Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I would like to thank the committee very much for giving us this opportunity to contribute to your review of Bill C-27, the Electronic Commerce Protection Act.
My name is Frank Zinatelli, and I am vice-president of legal services and associate general counsel of the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association. I am accompanied today by my colleague Peter Goldthorpe, who is the CLHIA's director of marketplace regulations issues. We welcome this opportunity to make constructive contributions to the committee as you seek to develop your report to Parliament on this important bill.
By way of background, the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association represents life and health insurance companies accounting for 99% of the life and health insurance in force across Canada. The industry protects 26 million Canadians and some 20 million people internationally.
With your permission, Mr. Chairman, we would like to make a few introductory comments.
In August, we submitted written comments to the committee. Several of the matters were technical in nature and involved providing greater clarity and certainty to the language of the bill. We trust that these are relatively free of controversy and will be addressed by the committee.
This afternoon we would like to focus our remarks on a broader issue. The issue is the proposed restrictions on obtaining consent by electronic means, and my colleague Peter Goldthorpe will now address this.