Industry Committee on Sept. 28th, 2009

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses who are here.

Maybe I'll do a go-around. I'd like to hear from you about the issues that have been raised on the amendments and the language changes you're talking about. If those are not accepted and the bill passes in its current form, how much of a problem will this be with your respective organizations? I think we should have that put in front of the table here.

We'll go right around.

[Bernard Brun]

The Desjardins Group, or any other similar business, sees the complete and total restriction of the development of electronic commerce as a problem for one simple reason. The prohibition of communications coupled with the penalties will mean that no manager—who can, for that matter, be identified directly—will agree to make this type of issue a priority. They will simply shift their focus to other kinds of projects and totally abandon the development of electronic commerce.

[Paul Vaillancourt]

I might not be able to help you with the wording of legislation. I'm just a financial planner, not a lawyer. However, in our business a referral is a very precious thing. We work hard to be able to ask our clients to provide us with referrals. The preferred method of communicating with this new client is through e-mail. Letters are fine, the telephone is fine, but e-mail is more and more the way to go.

If this law passes along, coming up with new clients will become a rather creative affair and we'll have to resort to strategies from a generation or two ago. In other words, I think there'll be a resurgence in Rotary Clubs, Lions Clubs, and social networking groups that rely on face-to-face meetings and rubber chicken dinners, as opposed to meeting online, which is how a lot of people work these days.

I simply suggest that banning all e-mails to a third party that is unknown might be pushing it a bit too far, but a one-on-one referral--as opposed to a client who has 14 million contacts--might be a bit further. In our business, and as it relates to my own business as a self-employed person with five people on staff, we treasure referrals. We want to be able to get to these people any way possible. E-mail is becoming more and more the preferred method of choice by both us and the people who are being referred. We'd be grateful if we could keep using that method.

[Peter Goldthorpe]

I'll echo Mr. Vaillancourt's comments that the impact of this bill, as it is currently drafted, would be to send us back to the marketing techniques of the last generation. Arguably, you might think that the Rotary Club is a good thing and that we should be having more face-to-face meetings at Rotary Clubs, but that's just one of the devices. We'd be back to the junk mail that arrives in your mailbox, the use of paper, and the environmental and economic costs that attend to that--plus the reduced effectiveness of those marketing methods. We have a generation now that doesn't even use the telephone, much less read written material that arrives in the mailbox.

If you take away electronic means of communication, you're really taking away means of communication with the emerging generation.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you.

I noted with interest one of the subjects we haven't discussed here--it is in the Desjardins notes--and that's unsubscription, which is quite important in this part of the bill. If you give consent to something, you obviously need to be able to reverse that and take yourself off a subscription list, especially if there has been a poor relationship with the business, or what not. It gives you control of your digital information.

I notice you have difficulty with the 10 days for unsubscription. Maybe you can highlight the reasons for that. You suggest 31 days, which I think is really long, especially if it's supposed to be a business working relationship with someone. If they can't get unsubscribed for 31 days that's a long time.

Would it be more reasonable to have 10 business days to unsubscribe? You're contacting somebody's home through e-mail to their computer. I find it hard to believe that it would take a full month to get unsubscribed. Maybe you can provide some detail on why the 10 days is difficult for you to achieve.

[Bernard Brun]

A 10-day unsubscription period can be difficult to achieve, depending on the time of year. Having a 31-day period would bring it in line with the current unsubscription period set out under the do-not-call list.

Considering the potential penalties, obviously, a slightly longer deadline simply allows us to make sure that the person was unsubscribed. With a much shorter deadline, it may take a few extra days, which would open the company up to unnecessary risks, when all is said and done. The idea is to remove these people as soon as possible and to have enough time to ensure that....

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

What I'm a little bit concerned about, though, is that 31 days is a long time. I'm sure when you send out a request to subscribe to someone, they're not going to get in your system 31 days later. You're going to activate them as a customer immediately, probably within days, if not hours. Why 31 days? Is it just a matter that you don't want to put resources on for people to unsubscribe? Is it technically difficult within the 10 days? Is it a matter of resources, or if there's a technical problem with unsubscribing people, I'd like to know. It's a big issue to me because, once again, if you're giving out your information and your consent, then you should always have the right to take that back, and within a reasonable period of time. If you get on the do-not-call list, it doesn't take that long, 31 days.

So that's what I want to know: is it technical, or are resources why you can't meet the 10-day limit?

[Bernard Brun]

The purpose was to bring the unsubscription period in line with the do-not-call list. I do not see that as a technical difficulty, per se. What needs to be understood is that we do not send out emails daily. These lists are used, but we do not inundate our partners or our customers with emails. We send them sporadically, from time to time, and these lists are managed by businesses associated with us. It may be difficult on a technical level for a large financial group to handle an unsubscribe request and to be certain that it was completed. As I said, that coupled with stiff penalties.... The less time there is, the more it makes us a little nervous. But the person will be removed as quickly as possible.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Brun.

Thank you, Mr. Masse.

Ms. Coady.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much to each of you for appearing today and commenting on this very important piece of legislation.

I did understand from you that your general consensus is that this is an important piece of legislation and that while it is something we should be moving towards, you do have some concerns. I'd like to address some of those concerns today by asking a couple of questions. I'll just ask a general question, and feel free, anyone who wishes, to speak to this issue.

