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

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, When I was asked to speak about Bill C-27, I have to admit that I was very excited as a young person who knows that anything that has to do with the Internet is increasingly popular among young people in particular, but mainly as a parliamentarian. In 2009, we all use the Internet a great deal to keep in touch with the people in our ridings. I have only to think about how we as parliamentarians have used email every day for years now and about the new Internet technologies, such as Facebook, of which I am a member and where I have a huge number of friends and supporters. I would like to take this opportunity to invite all Quebeckers to add me to their list of friends. Using the Internet, we can keep in touch with people in the field and know what they are thinking.

We used to use the telephone and send letters through the mail, but today we have much greater access with the Internet. Some of my colleagues still write letters by hand. It may be that they see this as a romantic notion, but today the Internet is the vehicle of choice for interacting with others. There are still some people who put pen to paper, but today everything is on the Net.

Bill C-27 is part of this trend. Unfortunately, the Internet is not all good. As with anything, there will be people who misuse it, as is the case with spam. As an avid Internet user, I have received a lot of spam. I agree that it is frustrating. It is annoying to see our inboxes filled with hundreds of mass emails on topics we want nothing to do with.

Bill C-27 attempts to address part of the problem. That is one reason why the Bloc Québécois supports this bill. We are in favour of the principle, but some parts of the bill, which I will talk about later, can be considered biased. They will have to be examined in committee, and we will have to take the time to analyze every single comma, to protect not only consumers and Internet users, but also businesses that are using the Internet and email more and more. We must find some common ground for both parties.

Bill C-27 is a new bill that specifically targets unsolicited commercial electronic messages. Citizens have been demanding such a bill for some time, and it is sorely needed. Governments, service providers, network operators and consumers are all affected by spam, as I just mentioned. We must create safeguards for legitimate electronic commerce, and we must do so now. Not only are commercial emails—sent with the prior consent of the recipient—important to electronic commerce, but they are also essential to the development of the online economy.

The Bloc Québécois is pleased to see that Bill C-27 takes into account most of the recommendations in the final report of the task force on spam. However, we are upset that the legislative process has taken four long years. The government says that it has acted quickly. The Conservatives have been in power for three years, and it took four long years—there was also one year with the Liberals, who are just as slow, I must say—for us to finally get to the point of examining Bill C-27.

As I said, computer technology is evolving at astonishing speeds, and spammers, those who send spam, keep finding new ways to achieve their goal. Therefore, committee consideration of the bill should give many industry stakeholders and consumer protection groups an opportunity to express their views on the new electronic commerce protection legislation.

This being a constantly evolving issue, the task force on spam was struck in 2004 to look into this problem and find ways of dealing with it. It brought together Internet service providers and representatives, electronic marketing experts, and government and consumer representatives.

I will note, as an aside, that electronic marketing is increasingly popular, even in political circles, as was seen during Barack Obama's recent campaign in the United States. His team made massive use of the Internet, with great success.

That having been said, more than 60 groups from the sectors concerned took part in the discussions, contributing their views on topics such as legislation and enforcement, international cooperation and raising public awareness.

In addition to the Stop Spam Here campaign launched on the Internet to raise awareness and provide users with tips on how to limit and control the amount of spam they receive, on May 17, 2005, the task force on spam presented its final report to the Minister of Industry.

This report, entitled “Stopping Spam: Creating a Stronger, Safer Internet”, recommends new, targeted legislation and more vigorous enforcement of current laws to reinforce the legal and regulatory arsenal Canada could use in the global fight against spam.

The report also promotes the establishment of a focal point or centre within government to coordinate the actions taken against spamming activity and related issues, such as spyware.

The main recommendations contained in this report were: the proposed legislation and more vigorous enforcement; the drafting of legislation prohibiting spamming; protection of personal information and privacy and protection of computers, emails and networks.

The proposed legislation is designed to allow individuals and companies to sue spammers and hold any businesses whose products and services are promoted using these means partially responsible for spamming activity. In addition, new and existing resources of the organizations responsible for the administration and enforcement of anti-spam laws should be strengthened.

The task force also talked about a centre of expertise on spam. The task force recommended creating a centre to coordinate the government's anti-spam initiatives. The centre would coordinate policy and education campaigns, and support law enforcement efforts. It would also receive complaints and compile statistics on spam.

To curb the volume of spam reaching users, the task force developed a series of industry best practices for ISPs, network operators and email marketers.

Examples include allowing ISPs and other network operators to block email file attachments known to carry viruses and to stop emails with deceptive subject lines.

As well, email marketers would be required to obtain informed consent from recipients to receive emails; provide an opting-out mechanism for further emails; and create a complaints system. The report recommends that these groups voluntarily adopt, regularly review and enhance the best practices.

We will also need an education campaign. Talking, passing legislation and finding ways to stop spam is one thing, but we also have to raise awareness and warn people about emails that may appear to promise things.

For example, North Americans are receiving more and more emails from young African women. These emails say that the sender is having some problems at the moment, and if the recipient sends a cheque or provides a bank account number, she will give him or her $1 million in exchange. We have to warn people that these emails are actually spam. In most cases, the senders plan to get funds from the recipients under false, dishonest pretenses. We have to make sure that people are aware of this. How many times have I heard from people who naively believed these emails requesting a bank account number in exchange for cash. People have to be so careful. I myself have begun an awareness campaign by sending an email warning people to be careful because the consequences could be disastrous.

We have to start a public education campaign. To help change people's online behaviour, the task force created an online public education campaign called “Stop Spam Here”. Launched in 2004, the website offers consumers, voluntary organizations and businesses practical tips for protecting their personal information, computers and email addresses. The task force recommends that all partners continue to enhance the site's content.

International cooperation is also needed in order to put an end to spam. I mentioned emails that come from Africa, for instance. The problem of spam is not limited to Canada. It is happening around the world. The Internet created the global village, and the world has become a small town. Anything can be sent at lightning speed. Anyone can send spam to Canada or anywhere else in the world. This file will therefore require considerable international cooperation.

Since most of the spam reaching Canadians comes from outside the country, international measures to stem spam are vital. Therefore, the task force proposed that the government continue its efforts to harmonize anti-spam policies and to improve cooperation in enforcing anti-spam laws among different countries.

Four years later, on April 24, 2009, the Government of Canada finally introduced new legislation to protect electronic commerce, namely, Bill C-27. It took four years, which, I must say, was a little long.

Inspired primarily by the final report of the task force on spam, Bill C-27 establishes a framework to protect electronic commerce. To achieve that, the bill would enact the new electronic commerce protection act, as I mentioned earlier. Basically, this act would set limits on the sending of spam. First of all, we must define spam. Spam can be defined as any electronic commercial message sent without the express consent of the recipient. It can be any electronic commercial message, any text, audio, voice or visual message sent by any means of telecommunication, whether by email, cellular phone text messaging or instant messaging.

It is important to make a distinction. Spam affects not only emails, but also what are known as SMSs, that is, messages sent directly from one cellular phone to another, and we sometimes forget that. This can become a bit of a sham. People sometimes sign up for a business's mailing list and they receive SMSs. Yet they do not realize that, at 15¢ per message, it can become quite expensive by the end of the month. People who send spam by SMS get the benefits, but since they send so many, it is very costly for users. Therefore, it is also important to stop spam sent by SMS.

Having regard to the content of the message, it would be reasonable to conclude its purpose is to encourage participation in a commercial activity, including an electronic message that offers to purchase, sell, barter or lease a product, goods, a service, land or an interest or right in land, or a business, investment or gaming opportunity.

