I'm loath to read into what exactly the full thought process was in terms of making that choice, although I might guess that it is, admittedly, early days. The do-not-call list has only been up for a year, although I think there's enough evidence to suggest that changes are needed.
Perhaps given both the time and investment that's gone into this, some would be of the view that it is premature to take that step to say we're going to change course just months after we started with, at long last, this do-not-call list. So I can understand that thinking, although at the same time—and I thought the minister actually acknowledged this—the reality is that we're making distinctions where they increasingly don't exist. The notion that it's telemarketing or it's text-messaged spam or it's e-mail spam I think for many people is all part of the same basket.
I think this is foreshadowing making, at the end of the day, a choice, and the choice is the opt-in approach that we've seen within ECPA. I think we do better by making that choice right now, though, and just saying, “We've seen what has happened with the do-not-call list. There are too many Canadians right now who are getting unwanted calls. Let's switch to something we think is going to be more effective and is going to deal with both telemarketing and electronic communications.”