it, apart from certain municipal regulations. This is not a problem, though, because people rarely take advantage of the situation to send millions of people in North America a letter announcing some scheme to get millions of dollars out of a particular country, thereby making everyone rich. There is no critical mass to justify doing this by traditional mail.

But in the case of email, there is that sort of critical mass. We have to sort through our email to separate the wheat from the chaff. We also have to have software with anti-spam and anti-phishing systems to identify such messages. These automated systems sometimes make mistakes, with the result that we sometimes do not receive legitimate email messages. They drown in a sea of spam.

The Bloc Québécois believes it is high time we had anti-spam legislation. The task force on spam, which was created in 2004, has been calling for legislation for more than four years.

Four years is an eternity when it comes to computer technology. Most western countries have already passed anti-spam legislation. Canada has unfortunately not yet done so, and we are happy to be able to study this bill. A number of members have pointed out that it is not perfect and that they still have concerns. We share the view that this bill can certainly be improved, but we will support it in principle so that it is referred to committee.

When the issue of prevention and punishment on the Internet comes up, in connection with spam, we often hear the argument that, because the Internet is involved, there is no control—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

I am sorry to have to interrupt the hon. member for Jeanne-Le Ber. He will have another 14 minutes the next time this bill is debated in the House.

It being 5:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

The House resumed from May 7 consideration of the motion that Bill C-27, An Act to promote the efficiency and adaptability of the Canadian economy by regulating certain activities that discourage reliance on electronic means of carrying out commercial activities, and to amend the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act, the Competition Act, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and the Telecommunications Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am almost as surprised to be speaking as you are to call upon me.

This morning, we are considering Bill C-27. It is widely known how absolutely dramatic and traumatic the whole issue of spam is and the interception of messages and the relationship that has to the electronic medium that we are so dependent on today. This is a dramatic example in this legislation in its analysis of the extent to which span can create absolute chaos in the lives of individuals, businesses and governments.

Most recently, there was an example of how one of these electronic wizards, who is totally capable of developing the programs, used that knowledge to intercept military messages between aircraft. The extent to which that could have created absolute chaos was, in fact, so dangerous. It was illustrated in the press. We have had to take the kind of action that would have been able to intercept those messages, neutralize them and protect our public.

The issue of creating spam and what it will do to our capacity in a civil society to use this technology in a positive way is threatened by people who have the capacity to understand and implement evil designs on individuals, businesses and governments. It is, therefore, in the overall interest of civil society that we act on this.

It has been estimated that, to this date, many billions of dollars have been taken and applied to those who have suffered the effects of their electronic Internet capacity being undermined. They have tried to implement reactive responses by calling upon service agencies to protect their own email addresses and so on, but billions of dollars have spent on that. Naturally, people find themselves looking at government and wanting to know what government at all levels will do to protect them.

The government has responded in a positive way. In fact, it has built on the recommendations that were made by a Liberal task force in 2004. I think it would be helpful for those who are watching to know about the recommendations with respect to that task force, which held many consultations.

The recommendations were: to prohibit the sending of spam without the prior consent of recipients; to prohibit the use of false or misleading statements that disguise the origins or true intent of the email; to prohibit the installation of unauthorized programs; and, to prohibit the unauthorized collection of personal information or email addresses. Bill C-27 takes a great step forward in terms of dealing with those recommendations that were made back in 2004.

Those who are watching would also wish to be informed as to the regime that is being put in place to follow up with respect to charges that have been levelled against people who are involved in this kind of scamming process.

The bill introduces fines for the violation of these acts up to a maximum of $1 million for individuals and $10 million for businesses. It would establish rules for warrants for information during an investigation and injunctions on spam activity while under investigation. The bill also would establish the private right of action, allowing individuals and businesses the ability to seek damages from the perpetrators of spam.

While the legislation takes these steps, it also behooves us to look at what additional steps could possibly be taken.

It is important to note that the whole strategy with respect to fighting spam requires more than just a legislative regime. The willingness to enforce the law is absolutely paramount. In this regard, the task force recommended in 2004 some additional steps that it felt the government should consider and perhaps could be considered when the bill is at committee.

The task force indicated that dedicated resources and strong support should be provided to agencies to administer and enforce the anti-spam legislation. It behooves the government to reflect on whether those resources have been dedicated. The task force further recommended co-ordinated anti-spam actions with other nations. While a huge amount of spam comes from the United States, this is a battle that requires international response. The task force also recommended that international service providers and other network operators establish best business practices. The final recommendation was to establish a spam database to better monitor the sources of spam.

