Bill C-28 (Historical)

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 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, 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.

Industry, Science and Technology

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 10th report of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology. In accordance with its order of reference of Tuesday, October 18, the committee has considered Bill C-28, 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, Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act, and agreed, on Tuesday, November 2, to report it with amendments.

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

It is $12.5 million annually for the application of Bill C-28, once it is passed and becomes law.

Thank you.

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

I have one last question.

We have been talking about the CRTC and other agencies such as the Competition Bureau and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. Do you think these agencies will need supplementary resources when Bill C-28 comes into force, or will they continue to work with their existing staff? I would like your opinion on that. What should be added in terms of budget, resources, staffing?

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

Thank you Mr. Chair.

Thank you ladies and gentlemen for being here today.

My first question is for Ms. DiFrancesco.

First, we know that Bill C-28 was Bill C-27, which was studied in committee and made it all the way to the Senate. However, when the election was called, the bill died on the order paper. You said that Bill C-28 is quite similar to Bill C-27, which suggests that there are some changes. Could you share some of those changes?

I have another question about that. Do these changes come from officials or other entities?

[Janet DiFrancesco, Director General, Electronic Commerce Branch, Department of Industry]

Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate this opportunity to be here today to discuss Bill C-28, the proposed Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act, or FISA.

The bill before you today closely resembles the former Bill C-27, the Electronic Commerce Protection Act, or ECPA, which this committee studied during the last parliamentary session. Bill C-28 builds upon the recommendations of this committee and stakeholders in response to Bill C-27.

FISA, like ECPA, provides a comprehensive regulatory regime that uses economic disincentives instead of criminal sanctions to protect electronic commerce. The measures introduced in Bill C-28 are based on international best practices.

This regime creates new violations to address the threats posed by spam, malware, deceptive online marketing practices, phishing and spyware.

It also allows for private right of action and introduces administrative monetary penalties in order to hold those who violate the Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act—FISA—accountable for their actions.

It also promotes international cooperation by providing authority for the three enforcement agencies, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission—the CRTC—, the Competition Bureau and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, to share information with their counterparts around the globe.

We have provided the committee with a redline version of the bill to make it easier for you to compare FISA with its predecessor, ECPA. The redline version can be found at tab three in the blue binders that you have in front of you this morning.

I can take you through that document, if you like, but I would briefly like to summarize two substantive changes that have been made to the bill.

The first change concerns a new clause in clause 3, which can be found on page 4. The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, or PIPEDA, contains a primacy clause in subsection 4(3) that, among other things, ensures that the consent provisions in PIPEDA take precedence over other acts. However, since the scope of the consent regime in FISA is more precise than in PIPEDA, it is necessary to include this coordinating amendment, which clarifies that FISA takes precedence over PIPEDA should there be any conflict.

The second change that I would point to can be found on page 59 of the bill, in clause 83. It concerns an amendment to PIPEDA designed to address the collection of personal information when a person accesses a computer system without consent. In Bill C-27, this provision applied when access to the computer system was without authorization. Stakeholders expressed concern that the term “without authorization” was too broad, and to address these concerns the provision now applies when access to a computer system to collect personal information is “in contravention of an act of Parliament”. For example, there was concern that hackers might be able to claim that information obtained about their practices from a website could be considered to be collected without authorization simply through the use of the terms and conditions on the site.

Mr. Chairman, it is our hope that the adoption of this bill will provide an opportunity, through a concerted and cooperative approach involving the public sector and the private sector, to reduce spam and related online threats. At the same time, the bill will permit us to work more effectively with our domestic and international partners to address threats to online commerce.

I would be pleased to take the committee through a more detailed examination of the changes highlighted in the redline version of the bill that has been provided to you, or, if you prefer, we can simply be prepared to respond to questions.

Thank you.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you. I wasn't intending to ask the question, but you opened that door on Bill C-28 and Bill C-29.

I'd be the first to acknowledge that I'm not an IT expert, and my questions will probably show that quickly enough.

If Google can inadvertently capture this Wi-Fi payload data while a car is driving down the street, how can I be assured as a private citizen that some IT expert with malicious intent could not go down my street, do a personal investigation on my data, and use it for something other than proper purposes?

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here today.

I wanted to follow up Bill C-28 and Bill C-29. I take it from your comments that you are very supportive of the measures in those bills that are before Parliament right now.

[Patricia Kosseim]

That's a very nice question. Thank you.

We may take you up on that on further reflection and send those recommendations back to you. I'm sure our office would be pleased to do so, but let me offer a few suggestions right off the bat, if I may.

The first thing I could say is to echo what has been the key message of the commissioner and her international counterparts, which is to impress upon all organizations--but especially model organizations and world trendsetters like Google--that they must take proactive measures to avert risks before the deployment of products and services occurs. This is a key message; if you were to echo it, I think it would be very helpful.