Note that the following types of commercial messages are not considered as spam: messages sent by an individual to another individual with whom they have a personal or family relationship; messages sent to a person who is engaged in a commercial activity and consist solely of an inquiry or application related to that activity; messages that are, in whole or in part, an interactive two-way voice communication between individuals; messages that are sent by means of a facsimile to a telephone account; messages that are a voice recording sent to a telephone account; and messages that are of a class, or are sent in circumstances, specified in the regulations.

This means that, under this legislation, sending spam to an electronic address—email, messenger, telephone or any other similar account—would be prohibited. The only circumstances under which it would be allowed is when the person to whom the message is sent has consented to receiving it, whether the consent is express or implied, hence the importance of raising public awareness as I said earlier.

Sometimes, in good faith, people subscribe to mailing lists or SMS distribution lists without necessarily knowing what they are getting themselves into and without understanding the fine print and the problems that can arise. It is therefore important to raise awareness. We cannot say it often enough: it is extremely important that Internet users and people who use their cell phones to send text messages be careful and make sure that they do not fall into a trap.

In addition to being in a form that conforms to the prescribed requirements, the message will have to make it possible to identify and contact the sender. Lastly, the message must include an unsubscribe mechanism, with an email address or hyperlink, so that the recipient can indicate that he or she does not want to receive any further commercial electronic messages from the sender.

Earlier, I mentioned how users can get caught in a trap. Companies that send SMS messages, for example, do not tell recipients how to unsubscribe. And that becomes very problematic, because the individual receiving the messages is billed for them. The recipient has to pay, but does not necessarily have the knowledge or the means to unsubscribe. The charges start to add up. At 10¢ a message, SMS can be very expensive.

The bill would also prohibit altering the transmission data in an electronic message so that it is delivered to destinations other than that specified by the initial sender. In addition, the bill would prohibit installing a computer program on another person's computer and sending an electronic message from that computer without the owner's consent.

I see that I have only a minute left. I would just like to say that the Bloc Québécois would like this bill to be referred to committee. I said at the beginning of my speech that we support the bill in principle, but there are some things that will have to be checked.

The Internet is increasingly a global phenomenon, and we will have to fight spam with our international partners.

The House resumed 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.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand in the House today and speak to Bill C-27, a bill that looks at providing new prohibitions and enforcement measures as well as changes to existing laws regarding spam.

As one of the youngest members in the House, this is a bill that I feel very strongly about. That is why I stand here very proudly and state our position as the New Democratic Party, asking for the support of the House to make sure that this bill goes to committee in order to be discussed, in order to have the proper consultation it deserves, and in order for there to be time to look at such complex legislation.

The reason why I connect it with my generation is because I am part of a generation that has truly grown up dependent on technology. Not only are we dependent on it for our professional lives, but also our personal lives. It is the tool that brings our generation together.

As we sit and spend an inordinate amount of hours on the Internet, we are frequently faced by the nuisance that is spam, phishing, Trojan horses, and whatever other forms of Internet nuisance there might be. I would also like to point out how problematic it is.

On a more humourous note, I know my colleague yesterday recited some examples of spamware and how ridiculous they are. Whether it is the solicitation of funds from another part of the world, usually unfortunately taking advantage of people's sympathies and empathies toward areas of the world that have undergone crises, or it is ridiculous notes pertaining to people's personal lives and the assumption that we know who is talking to us and who wants to meet us, and all of these kinds of things. But, in fact, once again it is taking advantage of people's dependence on the Internet to connect in terms of their personal life as opposed to getting out and actually meeting people in the real world.

Beyond the humourous, however, we get to some of the really serious problems that emerge from spam and the kind of pollution that enters our in-boxes, our Facebook sites or our BlackBerries on a daily basis. There is the nuisance in terms of time and efficiency that it takes away from us as we go through our emails and spend valuable time erasing ridiculous messages that we receive.

There are the nuisances that businesses go through in terms of erasing spam emails that they receive or else defending perhaps themselves. This is also pertinent to individuals when it is believed they are the ones who have sent the spam messages when in fact it is someone else causing havoc.

Then there is the even more serious element which is the criminal element and the theft that occurs as a result of spam messages. Identity theft is something that we in Canada are very concerned about. I recall quite a bit of media attention when there was what seemed to be a surge in identity theft.

Also, the theft of financial information is connected to identity theft. It is found that many times such spammers, as they are called, or people who take advantage of others on the Internet, usually take advantage of people who are not familiar with technology, whether it is the elderly or people who are less savvy when it comes to Internet technology. That is highly problematic for so many reasons.

What makes it even more disconcerting for members in the House is Canada's inaction when it comes to spam, when it comes to Internet pollution, and when we see so many people being taken advantage of. I particularly want to bring out the extent to which not only Canadians are being taken advantage of but also people all around the world as a result of spam activity that originates here in Canada. I found out that Canada ranked fifth worldwide as the source of web-based email spam, trailing only Iran, Nigeria, Kenya and Israel.

A research study from Cloudmark, a leading provider of anti-spam software, recently presented data on the origins of spam emanating from web-based email providers, such as Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo, at an international anti-spam conference in Germany. It found out that we are fifth in terms of truly polluting the web world and taking advantage of people, not only in our own country but around the world. We need to be ashamed of that. We take pride in being advanced in the technological age and in our efficiencies with respect to our technology. There is a serious problem in that we have gone so far ahead in our technology that our legislation is lagging behind. We have a lot of people who are taking advantage of that gap and who are acting in very malicious ways and criminal ways as well.

There have been many examples of people who have taken advantage of Facebook sites. I know that is a site on which many politicians in the House spend a great deal of time, networking with their constituents. I am not sure if they have spent enough time to see some of the spam messages pasted on people's Facebook walls in a very public manner, with which I am sure none of us would want to be associated. However, we never know when spammers are going to take advantage of the work we do and our reputation and create havoc on our Facebook sites.

These are the kinds of things that could hit very close to home in the work that we do as political representatives.

I go back to the piece about Canada being negligent when it comes to being proactive in preventing such intense span activity originating from our country. I see the reference to Canada being a lawless spam haven. Two hundred billion spam messages come out of Canada every day. How could we fathom such extensive numbers, knowing very well that this has been an ongoing discussion in our House? I understand the Liberals brought up the first legislation regarding spam in 2003. We are now in 2009. That is six years.

We know there is far more use of the Internet, both in our country and around the world. Where has the federal government been in terms of implementing legislation that would both protect us and certainly clear our name as allowing this kind of activity to take place in our country while turning a blind eye?

I want to go back to talk a bit about some of the important prohibitions that Bill C-27 provides.

The primary prohibition, known as the basic anti-spam provision, notes:

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

(a) the person to whom the message is sent has consented to receiving it, whether the consent is express or implied; and

(b) the message complies with subsection (2).

There are number of provisions as part of subsection (2). It enforces, for example, the importance of three key requirements, form, consent and jurisdiction.

The law establishes form requirements for those who send commercial electronic messages, for example, and identifies the people sending the message. It provides contact information of the centre and also has an unsubscribe mechanism, which is so important as many of us receive numerous emails from the same source and find it difficult to know how to stop from receiving them any more.

The second prohibition that is part of Bill C-27 is referred to as the anti-phishing provision and involves the alteration of the transmission data on electronic messages. It is designed to deal with phishing, where the electronic message appears to go to one place but goes somewhere else. It states:

No person shall, in the course of a commercial activity, alter or cause to be altered the transmission data in an electronic message so that the message is delivered to a destination other than or in addition to that specified by the sender, unless the alteration is made with the express consent of the sender or in accordance with a court order.