It is important that we understand the regime that is the foundation of support with respect to the strategic response that is embedded in the bill.

The bill would give authority to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the CRTC, the Competition Bureau and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner to share information and evidence with international counterparts in order to pursue violators outside of Canada.

The minister indicated in his announcement the government's commitment to establishing Industry Canada as the national co-ordinating body in order to expand awareness and education of the whole nature of spam, what the government was doing in terms of the responding regime and to share that information with Canadians, with network operators and small businesses, and to co-ordinate the work with the private sector, and to conduct research and intelligence gathering.

Hopefully this information will be upfront so that people who have been victimized by those who are using spam to undermine their electronic systems will have a hotline to interface with immediately and the steps in the bill will kick in and they will know that the responding regime is at their service.

To that extent, the bill intends to create a spam reporting centre that would receive reports and related threats allowing it to collect evidence and gather intelligence to assist the three enforcement agencies, the CRTC, the Competition Bureau and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.

In committee, I hope this particular part of the regime that would be put in place by the bill, will be put right up front and that the electronic and communications interface with that reporting centre is made public, the number immediately has an acknowledged and up front series of steps that will be taken on behalf of consumers so they can rest assured that the evidential and the responding follow-up is immediate and predictable. The bill attempts to do that but there is a great deal of doubt out in the wider public whether we really have a handle on this particular problem.

The bill, in terms of its content, the history leading up to the response and the substance, meets the needs and expectations of our public. The public can also be assured that there will be an additional response, particularly as it is coordinated on an international basis.

It is very important that the resources be put into fighting what has been estimated as a $27 billion annual expenditure in information technology, including increased expenditures in Internet bandwidth, storage costs, anti-spam software and user support. Just that figure alone indicates that $27 billion is being invested by consumers to try and protect themselves, and that they are doing it at a time when the legislative framework has left them wanting.

What we are now doing, through this legislation, is taking that investment and backing it up with a legislative framework that is both prescriptive and proactive. It is saying that we understand the problem and we understand the nature of the intelligence intercept and how it is undermining consumers' ability to use their email addresses with confidence and without being invaded by people who want to access private information.

The government more recently introduced legislation that attempts to protect private individuals from abuse with respect to their credit card information and their day-to-day transactions through the mail. We have been reminded of this time and time again, in particular with respect to seniors who have been vulnerable to those who have victimized them because they have laid access to that private information, even to the extent, as members will recall, where information on mortgages and home ownership was used for transactions to place, resulting in people actually losing their home. Both the province and federal government have had to respond to that with new legislation, which sets a similar regime in place to protect our public.

Again I use that as an example that there just seems to be no limit to the extent that some in our society will victimize others and they will use a variety of tools to do it, not the least of which is using spam to access private information to mislead and abuse, to undermine enforcement agencies and to victimize the vulnerable. This legislation takes a major step forward in terms of dealing with that.

This was an initiative that was predicated on the basis of need. It was recognized several years ago in 2004 by the opposition, then the government, and this legislation builds upon that. There are still some gaps but those will be addressed in committee. However, our public can rest assured that the whole issue of spam and its evil intent will be dealt with by a regime that has follow-up and follow-through.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is fair to say that we have a bit of reluctance over here to believe that the Conservatives will actually enforce this bill, no matter how good we make it through the committee process. However, it seems to me that our saving grace in this bill, in terms of enforcement, is the private right of action, the fact that if the government is slow on doing the enforcement, the public has a right to go to the courts to try and get action that way.

I know there are certain provinces, such as Quebec and Manitoba, for example, that have class action legislation. I think Ontario might as well. Could the member confirm that the class action provisions would be applicable in this situation, or would the person have to deal primarily on an individual, case by case basis? Could there be a class action lawsuit under this legislation?

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the whole nature of an individual action, in fact even how an individual action could spark what has been characterized as a class action, is one for the lawyers in the committee to ascertain. I am a school teacher from Scarborough and not a lawyer, but I can certainly understand the premise upon which the member has asked that question.

I am joined by two of my colleagues, both of whom are lawyers, and they have taken note of that particular question. It would be my hope that in committee what provincial legislation is doing with respect to the right of a private individual to enact an action and the resources that would be provided to do that perhaps within the scope of this bill or provincial legislation will be pursued.

As I said, it is very important that people have a one-stop-shopping interface when they have been victimized, one number, so that there is a follow up. This is a very serious and complex area of technology. People know how to use it, but they do not know the overall design to the extent that they can protect themselves.

The premise the member is suggesting should be noted and followed up by the committee, but I am not capable at this point to give any further elaboration of the question than that.