There are other things being contemplated by Parliament right now that would go a long way in assisting in where we go from here. One of those is to afford the commissioner with the powers and the authority necessary to share information about ongoing investigations with her international counterparts, so that she can compare notes with her German and U.K. and Irish and Australian colleagues and discuss what we have found, what they have found, and what we need to do collectively to stop something in its tracks.

Currently, she cannot do that, but Bill C-28 would afford her with the powers to share and exchange information and collaborate even more meaningfully than she can now with her international counterparts to deal with these global issues.

Another change going from here currently to Parliament would be to give her discretion to choose which complaints she goes forward with. Right now she must investigate all complaints, which takes an awful lot of resources, as you know. If she were afforded with the discretion to set priorities and decide where the real risks are, to take some complaints or not investigate other complaints, then she could afford and allocate resources much more meaningfully to get at the big risks--such as Google, in this example--and allocate her resources accordingly. That discretion would help.

Finally, another change before Parliament is Bill C-29, the amendments to PIPEDA. As you know, these amendments would make it mandatory for organizations to notify of breach. This would go a long way towards bringing these instances out into the open to be able to deal with them.

[Patricia Kosseim]

I'll answer the first question, with your permission, Mr. Chairman, and then I'll ask my colleague to answer the member's second question.

First, was it crazy to say there was a mistake? Yes. Should that mistake have been prevented? Yes. Had Google adopted procedures to ensure such a mistake would not occur? Yes. Were the procedures followed? No, and that's where the commissioner reacted more strongly, for Wi-Fi, as in the case of Google Buzz and Google Street View. The commissioner's key message was that, when these new technologies are developed, the procedures to ensure protection must be put in place and followed from the product design and development stage, not just when an error occurs. That's the key message. These measures must be immediately followed and there must be control mechanisms to ensure they are followed in every case.

Would it be preferable to harmonize reactions to the various technologies developed by Google? That is the wish of many commissioners around the world who have powers in the privacy field. They increasingly want to work together to face large global businesses like Google. Now, the possibility of doing so varies from one commissioner to the next since they don't all have the same powers regarding the exchange of information with their counterparts elsewhere in the world.

Consequently, with regard to Bill C-28 before you, the Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act, it would make a key amendment to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act that would enable our commissioner to freely exchange the information that she receives in the context of her investigations with her counterparts elsewhere in the world so as to be able to react in a more concerted and harmonized manner and deal with large businesses such as Google.

With your permission, I'll ask Dr. Patrick to answer your next question.

Safeguarding Canadians' Personal Information Act

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Minister of Industry]

moved that Bill C-29, An Act to amend the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise in my place today to begin second reading of Bill C-29, the safeguarding Canadians' personal information act.

I would like to thank those following me on Twitter for being so patient. I have been telling them I was going to be rising to speak on this bill for about an hour now. They can rest assured that I am fulfilling my responsibilities as industry minister as I debate this bill.

This bill is about privacy in the digital age and is, therefore, an important element of Canada's emerging digital economy strategy.

Internet technology has brought many benefits and has changed our society in sometimes profound ways. It has made distance irrelevant for many and improved our overall quality of life. It has changed the way we communicate with one another, how we network, how we socialize with another. It has revolutionized our economic models, transforming how businesses, large and small, manage their supply chains and expand their reach. Businesses use the Internet to customize their products and manage relationships with their customers.

However, the digital economy has challenges as well as benefits. The Internet can be used to broaden a company's marketing base and collect a great deal of information. Most of this information is personal, and many would prefer that it remain private. There is basic information such as names, addresses and dates of birth. There is also very personal information about health, criminal records and credit card numbers.

So in the wrong hands any of this information could be used for malicious purposes, such as identity theft or bank fraud. But even when not used for malicious or illegal purposes, the unauthorized revelation of personal information to outside third parties constitutes an invasion of the privacy that most Canadians value highly.

We want to ensure that concerns about privacy and the protection of personal information do not undermine the potential of the digital economy to continue to change our lives for the better. After all, some 80% of Canadians use the Internet and 88% of businesses are online. The total value of online commerce in Canada in 2007 was $62.7 billion. We want to grow that business, and to do so we need to establish an environment of confidence and trust in online transactions.

Currently in this place Bill C-28, the fighting Internet and wireless spam act, is under consideration as well. It would provide a solid foundation for combating spam and various forms of malicious Internet activity. That bill, together with the bill I rise to support today, is part of our agenda for putting Canada at the forefront of the digital economy.

PIPEDA, as it is called, has codified in law a set of privacy principles that had already been well established. The Canadian Standards Association model code for the protection of personal information provides the foundation for privacy protection, no matter what the technology.

The standard was developed through careful consideration among government, industry, consumers and privacy advocates and has been recognized internationally. In fact, international recognition was an important concern when building the PIPEDA regulatory regime.