The third prohibition is referred to as the anti-spyware and botnet provision. It is designed to deal with the increasingly common method of delivering spam that infects a user's computer and uses the Internet connection to send millions of spam messages.

The provision states:

No person shall, in the course of a commercial activity, install or cause to be installed a computer program on any other person’s computer system or, having so installed or caused to be installed a computer program, cause an electronic message to be sent from that computer system, unless the person has obtained the express consent of the owner or an authorized user of a computer system or is acting in accordance with a court order.

For this to apply, there must be a Canadian connection to the activity. As we have just heard, there is no shortage of Canadian connections to activity, given that we rank number five on the world charts when it comes to infecting other people's Internet connections with spam.

The intent of Bill C-27 is a very good one. For many years we have been talking about the importance of being proactive in this legislation to protect Canadian citizens, consumers and businesses and to prevent the rest of the world from having to deal with the garbage, in many ways, that emanates from our country.

I know my colleague, the member for Timmins—James Bay, an advocate for efficient and fair use of Internet technologies, has spoken many times on the importance of this issue. I would also like to recognize the work of my colleague from Windsor West, the critic on this file, who has worked very hard at committee to ensure that this is a constant priority.

In that sense, this has been an ongoing discussion. What is holding us up? Given that this is such complex legislation, we need to have a proper consultation with stakeholders. We recognize that in 2004 there was some consultation that took place under the Liberals. We also know what happened shortly after that. We have been in a series of minority governments, clearly unable to properly deal with such important legislation.

However, we believe there is enough good faith in the House to recognize that this is a priority and that we can no longer pay lip service to it or leave it on the shelf to be discussed at another time.

Going back to committee is the best way to go about this. For example, there was concern raised yesterday in the House about some provisions that were included in the bill, which came directly from the do-not-call list bill.

On the do-not-call list, many colleagues and Canadians throughout the country have pointed out how problematic it has been. People have, in good will and good faith, signed their names to a list, expecting that they will no longer be harassed by telemarketers and different companies. However, what we did not know was spammers and others on the net were purchasing these lists or finding them and doing quite the opposite, targeting people even more vehemently, the exact people who had specifically requested not to be called.

We see that some of the do-not-call list provisions are in this bill, which we would like to be part of a broader debate. There was some confusion yesterday from members across with respect to whether these kinds of provisions would be part of the final reading of Bill C-27. That immediately raises a red flag and indicates the importance of bringing this bill back to committee so we can ensure that each part of it is pertinent, that it reflects lessons we have learned from the past in terms of efficiency and fairness and that the final product will actually make a difference to Canadians.

We also like to point out the importance, as my fellow colleague from Elmwood—Transcona did, of consulting properly with small businesses. In many cases, small businesses depend a great deal on email communications through the work they do in advertising and contacts with their clients and consumers. We need to ensure that this bill does not penalize them in the kinds of emails they send out and that there are provisions to protect them. We need to understand the work they do.

If a small business does send out an email sometime after a purchase has been made or an agreement has been reached, will that be recognized as spam? Based on numerous emails consumers may receive from a business, will they view that as spam and file a complaint against that business, putting that business in a very difficult situation for actions that are quite legitimate?

We also like to point out that political parties send copious amounts of emails. We use Facebook. We use the tools available to us. Will we be on the short end of facing some difficult situations if people complain about the emails we send out? What kind of balance can we find in that area?

Canadians recognize that by no means are our parties immune to scandals. We see so many in the news and, even more recently, attached to numerous prior political incarnations in the House. We want to ensure that communications, which are so important for democracy, from our political parties are recognized as such. That is why it is so important to bring this bill back to committee so we can have these kinds of discussions.

The next point I would like to make is on enforcement. We find some of the measures around enforcement problematic. We all know it is fine and well to come up with a great bill that looks at punitive measures to render people accountable. However, if we do not have the proper enforcement, what are we doing here? The bill designates the CRTC to engage in such kinds of enforcement activities.

I think we all recognize that the CRTC does very hard work, but in many cases it is stretched thin in taking responsibility for the files and departments it already has under its administration, let alone bringing in such an important and extensive responsibility and adding it to its load. It is not that it would not be the best to deal with this. However, we need to look at proper provision of resources in finances, technology and human resources to ensure the CRTC can truly do the work it has been mandated to do.

I also recognize that the Privacy Commissioner is part of this. Does she have enough resources to undertake this kind of work?

When we talk about such important points as identity theft, the theft of financial information and ensuring that Canadian citizens and businesses can use the Internet safely, these are some pretty serious points. We need to ensure that the people who will be responsible for ensuring the rules and the legislation are followed have the abilities to do so. It is incumbent upon us and the government to ensure that this is the case.

Finally, I want to bring attention to the importance of protecting consumers. This bill is fundamentally about protecting Canadians and Canadian consumers. As New Democrats, we want to believe that. This is a very positive intent. This kind of legislation needs to take place, but we want to ensure that the consultation takes place as it should, that it is implemented properly and that it is enforced properly as well.

For that reason, we look with distress at the fact that our motion on credit cards and protecting consumers in that respect has not been heeded by the government. Numerous measures that we have proposed for employment insurance changes have not been heeded by the government.

Motions have been passed by all three opposition parties, might I add, that look out for the benefit of consumers.

I know that hon. members on the other side of the House represent many consumers, and I hope they will listen to us and bring this bill back to committee to ensure it makes a difference for us as Canadian consumers.

[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.

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.

[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—

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

Madam Speaker, I am very glad to rise to speak to this somewhat bizarre bill.

It is very clear that the government is setting up a bill to kill the do-not-call registry. It is talking about fraud. It is talking about fax machines. We push the government on question after question, and it tells us that just because it is in there does not mean it is actually in there. Then it asks us to speed the bill through. I would be very concerned about rushing through a bill brought forward by the Conservative government without doing due diligence.

Legislation is like trying to push a glacier. It is very cumbersome. People want to develop legislation for this, that or the other, and they tell us we have to have a law. Then we put in a law and we see the concerns. Any time the Conservatives try to bring in a law, they start howling up and down that the opposition are not willing to push it through right away. It tells us we are soft on crime because we do want to actually study a bill on mandatory minimums for furniture theft or whatever else they bring forward.

There are all kinds of booby traps in legislation. Legislation always has unintended consequences. If we do not do the due diligence, we end up using a hammer to whack a bunch of little pieces all over the place without necessarily getting what we wanted.

When we look at a bill, it has to be focused, and it to be focused right. So what are we focused on right now? The bill is focused on the issue of spam.

Is spam a problem? Spam is a big problem. Spam is a problem on two or three different levels. It is an irritant, number one. I get it all the time on my BlackBerry. There is a woman in some cafe who is waiting to meet me and she thinks I look great. This woman who emails me never has my first name. I go on my BlackBerry and someone is selling me products to make certain parts of my body bigger than they need to be. Then I go on my BlackBerry and someone is selling me a beautiful condo on a malaria-infested swamp. Those are irritants, and so I erase them. Sure it costs me a bit of time, but it is not that big a deal.

The bigger problem with spam is the use of it to defraud people across the world. Of course we know about the Nigerian 419 scam. When I ran my magazine, in the days when the fax machine was cutting-edge technology, we got these faxes from Nigeria or Bosnia, or wherever there was a crisis, from someone trying to get out of the country who needed some money. If we gave them money, we would get money back. Everybody knows the 419 scam. But it was cumbersome. It was slow. It had to be done on fax machines. It actually cost them money to do it, so they had to limit the number of scams they could get away with. Surprisingly, a lot of people got snagged in these kinds of frauds.

