Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First of all, I'd like to thank the minister for his comments, and I would like to reiterate to him in no uncertain terms that the Liberal Party welcomes Bill C-27 in the interests of combatting spam. There's no question that we're very glad to see this as a follow-up to the task force that rendered its report back in 2005.
However, having said that, I must mention some very significant concerns about Bill C-27 that have been expressed to me in the course of the last few weeks.
If I could try to summarize, the net has been cast in order to eliminate spam, but it has been cast in a very broad manner. The devil is in the details, and there are significant concerns about its having some negative effects. Casting the net so broadly has also left certain definitions so general that the interpretation of something as simple as a computer program can be taken in a number of ways. With respect to the anti-spam provisions, the scope is too broad at this point, specifically with respect to the consent provisions contained in the bill, and exclusions are too narrow. The unsubscribed requirements are unworkable, and this could have a chill on legitimate commercial speech and e-commerce.
We want to help fix that, because the anti-spam bill is a good thing, but we have a lot of work in front of us in order to address some of the specific concerns that have been expressed to us by people who also want to see Bill C-27 come into play.
As a first question, I assume the team that put together the bill has consulted legislation from other countries. There are recent examples of legislation in other countries, and you mentioned Australia; Australia is one example, and New Zealand is another. Have other countries' legislation been consulted in the process of putting this bill together? At first sight, some of what they have done appears to address many of the concerns that have been expressed to me by various organizations.