One of the early tests PIPEDA faced was whether the European Commission would recognize that it provided adequate privacy protection for the purposes of the EU data protection directive. The European Commissioner has recognized PIPEDA's regime. As a result, organizations subject to PIPEDA can receive personal data from EU member states. I point this out as an example of how framework laws such as PIPEDA, our privacy protection legislation, are essential for the competitiveness that we need for the digital economy.

PIPEDA's flexible, principles-based approach has allowed the Privacy Commissioner of Canada to examine challenges to our privacy posed by new technologies that collect and store massive amounts of personal information. We have become international champions of privacy in the age of social media.

PIPEDA is a very effective component of the legislative framework. But a good law can always be made better. Thus, it must be reviewed every five years.

The first such review was completed by the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in May 2007. I want to reiterate the thanks to the committee that were given at that time by my predecessor as industry minister, the current Minister of the Environment.

The committee heard from 67 witnesses and considered 34 submissions from individuals and organizations. The report concluded that PIPEDA does not require major changes at this time, but at the same time it presented 25 recommendations addressing issues raised during review.

In October 2007, the government tabled its response to the report; it dealt with each of the 25 recommendations. Even though no substantive changes are required, our government made a commitment to amend the act in keeping with a number of the report's recommendations. We will also work with stakeholders to ensure that the changes made are as effective as possible.

To guide the government's approach to this commitment, Industry Canada organized more than 25 meetings with stakeholders. It met with businesses, consumer and privacy advocates, Canada's Privacy Commissioner, the provincial governments and enforcement agencies. The department also received 76 written representations in the Canada Gazette after the consultation process.

The bill before us responds to the recommendations of the committee and to what we learned from the Industry Canada consultation. The amendments contained in the bill will further enhance Canada's reputation as a world leader in privacy protection. We will maintain one of the world's most effective regimes for the protection of personal information in the digital age.

The amendments before us can be divided into four broad categories designed to do the following: protect and empower consumers, clarify and streamline rules for business, support effective law enforcement and security investigations and address technical issues.

Let me summarize. First, to protect and empower consumers we have added new provisions to the act and amended existing ones. To protect the privacy of minors online, we have enhanced the consent provisions.

Under the amendments before us, consent is only valid when obtained from an individual who can reasonably be expected to understand the nature and consequences of the transaction or the communication being proposed.

To help deter financial abuse, locate injured, ill or missing persons and to help identify the deceased, the act will be amended to allow for disclosure of personal information to the relevant authorities or the next of kin. Financial organizations, for example, would be able to contact law agencies, friends or family members of individuals who are suspected to be victims or potential victims of financial abuse. This is in response to situations commonly referred to as elder financial abuse.

Even more important, this bill will introduce new requirements. Organizations will have to report significant breaches to the commissioner and notify the people affected when a breach poses a risk of harm.

This is a risk-based approach to providing notifications of privacy breaches. It recognizes that not all breaches pose a risk to consumers. It also recognizes the risk of too many notifications. In fact, consumers might not respond appropriately when a breach poses a real risk. With this approach, the commissioner is informed of the nature and extent of privacy breaches so that she can monitor and defend privacy issues.

The second broad category of amendments will clarify and streamline rules for businesses. We are making these changes in response to calls from business to help clarify their responsibilities under PIPEDA. They will help businesses comply with the law.

These amendments will ensure access to information that is critical to the regular conduct of business. This will facilitate such functions as managing employment relationships and conducting due diligence for business transactions, such as mergers and acquisitions.

The amendments would also allow employers to disclose, as required, professional information, including emails, that their employees produce in the course of their daily activities. The new provisions will facilitate the legitimate activities of the public and private sectors, in the financial sector, for the purposes of investigations and fraud prevention. In accordance with the government's paper burden reduction initiative, these provisions will replace a tedious regulatory process.

The third broad category of amendments will support effective law enforcement and security investigations. These amendments remove barriers to investigations that were unintended by Parliament when PIPEDA was enacted. They will clarify that the act allows organizations to collaborate with law enforcement in situations where there is no warrant.

Amendments will also prohibit organizations from notifying individuals, without prior approval from law enforcement, that the police have requested information about them. This will help prevent the disappearance of suspects and the destruction of evidence.

PIPEDA of course, the current privacy legislation, is a good act. It has put Canada at the forefront of online privacy protection, but we can and we should make a good act even better. The House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics created a road map for us in its report. We are following that route, and with the further help from the advice of the Privacy Commissioner and the many individuals and organizations who have consulted with Industry Canada over the past two years, we will do so.

Taken in a broader context, these amendments are part of a much bigger initiative to put Canada at the forefront of the digital economy. Our economic performance in the 21st century will depend in large part on the trust and confidence Canadians have in online transactions. From the foundation of that trust and confidence, we can build a digital economy that will bring prosperity and quality of life to Canadians for generations to come.