However, when we moved to digital technology, the ability of these fraud artists anywhere in the world to inundate millions and millions of Internet subscribers with fraudulent claims jumped astronomically, and the costs for doing it became almost nothing.

The vast majority of us look at those fraud emails, and we might be a little upset or we might laugh at them, and we erase them. However, they only need one in a thousand people or one in ten thousand people to succeed. People have lost their savings. There have been senior citizens who have been defrauded, or young people who have lost money. It is so hard to track these fraud artists down. An international effort is needed to deal with them. We have to be able to root these players out, and we have to be get them off our servers.

The other major problem with spam is the use of spyware technology and the use of Trojans, the malignant attempt to destroy people's personal or office computers. That is a level of destruction in our corporate economy that no jurisdiction should be willing to put up with. For all too long in Canada we have sat back and said it is the cost of doing business. However, it should not be the cost of doing business. We need a very clear set of laws to go after spammers, especially given the ability of spam artists to burrow into our computers, take our lists and reproduce them, or use our computers to send spam further and further afield.

The issue is that we need spam legislation. The New Democratic Party will be supporting spam legislation going to committee to ensure we have the tools to shut these operators down.

That being said, there needs to be due diligence. We need to look at this bill carefully, because it is a very large and cumbersome bill. There are a number of elements of this bill that are concerning. They really relate to how the Conservative government bungled the do-not-call registry.

We will go back to the do-not-call registry at a further point. But the idea behind the registry was great. That is how many laws are started. People phone an MP's office and say they are sick and tired of people calling them at home every day and they want something done about it. The government says, “Everyone is upset. We are going to act on it. We are going to have a do-not-call registry”.

Then we look at what happened with the do-not-call registry. The glaring gaps left millions of people who trusted in it exposed.

When there are unknown firms with cryptic names, such as “my broker office”, paying $50 so they can purchase all the numbers on that list in Toronto, we have a big problem. And when the CRTC allows companies with very dubious names to download those lists, we have a big problem.

When I am at work and I see a phone number on my BlackBerry and somebody is selling me a dodgy vacation in the Cayman Islands, I am thinking about how they got my parliamentary phone number. I think back to someone, somewhere paying $50 to get the list of all the Canadian phone numbers. That is a huge glaring problem.

Of course I could stand here and beat up on the Conservative government for completely blowing the registry and not thinking about it, but I am not going to do that. I am going to say that it meant well. Legislation is difficult. It set up a registry because it was responding to a problem. But there were gaping holes in it, and now we have a bigger problem.

The problem was that the lists were left open and all kinds of dodgy operations got access to them. Who knows where they are? They are not subject to Canadian law. They could be calling, for pennies, from anyplace around the world. We are stuck.

Our consumers are being exposed to fraudulent claims. I do not know how many times I have been told that the warranty on my car is just about done. Obviously they have never seen my Pontiac Sunfire or they would know the warranty was done on that a long, long time ago.

The other problem with the do-not-call registry is the enforcement mechanism. The government turned it over to the CRTC. The CRTC deals with just about everything under the sun. Being on the heritage committee, I am not going to beat up on the CRTC, but it can barely keep track of all the broadcast issues and the telecommunications issues.

The CRTC has the job of policing the do-not-call registry. Twenty thousand complaints a month are brought forward. As my colleague from Nanaimo—Cowichan put forward, Bell reviews those and decides which are the serious ones and which are not. Many of those get tossed out. I am not saying that Bell is tossing out the ones that might implicate itself, but at the end of the day there have been only 70 letters sent out calling for “corrective action”.

Of the 308 members in this House of Commons, how many have received dodgy phone calls from which this list is supposed to protect them? I bet there are 70 right here alone. Then we add our family members and people who phone our constituency offices and there are a lot more than 70 people who have had reason to complain.

For all the registry's hoopla, we have allowed millions of names to be siphoned off by fraud artists. There have been only 70 letters calling for corrective action. That is a big issue. It is an issue that needs to be addressed.

Talking about the complete failure of the phone registry brings us back to Bill C-27. There is one view that Bill C-27 might try to change the registry by saying there is an opt-in clause as opposed to an opt-out clause, that Canadians would not have to receive a message from anybody unless they have given prior consent.

This is where I have a problem with the enforceability of the bill. Requiring someone to get prior consent before they contact people, I think in the digital age is going to prove almost impossible. There might be people, who are not very active in the digital world, who do not want to be called unless they call the other people first, but the vast majority of transactions are happening without prior consent.

This is where we get into some real problems with the enforceability of the act. If we try to draw too wide a net on spammers, we are going to get caught up with a whole bunch of business transactions. Some of them are very legitimate and some are less so, but will we get to the spammers? I am concerned about this. I think we need to bring this to committee to hear from witnesses on how practical that provision would be.

If the government brings in an opting-in clause rather than an opting-out clause in this spammer's bill, then conceivably the opt-out clause for the phone registry would not be needed any more. Contrary to what the Conservative Party is telling us, on page 56, clause 86 says that sections 41.1 to 41.7 of the act would be repealed. That is the do-not-call registry.

We are being assured, after many, many questions to the Conservative ranks, that repealing the do-not-call registry is not the same as repealing the do-not-call registry. We would only repeal the do-not-call registry if it becomes law and then we decide to enact it.

We are being asked, as opposition members, to quickly push this legislation through so that once again we show we are tough on spammers. If it is in this legislation, then why not say it is in this legislation? Why not say we had a problem with the phone registry, we blew it and it is not working. The opt-out clause does not work so we are going for an opt-in clause. Put that on the table. The Conservatives did not do that. They have hidden it in the microscopic print.

That is not the way to enact legislation. Legislation is not hiding things in a bill and then calling on the opposition members to quickly vote for it to show they are supporting the government. We need to make sure this legislation will work.

The idea of multi-million dollar fines for major spam fraudsters is a perfectly reasonable solution. If we are going after the malignant spyware out there, we need serious criminal penalities. That has to be in the bill. The NDP supports that.

The problem, again, goes back to the dodgy way the phone registry played out with enforcement. Can we really expect that the CRTC, with its inability to respond to the 20,000 calls a month it got about the phone registry, is going to have the tools to go after these operators? That is the question.

I suggest that we need to look at thinning the bill down, making sure our legal teams have the clear mandate to go after the people we really need to go after, draw the net a little smaller and make sure we can do this under police powers. We are never going to get the spam cleared up until we have a way of enforcing it. At the end of the day it is very bulky, slow moving legislation that ends up being challenged in the courts. We support moving forward with this legislation, but it has to be done right.

In my time, I have seen many bills crafted in the House and passed with many nods, only to reveal a month or six months down the road that we did not see something.

For example, there was the voter registration bill. It went through once. New Democrats certainly were raising a hue and cry about problems with the bill at that time and a million rural people were disenfranchised. The bill had to be brought back a second time and there were still problems with it. We had legal experts and student organizations which said that, if we do not make the proper changes, hundreds of thousands of people will be disenfranchised and it will be subject to a court challenge. Now we have Elections Canada looking at that bill right now that had become law and it will probably be subject to a court challenge, which means it would come back for legislation again.

If we were in the private sector and did such a bad job once, twice and we were looking at it three times, everyone would get fired. Here, we just wait until it comes back to committee. I do not think that is a good enough way to do business.

On the issue of spam, of all the issues we argue about in the House of Commons, we can all agree no one likes spam. We can all agree that we want to be able to go after the fraud artists, but where we might diverge is on whether or not we rush through legislation that is not thought out.

