Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My name is Chris Gray. I am the director of the Canadian Intellectual Property Council.
Appearing with me today is Jason Kee, a steering committee member with the CIPC. He is also the director of policy and legal affairs with the Entertainment Software Association of Canada.
It is a pleasure to be able to present the views of the Canadian Intellectual Property Council and our members on Bill C-27.
The CIPC was founded in 2008 under the authority of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce to unite businesses and press for an improved intellectual property rights regime in Canada. While our focus of late has been on the copyright consultations and seeking better border enforcement to fight counterfeit goods, we also need to monitor other legislation that could affect businesses, such as this one.
The CIPC and all in the business community support the notion of eliminating spam. As we all know, spam is a nuisance to almost everyone. For a business, especially a small business, it can slow down legitimate business practices and it takes time to delete. However, there are some concerns about Bill C-27 that need to be addressed, and we're pleased that the committee is taking the time to get it right and consider amendments to the legislation that will make it acceptable to all.
Working with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and other business associations, we've submitted amendments to the committee members for consideration. While we support the bill's objective of deterring the most dangerous forms of spam, such as phishing and malware, that discourage reliance on electronic means of carrying out commercial activities, we can't support the bill as currently drafted.
This new Electronic Commerce Protection Act may render thousands of commonly used computer applications illegal. It would submit Canadian businesses to potential fines of up to $10 million and potential civil action. This new bill would also amend the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act to submit Canadian businesses to civil suits relating to violations of the act. This bill would potentially prohibit the formation of new business relationships over the Internet or through e-mail. It would also severely limit the use of the Internet for the distribution of software and software updates.
I'm now going to turn this over to Jason to discuss some more specific concerns we have.