With this in mind, I encourage all hon. members to join me in supporting the bill.

[Jennifer Stoddart, Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

It's a pleasure to be back before this committee after the summer recess. I welcome this opportunity, because since I've last been before you, I have released two annual reports to Parliament. The topic for today is the findings in my two annual reports.

First of all, Mr. Chair, the annual report on the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, known as PIPEDA, Canada's private sector privacy law, was tabled in June of this year. As you will also recall, Mr. Chair, we presented our most recent annual report to Parliament on the Privacy Act just two weeks ago.

Over the next few minutes, I propose to offer to the committee some highlights from those reports and some highlights of our work over the past year. Then I would be happy to take all the questions members of the committee may have.

First is the Privacy Act annual report. I will mention parenthetically for the new members of the committee that the Office of the Privacy Commissioner administers two privacy laws, one in the public sector and the other, the more recent, in the private sector. I'll start with the report on the one on the public sector, which is the one we released in September.

The Privacy Act report of September traced our efforts to safeguard privacy rights in the face of two key challenges: rapidly evolving information technologies and the pressures of national security and public safety measures. On the whole, it is safe to say that most public servants take good care of the personal information entrusted to them by Canadians.

Still, and unfortunately, there were some exceptions. One complaint to our office, for instance, involved the unauthorized access by Canada Revenue Agency employees to the tax records of prominent Canadian athletes. While such a breach cannot be undone, it did lead the Canada Revenue Agency to update its audit capabilities to better control access to personal information.

I now want to talk about wireless and disposal audits. The annual report also summarized two privacy audits we undertook during the year.

One found significant shortcomings in the way government institutions dispose of surplus computers, with many still containing sensitive data. We also discovered that documents are shredded by private contractors without the necessary degree of government oversight.

A second audit of the use of wireless networks and mobile devices of five federal departments and agencies uncovered numerous gaps in policies and practices that could put the personal information of Canadians at risk.

I will now move on to Veterans Affairs. Just a few weeks ago, we announced plans to conduct another privacy audit—this one of privacy policies and practices at the Veterans Affairs Department. This, as you know, was sparked by concerns that came to light during our investigation of a complaint launched by a veteran who has been an outspoken critic of the department.

Our investigation determined that the veteran's sensitive medical and personal information was shared—apparently with no controls—among department officials with no legitimate need to see it. The information then made its way into a ministerial briefing note about the individual's advocacy activities, something I deemed entirely inappropriate.

We are still working out the scope of the audit. We hope, though, that it will provide guidance as the department implements the recommendations stemming from our investigation.

In June, we also published our findings in an important audit on the private sector side. This one was triggered by a string of serious data breaches among Ontario mortgage brokers that compromised the personal information of thousands of Canadians. Our audit under PIPEDA found that the breaches caused several of the brokerages to take further steps to better protect personal information.

And yet, we determined they had not gone far enough. Indeed, our audit raised concerns about data security; the haphazard storage of documents containing personal information; inadequate consent by clients; and a general lack of accountability for privacy issues.

The audit was summarized in the PIPEDA annual report, which also highlighted the challenges of enforcing privacy rules in a world where data flows readily and instantly around the world.

I would like to talk now about Google Buzz and a bit of our international work.

We recognize that addressing this global challenge will demand agility and resourcefulness on the part of all privacy authorities. That is why, when Google disregarded privacy rights in the rollout of its Google Buzz social networking service last February, we opted for an innovative alternative to our conventional tools of audit and investigation.

Instead, we led nine other data protection authorities from around the world in an unprecedented--and I think highly effective--tactic: the joint publication of an open letter that urged Google and other technology titans entrusted with people's personal information to incorporate fundamental privacy principles directly into the design of new online services.

We are engaging with global partners in numerous other ways as well. Last month, for instance, we joined other data protection authorities from around the world to establish the Global Privacy Enforcement Network, which aims to bolster compliance with privacy laws through better cross-border cooperation. Later this month at an international conference of data protection privacy commissioners, I will be co-sponsoring a resolution that would see privacy considerations become embedded into the design, operations, and management of information technologies--or at least that is the wish.

A couple of our other files are of great interest to many Canadians: Google Wi-Fi and Facebook. Just this morning, we released our preliminary findings in an investigation of Google's collection of Wi-Fi data by a camera car shooting images for the company's Street View mapping application. We have learned that while collecting Wi-Fi signals, Google had also captured personal information, some of it highly sensitive. The collection appears to have been careless and in violation of PIPEDA. We are making several recommendations that would bring Google into compliance with Canadian law and help safeguard the privacy of Canadians.

But Google isn't the only major technology giant we have had concerns about during the past year. In September, we were able to wind up an investigation of Facebook that was heavily publicized last year. In 2009, Facebook agreed to make certain changes to its site, which took a year to fully and satisfactorily implement. This concluded lengthy and intensive discussions between my office and Facebook, which eventually led the social networking company to significantly boost the privacy protections available on its site.