So, we will support this going to committee. We want to see a bill that is enforceable, that hits the targets that it needs, and that it does not reproduce the debacle of the phone registry that started out as a good idea, but never delivered the goods.

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

Madam Speaker, I was talking earlier about the do-not-call list. Page 56 of Bill C-27 talks about repealing sections 41(1) to 41(7) of the act, and that has to do with the do-not-call registry. Could the member comment on the fact that we saw some pretty serious problems with enforcement with the do-not-call registry and the do-not-call list?

I mentioned the fact that the first level of complaint was Bell. If Bell determined there was a valid complaint, it would then be referred to the CRTC. The CRTC issued 70 warning letters and levied no fines in relation to the do-not-call registry, even though the ability to levy a fine was within the act.

The fines in this legislation are much more serious. However, could the member specifically comment on the requirement for enforcement and what he sees as being important aspects of that enforcement?

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to speak in support of Bill C-27, the electronic commerce protection act. The key reason is that for eight years I operated my own business out of my home like thousands of other Canadians. I can say from first-hand experience that spam is bad news.

High speed Internet communication by email has become the predominant communication tool worldwide. It is the greatest enabler in the information age for small business and the self-employed. It allows thousands of small-business operators and the self-employed in every province to start their businesses and operate them at a profit. That includes writers, people in public relations, journalists, photographers, engineers, lawyers, event managers, fundraisers and many other occupations.

Email and high speed Internet allow thousands of disabled persons to operate businesses and to work from home. It creates almost a level playing field in that situation for disabled persons. It is an incredibly valuable tool for the disabled to communicate with business people and their family and friends.

Parents benefit hugely from home offices and email. The Internet has been a boon to parents who choose to stay at home with infants and children, which my wife and I have done in the past. They want to work in the evenings or do their email during their children's nap time or playtime if they have infants, as does my friend in Oakville, who operates a home business and is a mother as well. She has a little one-and-a-half-year-old. She can do them simultaneously. She is connected by her notebook computer to her clients, associates and, in fact, the world.

Aside from the travel costs, the most important common denominator and resource for self-employed people in small business is their time. I would suggest that time for the self-employed and small business people is actually priceless. It is almost a currency. When someone or some organization, without any invitation or permission and with no previous business relationship, at a very little incremental cost that is too small to measure, sucks up that time by using trickery and stealth marketing to steal that time with spam, it should be stopped.

Unsolicited, unlimited junk mail trying to sell people watches and many other products of very dubious value should also be stopped. Forwarding fraudulent messages designed to dupe innocent people and cheat them out of their savings should be stopped. For example, I would expect most of the people in the House today have received an email from a prince in Nigeria who only needs a little bit of money to get out of prison and is willing to share his resources for the rest of his life. The sad part is that if enough of those emails are sent out and enough mud is thrown against the wall, somebody will respond and somebody will be duped.

The key problem is that in normal marketing and in normal business, the legitimate kind, those wishing to sell goods and services are restrained to reasonable efforts by cost. It costs money to send letters, to make phone calls, to place ads and to get the attention of consumers and other businesses. In fact, the average cost for a letter is 70 cents to a dollar. However, on the Internet, the cost per contact for spam is actually too small to measure. It is not even pennies. Technology, which is our greatest tool, is also subject to abuse.

The Internet is a precious resource. Effectively it belongs to all of us. As subscribers to telephone and Internet services, we pay a fair amount and we are allowed fair usage. Millions of Canadians rely on the telecommunications network to conduct business. They move goods across continents and the oceans. They keep industry moving to help provide thousands of jobs in thousands of businesses. We share this resource, the Internet, to our mutual benefit.

However, there are limits to this shared network. The network cannot carry an unlimited number of messages. People who have ever tried to call their mother on Mother's Day might have had a busy signal, because that happens to be the busiest day of the year on the telephone network. If they try again and again, they will finally get through. Christmas morning and New Year's Eve are similar. There is a limit to the network.

When a relatively few companies, often not owned or operated by Canadians, send out millions of unwanted and unwelcome messages, they utilize more than their fair share of the network. They use a proportion of resources they have not paid for in fairness and they slow down or stop the email messages everyone else is trying to send or receive. They rob us again of more of our time. These spam senders suffer no significant costs when they send out thousands of emails and demonstrate a wanton disregard for the time of others.

Unfortunately, they are some of the most clever and seedy people on the planet. They devise ways to interrupt our shared network and waste the time of thousands of business people. It is very difficult to put a value on that time, but it is certainly in the millions of dollars. They pitch some products that few people would ever buy. It gets worse.

Recently, my own PC network adviser, Paul Lebl, explained to me that these spammers have developed viruses or worms. The emails have very deceptive subject lines and if the wrong email is opened, the virus or worm will search the hard drive and find every email address on the hard drive and send the spam to every one of those email addresses as well. It is a very insidious practice. I view it as vandalism and it has to be deterred or stopped.

No one is saying that this legislation is going to end all spam in Canada or worldwide, but it will help us work with other countries to reduce spam worldwide. It is about improving Canada's competitiveness in the electronic marketplace as well as protecting Canadian consumers from the most dangerous types of spam. Boosting the competitiveness of our economy and protecting Canadians are two primary priorities of our Conservative government.

Since taking office a little over three years ago, our government has taken action to improve the competitiveness of Canadian companies and of our economy as a whole. Budget 2009 continued to create a competitive advantage which will drive our economy forward for years to come.

We are taking steps to enhance our traditional industries with new knowledge and to create opportunities for the development of new industries.

While our economy obviously faces significant challenges as a result of the dramatically reduced demand in the United States, the proactive initiatives of this government have lessened the blow. The good news is we are positioned to come out of this crisis faster than other countries.

Some members of the House have expressed interest in introducing new taxes and raising existing ones. Our government believes that this would be the wrong approach.

New measures taken by our government have been aimed at improving competition and not just filling government coffers or satisfying special interests.

As mentioned, this bill is about continuing to improve Canada's competitiveness. We are already leading the way in e-commerce, but our online economy is under threat from unsolicited commercial email which undermines consumer confidence and hurts productivity.

The global cost of this unsolicited email, or spam, is estimated at $100 billion a year. Spam costs Canada an estimated $3 billion annually. As has been mentioned, spam represents about 87% of the email traffic around the world at 62 trillion spam emails during that time period.

Spam is a nuisance. It undermines competitiveness and it puts Canadians at risk. Our proposed electronic commerce protection act would deter the most dangerous forms of spam, like identity theft, phishing and spyware. It would help drive spammers out of Canada and allow us to work with our international partners to pursue spammers outside the country.

As usual, our Conservative government is taking action to protect consumers and businesses. We are not just talking. We are acting. This initiative will mean a lot to individuals and to businesses. Individuals will be more confident when they choose to shop online. Businesses will be able to more effectively protect their brand and their online reputation while improving their productivity.

As well as being consistently committed to competitiveness, our Conservative government has always believed in acting when people break the rules. This bill is accompanied by significant and tangible penalties. Offences carry fines of up to $1 million for individuals and $10 million for businesses. Spammers beware.

There are a number of other aspects of this issue which I want to quickly highlight before I conclude.

First, the bill covers text messaging or cellphone spam. The provisions in the bill are not limited to certain types of technology. They target all spam and will continue to be relevant as technology evolves.

Second, this will not affect legitimate or responsible businesses that contact customers or potential customers who have signalled their desire to be contacted.