I think I heard from each of you that the definition is simply too broad. Would you generally agree that we should be directly targeting only those who conduct themselves in a way that results in abusive communications rather than the other way around, that is, rather than introducing an entirely new set of regulations on the regime for communications? Right now I think I'm hearing from you that we're simply too broad. Should we be narrowing that field down and having the legislation change its view? Am I hearing that correctly from each of you?

[Peter Goldthorpe]

Yes, I would say that's what you're hearing.

I think it's also important that what you're hearing from all of us is that this isn't really addressing the problems.There was a suggestion or a question, I guess, about how to define mass mailing. How many are too many? I don't think the problem is really that 14 million e-mails are going out; it's what's in those e-mails. I think you should address the issue of what is in the e-mail that's going out, and our suggestion was that an e-mail to obtain consent be just that, an e-mail to obtain consent. If it's an e-mail that is clearly intended to solicit business and promote and build awareness of products and services, that's not an e-mail to obtain consent.

So by addressing the problem, I think you'll have a more effective piece of legislation.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Does no one else care to comment on that?

[Joanne De Laurentiis]

I would just add the point that I think some of us made earlier. Our concern is that when it is so broad, yes, we would like to narrow it somewhat. When it is so broad it does also capture legitimate business. We need to find language that allows the legitimate business to get through without the bad stuff, and that's the challenge.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Knowing it's a little too broad now, I think we also heard that the consent was too narrow, too restrictive.

I don't think I heard from you, but I've heard from other witnesses that they're also concerned that there is an issue around conflicting or overlapping regulations. The do-not-call list, for example, has different consent provisions. PIPEDA has different consent provisions. Would you care to comment on the differences?

[Frank Zinatelli]

I can start, but I see that Joanne wanted to jump in there.

The do-not-call list is obviously a different model that I think will prove itself over time. That's why it's important to give it the time necessary to work out.

As far as this bill and PIPEDA are concerned, I would say there's a lot of consistency in the approach. The definitions certainly would seem to mesh. I think the two pieces of legislation have been well thought out in the area of consistency.

As far as this legislation and your previous question about the philosophical approach to this is concerned, again, it was either go this way or that way, but I think the ultimate objective is the same. I think a lot of thought has gone into this bill, but it needs some important tweaking to make it workable.

I hearken back also to what I believe Mr. Garneau said earlier. Do you want to put in a piece of legislation that's really tough and stops everything, or do you want to put in something that goes some way and see how it works?

I'm for the “go some way and see how it works” approach, because you can always go back and put more rules in place if it's not working out.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much, Mr. Zinatelli.

Thank you, Madame Coady.

Mr. Wallace.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank our guests for being here today. I appreciate it. I saw some of them earlier.

To follow up a little on what the chair said, I have the actual wording of the bill in front of me. We're not going to wordsmith here, to be perfectly frank with you, but in the next week or so we are going to be going through it line by line.

We need actual legalese wording that reflects this, whether we agree or not. It would give an opportunity to the staff from the department to look at that wording to give us a reasonable answer on whether it's feasible or not, or what the consequences would be. So if you can get it to us, that would be great.

To our friends from the life insurance organization, I'm a little concerned about sending out e-mails for consent. Are you telling me those e-mails would not have a referral name attached to them? Would the e-mail say, “Mr. Wallace, we got your name from Joe Blow and we'd be interested in talking to you about your life insurance needs. Do we have consent to call you?” Would Joe Blow's name be attached to that, or would it be just an e-mail directed to me?

[Peter Goldthorpe]

I'm not sure how much use would be served by prescribing that you identify the person who made the referral. As a matter of fact--

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Sorry, I have only five minutes.

So it would be a mass e-mail. Let's say you got the list of everybody who lived in Burlington. You could e-mail everybody in Burlington, asking whether they're interested in life insurance, yes or no, and whether a life insurance agent could contact them.

[Peter Goldthorpe]

There are two points. First, that's theoretically possible, but it's highly unlikely because it's inefficient and the industry does not generally work on that sort of cold-calling model. Secondly, as I mentioned earlier, that's not the problem; the problem is what's in the e-mail, sir.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Other industries do work on that cold-calling model. I used to be a cold-caller myself. In a previous career, I would just go through the phone book and phone people. I'd still probably do it in this career, but in a different way and hopefully not too soon.

I want to be frank with you folks who are here today. I'm in favour of what's in this bill. I'm in favour of reduction, and I think I've heard generally that you're in favour of reduction. I think there has been a bit of overstatement that if Mike Wallace refers you to my financial agent, I have to keep track of that referral. I think we're stretching it a little on that.

I have two other questions that relate somewhat to that.

I think Joanne made the comment that the penalties were kind of stiff. It's up to a maximum of $1 million and up to a maximum of $10 million. If those aren't the right maximums, what are you recommending?

[Joanne De Laurentiis]

They are too high as maximums for clause 6.

I do want to mention one thing here with regard to some of this being probable but not necessarily possible. We live in a really very compliance-oriented world. Everything we do goes through a compliance filter. So if the rule says that this is possible, or that is possible, or that may not be allowed, what we get is that we tend to interpret things very conservatively.

So that's the issue. That's the concern.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

And you think the maximums are too high.

The next question I have for you is on the 18-month issue, that you have to contact me within 18 months of my last e-mail, in a sense, to even consider myself having a business relationship with you.

Are you saying that is too long, too short, or that it should be defined differently?

[Joanne De Laurentiis]

It may be too short. It should really be defined by the advisory relationship between the individuals, not whether there has been a communication or not.

Again, it looks like there had to have been a communication.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

And what that would be varies from industry to industry?