As we look ahead, I'm looking forward to many other initiatives to strengthen the privacy rights of Canadians. You will, of course, be familiar with two pieces of legislation currently before the House that are of particular interest to my office.

Bill C-28, called FIWSA in English, the anti-spam legislation, would give us important powers to control which cases we investigate and permit the sharing of information for the purposes of enforcing Canadian privacy laws. Earlier I mentioned the Global Privacy Enforcement Network, the group of data protection agencies who together are working toward ensuring better compliance. For us to be an effective member, we need the ability to share information with our international counterparts when necessary, and the provisions in this bill will assist in making that possible.

Bill C-29, meanwhile, would amend PIPEDA to, among other things, make breach notification compulsory for private sector organizations. Over the longer term, we welcome the next statutory review of PIPEDA. We will be publishing in the near future a draft report on the comprehensive public consultations that we hosted this spring on such cutting edge topics as tracking people's online activities by companies, and cloud computing. While this report is not our contribution to the PIPEDA review, the consultations raised issues that we will need to focus on for that review, which starts in 2011.

On the public sector side, we continue to advocate for a long overdue modernization of the Privacy Act, which was passed in 1982. Some of you may remember that 1982 was the year that the first affordable home computer, the Commodore 64, hit the market, and we lined up at movie theatres to watch E.T.

We're also working with experts to develop privacy policy guidance documents for decision-makers working in four key areas. The first, focused on national security, should be ready for publication in the near future, with others to follow in the areas of information technology, genetic technology, and identity integrity.

I hope, Mr. Chair, that I have been able to give you an overall sense of our activities over the past year. I would be happy to respond to your questions.

Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise on this bill, which is now Bill C-28 and was Bill C-27. As has been indicated before, it has been a very long time getting to this point, in fact, several Parliaments and elections, to the point where Canada is pretty much last in the line of modern developed countries that have such legislation.

I listened very carefully to what the member for Timmins—James Bay had to say. He talked about the lack of a broadband strategy on the part of the government and he is absolutely correct. There are many things the current government could have been doing. There are many things that the former Liberal government was doing when John Manley was industry minister.

There are a lot of innovative ideas in the marketplace. For example, a few years ago it was discovered that school boards, some in the United States, were able to set up dark fibre co-ops. In the past the school boards had been under contract with the telcos and were leasing their broadband from the phone companies. They turned the whole relationship upside down. By the school boards doing their own dark fibre builds, they were able to offer gigabyte Internet access and they sold space to the very telcos that they had been leasing from before.

There is nothing difficult about this. The reality is that the fibre can be laid out on the ground or it can be put through the air or through trenches. Trenching is the most expensive way of laying dark fibre.

In rural communities, for example the community of Churchill in my home province, the government does not have any difficulty because the government has crown lands to work with and rights of way at its disposal. A government that is interested in taking the bull by the horns can mandate in very short order that dark fibre be laid over crown land through pipes that the provinces own. It does not have to make the type of effort that private industry has to.

When a private telco wants to lay fibre, it has to negotiate with the landowners. It has to negotiate rights of way. It is a very involved process. The government has none of that to contend with.

Unfortunately, what has happened in this country is that over the years governments have bowed to the pressure of the telcos that want the good customers. As soon as the government tries to develop a proper broadband strategy, the telcos knock on its door and say that the government cannot do that because it is against the principles of free enterprise. The telcos want the right to offer this service in cities and urban centres where they can run the final mile very cheaply to people's homes. They want to be able to offer that to residents and to control the pipes to the hospitals and schools so they can make tons of money, but they do not want to do it in rural areas. They do not want to do it in the north.

That is the conundrum that governments have faced. While they could have taken charge in a more determined way, they have tended to piece off the private companies within their jurisdictions. They have allowed telcos to take some good sections and then the governments are stuck with the less profitable areas.

Even so, I still say that all is not lost. Fibre is cheap. Fibre is not expensive and is easy to build. We had four or five examples of co-ops and school boards in the United States that developed their own fibre. They took the cost of the fibre, turned it around and not only leased out their extra capacity but they still had enough capacity in their system to fulfill their own needs for free and at much faster rates.

What will happen when the final mile is completed and the thick fibre exists, rural hospitals, for example, will be connected. The last time I toured Brandon Hospital, which is in a city of about 50,000 people in my province, it was still sending the electronic imaging for medical tests by bus to one of the smaller hospitals in Neepawa, which I believe is the closest hospital. That should not be the case. Once we have a proper broadband strategy, those images will be sent electronically, rather than being put in a can and sent on a bus to another hospital. They will be able to be sent electronically to the hospital. That is what we are talking about here.