Third, this approach has been implemented in many other countries with substantial success. Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. have passed strong domestic laws combatting spam, similar to this one. In Australia, for example, the spam act significantly reduced the country's proportion of global spam. Some Australian spammers shut down altogether.

Unfortunately, the bill would not eliminate spam altogether, but it would serve to deter the most dangerous, destructive and deceptive forms of spam, especially those that facilitate other criminal activities, like identity theft.

Finally, the bill would deliver on a commitment made in our 2008 election platform, I am proud to say. That platform stated:

A re-elected Conservative Government led by Stephen Harper will introduce legislation to prohibit the use of spam (unsolicited commercial email) to collect personal information under false pretences and to engage in criminal conduct. The new law will reduce dangerous, destructive and deceptive email and web site practices, and will establish new fines for those who break the law.

We made a commitment, and we are getting the job done. We are improving competitiveness and we are protecting Canadians.

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

Madam Speaker, I would like to correct a piece of information the member has put out there.

When I was talking about the do-not-call list, I was specifically talking about Bill C-27. I could refer the member to page 56 of the bill, and the clause relating to sections 41.1 to 41.7, which specifically relate to the do-not-call registry. Therefore, I was talking about the current piece of legislation.

When the member talks about what the NDP will do around the passage of this bill, it is incumbent upon members of this House to ensure that when they pass legislation, it actually is going to do the job that it purports to do. Again I just need to reference the do-not-call registry to demonstrate how we now have another bill having to deal with a past mistake. That is a waste of this House's time. We are now having to talk about the do-not-call registry once again because we did not get it right the first time. New Democrats will ensure that they study this bill very carefully to make sure that it is going to do the job it is supposed to do.

I also want to go back to the member's statement about businesses getting their customers' consent, and I specifically did say that. What I said was that the bill requires all senders to obtain express consent before sending commercial electronic messages. That is an important aspect of this bill and we would support getting permission to receive mail from a business.

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

Madam Speaker, I have a couple of key points from the background information that was provided on the bill. It reads:

The bill also addresses the legislative recommendations of the Task Force on Spam, which brought together industry, consumers and academic experts to design a comprehensive package of measures to combat threats to the online economy.

The intention of the proposed legislation is to deter the most dangerous and damaging forms of spam from occurring in Canada and to help drive spammers out of Canada.

This bill proposes a private right of action, modelled on U.S. legislation, which would allow businesses and consumers to take civil action against anyone who violates the ECPA. The proposed ECPA's technology-neutral approach allows all forms of commercial electronic messages to be treated the same way. This means that the proposed bill would also address unsolicited text messages, or “cellphone spam”, as a form of “unsolicited commercial electronic message”.

The bill would establish a clear regulatory enforcement regime consistent with international best practices and a multi-faceted approach to enforcement that protects consumers and empowers the private sector to take action against spammers.

An important proponent of the proposed ECPA is the enforcement regime whereby the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), the Competition Bureau and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner would be given the authority to share the information and evidence with their counterparts who enforce similar laws internationally....

It goes on to talk about the administrative monetary penalties of up to $1 million for individuals and $10 million in all other cases. It talks about the CRTC role and the role of the Privacy Commissioner.

I know that many of the people listening to this debate know what spam is but I want to give a definition because, like anything else, spam means one thing to one person and something else to another. Spam is identified as the abuse of electronic messaging systems, including most broadcast mediums' digital delivery systems, to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately. While the most widely recognized form of spam is email spam, the term applies to similar abuses in other media instant messaging: news net news groups spam, web search engine spam, spam and blogs, wikispam, online classified ads spam, mobile phone messaging spam, Internet forum spam, junk fax transmissions and the file sharing network.

Spamming remains economically viable because advertisers have no operating costs beyond the management of their mailing lists, and it is difficult to hold centres accountable for their mass mailing. Because the barrier to entry is so low, spammers are numerous and the volume of unsolicited mail has become very high.

The costs, such as lost productivity and fraud, are borne by the public and by Internet service providers, which have been forced to add extra capacity to cope with the deluge. Spamming is widely reviled and has been the subject of legislation in many jurisdictions.

I want to talk briefly about the costs. There are certainly costs to business when we talk about the filters and all the mechanisms that they need to put in place in order to prevent spam from getting into their systems, whether it is their cell phone systems or their Internet or email systems.

There is also the cost to workers. Many times when we are talking about businesses in the House, we are often talking about productivity and efficiency. In some of the previous work I have done, when we talked to businesses about how to improve productivity and efficiency, we often looked at time management techniques. One of the statistics that came from looking at time management techniques was that every time people were interrupted at a task, it would take them seven minutes to get back to the level where they left off.

Every time workers have their systems infiltrated by spam, we see a direct impact on the productivity of that company. Even if workers set time aside to look at their email, when they are dealing with junk email, it prevents them from dealing with the other activities before them. We know it takes a significant amount of time to get back to the place they left off. Therefore, there is a direct impact on worker productivity.

Many of us in the House have experienced spam on what should be a fairly highly protected system. It is an annoyance, a cost factor and extremely disruptive.

Some citizens are more vulnerable to spam. Fraud is involved, both in terms of stealing identity and in terms of having vulnerable people being hooked into purchasing goods and services that they do not need and which are often not of the quality and substance one would expect.

Therefore, there is a very real cost to businesses, to consumers and to the average citizen.

The important thing to point out about this legislation is that Canada is the only G7 country without anti-spam legislation. We often like to tout ourselves as being a proactive and progressive country and here we are lagging seriously behind. In fact, Canada ranked fifth worldwide as a source of web-based email spam, trailing only Iran, Nigeria, Kenya and Israel. It is a pretty sad track record to say that we are one of the countries that is a haven for spammers. Our track record is so bad that we are considered almost lawless when it comes to preventing spam.

Part of what we know about this is that companies anxious to target Canadian-based spammers have been forced to turn to other countries to do the job because we do not have legislation. They actually need to go to international law enforcement agencies that look at criminal spam activities. However, they have difficult enforcing any legislation because the Canadian authorities lack the requisite investigatory powers.

Michael Geist said:

The fact that organizations are forced to use U.S. courts and laws to deal with Canadian spammers points to an inconvenient truth -- Canadian anti-spam laws are woefully inadequate and we are rapidly emerging as a haven for spammers eager to exploit the weak legal framework.

We can see that there is sufficient information out there to say that Canada needs to take action and it is long past due.

In an article from December 16, 2008, CBC News, it says:

Canadian computers — many of them unwittingly — send out over nine billion spam e-mails a day, almost five per cent of all global spam traffic, according to a report from network and internet security firm Cisco. In an annual security report...Cisco estimated almost 200 billion messages per day, or 90 per cent of all e-mails sent worldwide — can be defined as spam, double the volume of the previous year.

I talked earlier about the cost to business, the cost to workers and the cost to citizens. When we look at that volume, it is shocking. Again, Canada has known about this problem for many years and it is only now that we are getting legislation.

I want to talk briefly about some of the key components of the legislation. There are three primary prohibitions. This bill would require all senders to obtain express consent before sending commercial electronic messages, including email, instant messages and so on, and to include contact and unsubscribed information. It would also require provisions designed to counter phishing, spyware and botnets used to send spam.

Various sections deal with this but I want to deal with three requirements: the form, consent and jurisdiction. The law requires that the identification of the person sending the message, as well as on whose behalf it is sent is included, contact information of the sender, because I think many of us have ended up with messages that we have no idea who is behind the sending, and an unsubscribe mechanism. The unsubscribe mechanism must allow for an easy opt-out by email or hyperlink that remains valid for at least 60 days after the message is sent. The sender has 10 days to comply with the unsubscribe request, and currently we know that spammers use the unsubscribe button to actually send more spam. If this is truly enforced, this unsubscribe mechanism, it will actually cut off some of the junk email that we are currently getting.

