In the context of when those kinds of things are such that courts and governments ought to interfere with those contracts, that's your question, under what circumstances ought they too. In my recommendations I'm very clear that where the privacy legislation itself has an elevated standard of protection such that, for example, in the British Columbia statute it says you're not allowed to prevent somebody from withdrawing from their consent at a later time, and if you attempt to do that the contract will be unenforceable.... The B.C. legislation, for example, says that. What I'm recommending to you here is the same sort of thing. So just like in the law of contracts the courts will set aside contracts as being unenforceable for public policy or illegality when somebody tries to contract something that goes against a statute, I'm suggesting the same with PIPEDA. In other words, when a PIPEDA protection is there, you shouldn't be exposed to having somebody ram down your throat that you're not allowed to avail yourself of those protections or else not use any services. That's my submission.
On December 11th, 2006. See this statement in context.