That is what the member for Timmins—James Bay was alluding to when he talked about the broadband strategy that we do not see the government making efforts toward. I am not a big fan of the previous Liberal government but when it comes to issues like broadband, at least there was a pulse in that government. We do not hear anything from the current government.

Let us take a look at the whole area of government online programs. Ten years ago, in 1999, the prime ministers of Great Britain and Australia would put their vision statements on a website indicating where they saw government online programs rolling out and developing over the next 10 years.

I remember putting a resolution before the Manitoba legislature that government programs should be online by the year 2010 and that they should be transactional. It was recognized that there was no point in putting all government information online. There would be tons of information online, some usable, some not, but the true goal was to offer government services on a transactional basis. For example, a student applying for student aid or a student loan would not have to ride the bus from Sudbury to Toronto, for example, to have the privilege of standing in line at a government office to fill out an application.

There was a student aid online program set up in Manitoba, probably 10 years ago, which worked from the very beginning. It worked from the very beginning because it was a low-hanging fruit that dealt with youth. If it had been a program for senior citizens who were less inclined to use computers, it might not have worked so well. However, it worked very well because we were dealing with people who understand computers, who have worked with computers in their daily lives and in school settings since they started school. It was natural for the government to put student aid online. That is an example of a program that worked very well.

Those sorts of programs should have been replicated right across all jurisdictions. We should not be offering them in one province and not in another. The provinces had to get together to talk about whether they could share these programs. I have always said that the national government, rather than individual governments, should pay for one national computer program to be used in all the hospitals across the country. We had software developers in my own province getting a grant from one arm of the government, the Department of Industry, to develop a software program and then turn around and sell it to individual hospitals. The taxpayers had the privilege of paying for a certain software program that was already paid for in part by the taxpayers through one arm of the government to pay multiple times as each hospital bought the program.

That made no sense at all to me. Where was the direction and leadership of the government. There were some signs under the latter part of the Paul Martin government that it was showing some interest in developing programs that could be used on a national basis.

We did encourage the provinces to get together and exchange programs, which worked to a certain extent, but it fell down because of the silo effect. People in their own little silos in their own parts of the government refused to co-operate with anyone else. We would hear arguments that it was contrary to the legislation, that it would need to alter it to the legislation in its jurisdiction or that it did not meet its capacities.

However, there were these off the shelf programs. For example, the Securities Commission in Alberta had a program that Manitoba could simply adapt because it was exactly what it needed. However, we found a lot of silo thinking where people would say that was specialized for Alberta and that they needed to have their own made in Manitoba.

In many ways we find ourselves working against ourselves and perhaps that is why the system is not as advanced at it should be.

A few minutes ago my colleague mentioned consumer legislation. In 2002 in Manitoba, we put together bill 31. I was asked to be the coordinator of it. We had to pull in all the people from four or five departments and we had that typical silo problem. Before we got them together in one room, we heard all the reasons that it could not be done or could never be done. We called them together in one room and asked them what their problems were. In a group environment they did not have a problem.

Therefore, we proceeded with a very big omnibus bill. As a matter of fact, it was designed and crafted under the Uniform Law Conference of Canada suggested wordings and it was the most comprehensive of its type in Canada at the time.

One of the things that got the bill moving a lot quicker was the idea of putting in some consumer legislation. We discovered that there were between one and four states in the United States that had laws that said that if people did not receive their product or service that they ordered on line that the credit card companies would be held responsible to reimburse them. That sounded very intriguing. That was 10 years ago. That was at a time when Internet commerce was still in its infancy and we were trying to encourage it in Manitoba. However, we did not want people to be afraid of it and think that somehow if they bought something on line and they did not get it they would be out their money and would not know how to retrieve it.

In bill 31, we made the credit card companies responsible for any Manitoban's purchases online and if they did not receive the product or the service, the credit card company would be responsible.

Can anyone guess what happened? We went to committee and we heard from the credit card companies. Some of them were not too happy about this but Visa, which is a very big organization, did not put up that much of a fight.

We put forward that particular piece of consumer-friendly legislation and we put forward other pieces of consumer legislation but the reason we brought in this legislation in the first place was to streamline the government and make it more efficient.

We were trying to use the common business identifier. In the old days, the federal government and the provinces were using their own business numbers. We had situations in provincial governments where people were not even paying their PST or GST to the government and, in fact, were in receipt of grants from other parts of the government. This was an intolerable situation and it is something that should never happen.

Therefore, by having a common business identifier and a centralized computing system, we were able to tell if a person had applied for a grant from a certain department and whether the person was in arrears on his or her PST or whether the person owed the taxpayers all sorts of money that he or she had not paid back through taxes. We were trying to put a stop to that. We were also trying to make the system easier to use for businesses so they could file their returns. We were cutting down the paperwork involved in business.