I want to touch briefly on the enforcement provisions. What we know is that the enforcement provisions do not have any real teeth. We can put all the fines we want in the act, but if we do not have the resources and the tools to commit to enforcement, they are meaningless.

I want to briefly talk about the do-not-call list because some changes to that legislation are embedded in Bill C-27.

In an article by Geist, he says:

Government Quietly Lays Groundwork For Overhaul of Do-Not-Call List....

We know in this House that there have been some serious problems with the do-not-call list. When I talked earlier about the need to have this bill go to committee, what we want to do is ensure the bill accurately deals with the problem that is before this House. We saw this with the do-not-call legislation and with the voter identification where a bill was put before the House but the government did not get it right and it had to make amendments to the bills, which was time-consuming and costly.

Therefore, it is very important that the bill comes before the committee and has a full and extensive review to make sure that the bill is actually going to deal with the spam problem.

In Geist's article, he said:

Four years after the National Task on Spam unanimously recommended that the Canadian government introduce anti-spam legislation...the Government took action by tabling Bill C-27....

While the introduction of anti-spam legislation is long overdue, one of the most significant changes was not reported or even included in the government's briefing materials. Buried at the very end of the 69-page bill, are provisions that would lay the groundwork to kill the National Do-Not-Call list.

It is interesting that it was buried at the end of the bill and not included in any briefing documents, because what it actually says is, “Oops, we blew that initial piece of legislation”.

He continued:

The proposed approach is very complicated, but boils down to the government repealing the provisions that establish and govern the do-not-call list. In its place, the ECPA approach of requiring an opt-in would apply, meaning that Canadians would no longer need to register their phone numbers on a do-not-call list. Instead, the presumption would be that telemarkets could not call without prior consent. The ECPA would also bring with it stronger penalties (up to $10 million) and fewer exceptions.

Although the do-not-call list is less than a year old, change cannot come soon enough. It faced severe criticism earlier this year when it was reported that out-of-country telemarketers, who are out of the regulatory reach of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, were accessing the list and making unwanted calls to Canadians. With more than six million numbers now registered on the list, the prospect of do-not-call registration leading to more calls rather than less instantly became a disturbing reality for millions of Canadians.

What that is talking about is people who registered their numbers, and then telemarketers outside of the country accessed the do-not-call list to call people. That seems like a pretty good gap in the legislation.

I hear some of my colleagues calling it a boondoggle. I would certainly say that it is a serious problem when the very legislation that is supposed to protect consumers actually results in more calls to them.

This is buried in this piece of legislation, changing the goof-up.

Geist said:

While the misuse of the do-not-call list remains a concern, a review of thousands of pages of internal government documents released under the Access to Information Act reveal that it is only the tip of the iceberg. In addition to lax list distribution policies, the enforcement side of the do-not-call list raises serious alarm bells with the majority of complaints being dismissed as invalid without CRTC investigation, the appearance of a conflict of interest in sorting through complaints, and a regulator that has been content to issue to “warnings” rather than levying the tough penalties contained in the law.

He went on to say:

The proliferation of the do-not-call list is certainly disconcerting, but [the] picture that emerges about its enforcement is even more troubling. The documents reveal that the CRTC receives over 20,000 telemarketing complaints each month, many involving the do-not-call list (some complaints may relate to other telecommunications rules that cover automated dialers or curfews).

The article goes on to talk about the fact that the initial evaluation of complaints is handled by Bell, which manages the do-not-call list rather than the CRTC. Here we have industry policing the do-not-call list and deciding whether complaints are legitimate or not. It goes on to talk about the fact that, for example, in January, Bell reported there were only 42 valid prima facie national do-not-call violations, while 3,033 national do-not-call complaints were ruled invalid. That is, in 42 out of 3,033 complaints, it was ruled by industry, Bell, that the complaints were not valid.

That does sound a little bit like the fox in the henhouse to me. So when we are talking about enforcement, as the member for Windsor West has rightly pointed out, there are some concerns about whether the enforcement mechanisms in the bill will actually be applied.

Geist goes on to say:

Complaints that survive Bell’s initial round of scrutiny go to the CRTC for further investigation. To date, the CRTC has sent out approximately 70 warning letters where it believes there are reasonable grounds to conclude that the organization is not in compliance with the do-not-call list legislation. Recipients of the letters are asked to take “corrective action” to address the concerns and warned that failure to do so could lead to penalties of up to $15,000 per violation for corporations. Notwithstanding that threat, the CRTC has yet to levy any fines.

When we have legislation that proposes a maximum penalty for individuals of $1 million, and $10 million for any other person, it sounds like pretty hefty fines. However, we need to put forward a mechanism that, first of all, allows appropriate investigation without interference by industry.

With regard to Bell, I do not know about anybody else, but I certainly receive messages from Bell. If I were to complain in regard to the do-not-call list and Bell is the investigator, I wonder what kind of independent scrutiny would be paid to that investigation.

The enforcement piece of this is critical. Canada's reputation internationally with regard to spam is in shreds. In order for us to tell the international community that we are going to walk the talk on this, we need to ensure that resources are put in place to make sure that the enforcement mechanism actually happens.

In conclusion, the New Democrats are in support of sending this bill to committee. I want to reiterate our position that it is very important that we have experts and technical witnesses who can deal with the content of this bill to ensure that Canada will actually be able to say, “Yes, we have anti-spam legislation that is going to stand up to international scrutiny, has appropriate enforcement mechanisms, and will actually protect businesses, consumers and Canadian citizens against both fraud and impact on the cost to productivity in this country.

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

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-27, the electronic commerce protection act, on behalf of New Democrats. We will be supporting the bill, in principle, but we feel that it is important for it to go to committee for extensive review to ensure we get it right. I will be speaking a little later about some previous legislation where we did not get it right, and, in fact, the correction is buried in this bill.

I thank the member for Windsor West for the good work he has done on this file and look forward to more comments from him when it gets to committee.

I want to talk about some key elements of the bill, why it is needed, the cost of spam to business and citizens and some other details that are in the bill that are not directly related to electronic commerce protection.

When the government came forward with this bill it said that it was about protecting the privacy and personal security concerns associated with spam, counterfeit websites and spyware. It said that spam and related online threats were a real concern to all Internet users as they can lead to the theft of personal data, such as credit card information, which is identity theft; online fraud involving counterfeit websites, phishing; the collection of personal information through illicit access to computer systems, spyware; and false or misleading representations in the online marketplace.

The proposed legislation would also treat unsolicited text messages or cellphone spam as--

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a privilege to rise in the House, especially on a matter that affects the vast majority of people.

I am referring to Bill C-27, whose purpose is to promote the efficiency and adaptability of the Canadian economy by regulating certain fraudulent commercial practices that use email. To do this, the bill would amend the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act, the Competition Act and the Personal Information Protection Act.

With all the modern means of communication at our disposal, we are constantly being solicited. This bill seems at first glance, therefore, to be a good idea. When the House of Commons passed the Telemarketing Act in 2006, a national do not call list was established to reduce telephone solicitation. People who so desire can now put their telephone number on the list, which greatly reduces telephone solicitation.

I say “reduces” because there are still regulations that allow solicitation, although the new act clearly stipulates that if a person asks not to be called any more, the company must immediately stop contacting him. In addition, companies or individuals who want to have the right to contact people must be registered on the list.

Under the act, any person or organization that is not registered or fails to comply with the regulations under the act is liable to a maximum fine of $1,500 for an individual or $15,000 for a corporation.

Initial results show that the list created in September 2008 seems to have had a major effect on solicitation.

There is a simple connection I wanted to draw with the telephone do not call list. All email users are very familiar with spam, that is to say, email sent to sell us products and offer prices and many other annoying things.

In short, I do not know whether other members have noticed, but there seems to have been a considerable increase in the amount of spam over the last few months. It makes me wonder whether companies have not just changed the way they contact consumers.

I do not know specifically whether this Bill C-27 to protect electronic commerce will have the same effect as the telephone do not call list, but it goes without saying that the vast majority of email users I know would greatly appreciate an initiative of this kind.

Bill C-27 has a number of objectives. Its main purpose is to prohibit the sending of commercial electronic messages without the prior consent of the recipient.

Another objective is to protect the integrity of data transmissions by prohibiting other practices related to the unauthorized installation of computer programs. It seems only natural we would want to avoid the use of consumers’ personal information to send spam.

Bill C-27 would therefore prohibit the collection of personal information by means of unauthorized access to computer systems and the unauthorized compiling and distribution of lists of electronic addresses.

It is hard to be against motherhood and apple pie, and we in the Bloc Québécois think that companies that want to email consumers should obtain their consent first.

This bill has some fine objectives therefore. How the act will actually be enforced, though, appears rather complicated. It seems to me upon reading it that three agencies will be involved.

The CRTC must take the necessary steps to take action against the sending of unsolicited commercial electronic messages.

At the same time, the Competition Bureau must address misleading and deceptive practices and representations online, including fraudulent emails from financial institutions.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner must also take measures against the collection of personal information via access to a computer and the unauthorized communication of lists of electronic addresses. Lastly, the Telecommunications Act will be amended by the provisions that provide the framework for this new dimension.

I know the government wants to tackle spam, and I agree that it should. Will this bill successfully prevent an American company, for instance, from sending information by email to electronic companies in Quebec and Canada? That is an important question.

I know that a number of countries have established measures like the ones proposed in Bill C-27, and they seem to be producing positive results. In Australia, the United States and Great Britain, the various pieces of legislation to combat spam seem to be making a real difference.

Those countries probably also have a mechanism to reduce the amount of spam coming from other countries.

At first glance, Bill C-27 deserves to be studied further in committee. Establishing measures that will help prevent as much spam as possible from being sent by people who use false representation, prohibited software or who exchange information about email addresses appears to be a good idea.

Of course, we would like to examine the bill's impact and application more carefully with witnesses. We are in favour of the principle of this bill, but we would like it to go to committee so we can hear from and consult with witnesses, and see if Bill C-27 would really meet needs. We would also like to know if it will properly address the spam that consumers are currently receiving.

The Bloc Québécois supports the principle of Bill C-27. It appears to respond to a problem. Unsolicited commercial electronic messages are becoming a serious social and economic problem that undermines the personal and commercial productivity of Quebeckers.

Spam is a real nuisance. It damages computers and networks, contributes to deceptive marketing scams, and invades people's privacy. Spam directly threatens the viability of the Internet as an effective means of communication. The Internet is supposed to be an effective means of communication but clogging it up with spam decreases its effectiveness. It undermines consumer confidence in legitimate e-businesses and hinders electronic transactions.

This is a constantly evolving problem, and the government has finally presented a bill four years after setting up a spam task force. That bill is C-27, the Electronic Commerce Protection Act.

Essentially, this Electronic Commerce Protection Act governs the sending of messages by email, text messaging or instant messaging without consent. Transmission of spam to an electronic mail account, telephone account or other similar account would be prohibited.

The only circumstances under which spam may be sent is when the person to whom the message is sent has consented to receiving it, whether the consent is express or implied.

Here are some of the other prohibitions: No person may alter the transmission data in an electronic message so that the message is delivered to another destination. Nor may they install a computer program on any other person’s computer system or cause an electronic message to be sent from that computer system without the owner's consent.

Bill C-27 suggests a number of administrative recourses, such as a fine of up to $1 million for an individual and $10 million in other cases. The CRTC would be responsible for investigating all complaints and must have the appropriate powers to do so.

Bill C-27 also proposes the provision of a private right of action that would enable companies and individuals to institute proceedings against any wrongdoer, which is similar to a law that has been passed in the U.S. .

Any organization covered by Bill C-27 may, on its own initiative, transmit to the CRTC, the Privacy Commissioner, or the Commissioner of Competition any information in its possession if it deems that information to be related to a violation of the Electronic Commerce Protection Act. These three bodies must also consult each other and may exchange any information in order to fulfill the responsibilities and activities they carry out under their respective statutes. Under certain conditions they may also provide such information to the government of a foreign state or an international organization.

Canada is not the only country to legislate the protection of electronic commerce. As mentioned earlier, other countries have adopted legislation in this regard. I heard one of my colleagues say that Canada is lagging behind in terms of introducing spam legislation.

I also looked at one country among others, France, which introduced a law called “law to support confidence in the digital economy“. This law was adopted in June 2004, and had a six-month transition period. Apart from specific rules set out in the postal and electronic communications code as well as the consumer code, France is required to ensure that solicitations by email, no matter their nature—business, charitable, political, religious, or membership, for example—are subject to personal information protection legislation.

Bill C-27 is not unique when we look at what other countries are doing. The Bloc Québécois is in favour of the principle of this bill. It meets several objectives that I mentioned earlier and that I would like to summarize. It will prohibit unsolicited emails from a business, protect the integrity of data transmitted by prohibiting practices related to the unauthorized installation of computer programs, prohibit the collection of personal information by accessing computers without the consent of the individuals involved and prohibit the unauthorized compiling or distribution of electronic address lists.

I will close my statement by repeating that the Bloc Québécois is in favour of the principle of Bill C-27, which seeks to assign responsibilities to three organizations we are familiar with and which will regulate email in order to have a much more efficient system of Internet communication.

The proposed legislation is interesting. We are prepared to support it, in principle, so that the bill can be studied in committee.

The House resumed 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.

Business of the House

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the questions and the suggestion from my hon. colleague, the House leader for the official opposition.

For today and tomorrow, we will continue debate on Bill C-27, the anti-spam bill, which is at second reading. If we complete Bill C-27, it is my intention to call Bill C-20, the nuclear liability bill and Bill C-8, the matrimonial real property bill. All of these bills are at second reading.

On Monday, we will begin debate at the second reading stage of Bill C-29, the agricultural loans bill, to which the member just referred. Once that bill is completed, we will continue with the unfinished business that I mentioned earlier plus Bill C-30, the Senate ethics bill.

It is my intention to give top priority to any legislation that is reported back from committee next week.

Finally, in response to my colleague's question about committee of the whole, I would like to designate Thursday, May 14 as the evening the estimates of the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada are considered in committee of the whole pursuant to Standing Order 81(4).

I will be announcing the date of committee of the whole study of the estimates of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans at a later date.

As to the member's suggestion about debating all stages and moving Bill C-29, which is so important for our agricultural producers heading into the spring planting season, I would note that one of the reasons we are not debating it today is because there was a request from his critic, the member for Malpeque, who will be returning to the House on Monday. Therefore, we have scheduled that for Monday.

In trying to continue in our spirit of working together with all opposition members, I would certainly be open to his suggestion. I know the Minister of Agriculture would be eager to work with the three opposition parties to try and move Bill C-29 through the House at all stages and get it down the hall to the other place as quickly as possible.