The Conservatives just love to talk about red tape. One of the first things Conservative politicians love to talk for hours about is reducing red tape. The former member for Portage--La Prairie, who was in this House for several years, made his career on cutting red tape in the Manitoba legislature. He also made his career on eliminating the pension plan in the Manitoba legislative assembly. I can tell the House that it was not a very happy group of former MLAs when he moved to the federal scene and proceeded to collect his own federal pension when they in fact had lost their own, but that is an aside.

Nevertheless, the legislation before us today is long overdue. As a matter of fact, we have a danger here that this legislation will need to be re-tweaked. As I mentioned at the beginning of my speech in response to some comments by the member for Timmins—James Bay, nothing in this bill involves any criminality.

We just had a case in the last two weeks where Facebook got a judgment against a Canadian guy for $1 billion. He did a huge amount of spamming on the Facebook system and has made a hero out of himself by getting all kinds of free publicity around the world. What has he done? He has simply declared bankruptcy. We could go to all this trouble of finally passing this bill after all these years and find out that it is totally ineffective when we have people running huge spamming operations in this country right under the noses of the authorities and then, when they finally do end up in court and get sued, they just simply declare bankruptcy and are gone or simply change countries.

Clearly, if we are passing legislation now, we should ensure there are enough penalties in here that will make people responsible and try to correct the behaviours that we are seeing.

However, as we indicated, there are bigger issues. This is an important issue and we need to deal with it, but the member for Timmins—James Bay talked about the other areas, such as the broadband strategy that is lacking from the government. The vision on broadband is very vital to this country and especially to the survival and development of rural Canada. There is also the whole issue of government online programs, which we hear nothing about from the government.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was saying in regard to Bill C-28 that there is a lot of spam and I defined what spam is. I have the pleasure now of putting all that in the current context because intrusions into people's private lives are nothing new. Companies and corporations tried for decades to sell their products through publications people received in the mail. That was an intrusion into our private lives but a fairly minor one in comparison with the spam we receive directly on our home computers. First of all, intrusive junk mail could be eliminated because there were ways of doing that and second, it amounted to only a small fraction of the mail we received, while the amount of spam we get can sometimes exceed the number of legitimate e-mails on our home computers.

Things certainly change over time. Back in the days when there were only postal deliveries, concern about intrusions into our private lives focused almost exclusively on government intrusions. We all remember such great novels as George Orwell’s 1984 and other similar works. Nowadays, intrusions come much more from the business world. This is a new threat. I did not say that the fear of government intrusion has disappeared, but it is just one of a number of possible intrusions into our private lives. There are some recent developments, such as Facebook. Concern about intrusions into our private lives is now greater than the fear of government intrusion. We are afraid of intrusions by our neighbours, friends, relatives and family. They can get right into our private lives. That shows just how fast things are changing.

And then there is the task force that I mentioned earlier. This task force was struck in 2004 and presented its report in 2005. A lot has changed since 2005, which is why I feel that the committee must work openly with a view to improving this bill. That type of openness is rarely found in legislation. We get the impression that this legislation will already be practically outdated if it is not updated. It is very important to keep in mind that computer usage evolves rapidly so that the legislation can be relevant and valid.

And coming back to that task force, it brought together Internet service providers—not just companies—electronic marketing experts, and government and consumer representatives. It was a broad-based group of people in the know. More than 60 groups from the sectors concerned took part and did an admirable job. I want to emphasize that. But this work absolutely must be put into the 2010-11 context because this evolution needs to be taken seriously.

In addition to the online anti-spam awareness campaign launched to provide users with tips on how to limit the amount of spam they receive, it should be mentioned that the task force on spam presented its final report to the Minister of Industry in May 2005.

The report was entitled Stopping Spam: Creating a Stronger, Safer Internet.

We need to create a stronger, safer Internet because it has become a vitally important economic tool. Simply prohibiting all economic communications and marketing through email is out of the question, because that would limit the freedom of those who want to receive such material. The bill must allow people to continue receiving emails of this nature if they so desire. People must be able to receive communications from a company or group of companies that they have clearly identified.

Consider for example the paper catalogues people receive. Personally, I have quite a bit of experience as a handyman. I receive very specialized catalogues in woodworking, which is a real passion of mine. When people receive them electronically, it means the companies have our permission to send them and solicit our business in that way. That is why we cannot simply eliminate all forms of commercial correspondence on the Internet. This legislation will be difficult to create and enforce. Consider the example of Facebook. People trusted it and posted things without thinking about the fact that neighbours and family could see into their private lives.

Using the same kind of procedures and programs on the computer, people could find ways around this legislation if it were too simple or simplistic. This legislation will have to be fine-tuned. That is why it is crucial that all the recommendations made in the report are included, even if they need to be tweaked later.

One of the recommendations had to do with proposed legislation and more vigorous enforcement measures. The report recommended drafting legislation to prohibit spam and to safeguard personal information and privacy as well as email, networks and computers, which, of course, can be made to crash.

The legislation is designed to allow individuals and companies to sue spammers. This applies not only to products, but also to services that people promote. Some might argue that people promote and advertise things on television and that this comes into our homes. That is true, but we can all choose not to watch television. If the Chamber of Notaries runs an ad to promote the need for notaries, then we just have to click a button if we do not want to see it. However, if we receive 10 or 15 pop-up ads that we cannot avoid and that take up space to announce that the Chamber of Notaries is the best in the world and that it is absolutely necessary, we might find that to be an invasion of privacy, and rightfully so.

The task force also recommended the creation of a centre of expertise on spam. The centre would coordinate the government's anti-spam initiatives. A new agency will have to be created. The centre would be responsible for coordinating policies, awareness campaigns and providing support to enforcement agencies. It would also receive complaints and compile statistics on spam.

It will be important to have a place where complaints could be lodged. Not all people who receive spam are capable of going after the company directly. The government will have to keep a record of the companies that send this type of message and take action directly.

The public awareness campaign I just mentioned is an interesting aspect. I do not think we could implement a modern or new law—spam has not been around for that long—without conducting a broad public awareness campaign. This campaign would also help businesses. There are small businesses that do not know and would not know that they cannot solicit business by email without running into problems. Awareness has to be raised on different levels. The campaign will have to address businesses that sell goods and services as well as the users. There are all sorts of users, including young children. Quite often, children aged 10 or 11 already have a laptop; if not a laptop, then an iPad or some other electronic gadget of that kind. They, too, can be inundated with email. We can see how quickly this is all evolving.

When this bill is studied in committee, the members will have to consider what is likely to happen in the near future. Because things change so quickly, the committee will not be able to consider what is going to happen in 10 years, but it could at least consider what is going to happen in the next few years.

The task force on spam also recommended establishing solid best practices for the industry, and it will be important to show that the industry can put an end to misleading information.

Lastly, there will have to be international co-operation and improved enforcement measures that are known around the world. France is an example of this. It passed legislation in 2004, but I would caution the committee that we cannot do what France did, because 2004 was a long time ago. The United States is perhaps more advanced. We need to look at this in an international context, and our law has to dovetail with other countries' legislation.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-28, 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 sent to a committee.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be speaking about Bill C-28, Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act. The word “wireless” is important, as we will see later on, given that there are important developments in that area, particularly with 3G, which is becoming more significant.

The Bloc Québécois is in favour of the principle of Bill C-28, which was previously Bill C-27 but died on the Order Paper at prorogation. It is important to note that the government is dragging its heels on this file and is taking as long as possible to deal with this problem. However, this new legislation, with a few small amendments, specifically targets unsolicited commercial electronic messages. This bill has been needed and requested by society as a whole for a long time now. Governments, Internet service providers—which I will refer to later as ISPs—network operators and consumers are all affected by the problem of spam.

In this type of bill, it is important to define the terms. What is meant by the term “spam”? Spam can be defined as a commercial electronic message sent without the express consent of the recipient. It can be any text, audio, voice or visual message sent by any means of telecommunication, including email, cellular phone text messaging or instant messaging, whose content is such that it is reasonable to conclude that the purpose of the message is to encourage participation in commercial activity. Any electronic message that offers to purchase, sell, barter or lease a product, goods, services, land or an interest or right in land, or a business, investment or gaming opportunity is considered spam for our purposes.

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; and messages that are sent by means of a facsimile to a telephone account. This bill does not include them, but we know that faxes can also be a form of spam. Messages that are voice recordings sent to a telephone account are not spam. Earlier, I mentioned 3G technology, which goes through cell phone towers and is becoming increasingly significant.

We must create safeguards for legitimate electronic commerce. It is now essential to our economy. Not only are commercial emails sent with the prior and ongoing consent of the recipient important to electronic commerce, but they are also essential to the development of the online economy. It is quite clear that our commerce is heading in that direction.

The Bloc Québécois is pleased to see that Bill C-28 takes into account most of the recommendations in the final report of the task force on spam.

I would remind this House that the task force on spam was made up of people from government, industry and consumer advocacy groups. So it was a very broad task force whose members reached a consensus after a few months of work. They tabled their report in 2005. This bill has been on the table for a long time. In 2005, the multipartite task force tabled the bill that the government more or less adopted as its own. It was the task force that essentially came up with this bill.

We are very upset that the legislative process has taken so long. The legislation was tabled in 2005, and it is now 2010. Parliament may have been prorogued, but we are not sure the government really intends to deal with this bill quickly. It is quite likely that the bill will be delayed further, because it is hard to know whose interests will be served, so the government does not want to rush this bill through.

The committee study will be an opportunity for many industry stakeholders to come back and update it and for consumer advocacy groups to have their say about the new Electronic Commerce Protection Act. It is a question of updating it—