Industry Committee on Nov. 2nd, 2010

[André Leduc]

No, it is not mandatory.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

I think it might be better to make it mandatory. With electronic means, it is relatively easy to make sure that people no longer wanting to receive messages can just click on a button at the bottom of the text to say so. In this case, a 10-day deadline seems like more than enough.

However, since this is not mandatory, it is not done that way. In that case, the delay might be prolonged for all sorts of reasons. Not all businesses have the same capacity to manage these situations.

What do you do then? Give them 30 days or make the electronic mode mandatory?

[André Leduc]

It is not mandatory because, as I said, there will be small and medium sized businesses that will not have the capacity to take on the automated method. For example, some minor sports organizations might send out a message twice a year. They just have to check their list before their next send out. In any event, they have 10 days to remove from the list the names of people who do not consent to receiving these messages. This seems perfectly reasonable to us. What is more, 10 business days was the number the committee arrived at when it was studying the bill the last time.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Not for profit sports or community organizations often do not have the resources for this, especially since they are increasingly being denied subsidies under this Conservative government.

If we extended the deadline to 30 days, how would that affect you?

[André Leduc]

Big businesses could abuse such a deadline by not respecting the requests to opt out, by not providing an email address or a link to their web site to make a request to opt out. They could abuse the situation until the 29th day.

That is why we thought 10 business days was reasonable. In the case of a minor sports team, it simply has to make sure the next time it sends out solicitation emails that it checks its list again to avoid sending unwanted emails.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

When you talk about abusing the deadline, what do you mean?

[André Leduc]

For example, when someone asks that their name be removed from the list, the business waits until the 29th day to respond to the request. The business disregards the request and continues to send email the entire time.

It therefore needs to be done without delay.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

You are therefore suggesting that the business that receives such a request takes full advantage of this 30-day deadline and waits until the last minute to make the change and in the meantime sends even more email because it is mad that someone would refuse to receive them.

[André Leduc]

Hence the reason for the phrase “without delay”. It also means that as soon as the business receives notice of a request to opt out, the business has to respond to it without delay. The 10-day deadline is really for businesses that do not have an automated system, which is quite rare.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Monsieur Cardin, thank you very much.

I understand there have been conversations among all the members here that we'll proceed to clause-by-clause.

Mr. McTeague.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Chair, I realize that there may still be questions that we'll want to address. I discussed this with our critic. We have no objections and we certainly welcome the opportunity of going to clause-by-clause as soon as possible. I think a lot of the hard work has been done, a lot of the heavy lifting has been done.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Okay. That being said, we'll stop the clock then. Since everybody is in agreement, we'll let members exhaust whatever questions they may have and then we'll move to clause-by-clause.

Monsieur Bouchard, the clock is not running any more. You can ask your questions.

Mr. Masse, do you have some questions afterwards? Okay, then I'll go to the Conservative Party and we'll consider that exhausted then.

Monsieur Bouchard.

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Thank you Mr. Chair.

Thank you ladies and gentlemen for being here today.

My first question is for Ms. DiFrancesco.

First, we know that Bill C-28 was Bill C-27, which was studied in committee and made it all the way to the Senate. However, when the election was called, the bill died on the order paper. You said that Bill C-28 is quite similar to Bill C-27, which suggests that there are some changes. Could you share some of those changes?

I have another question about that. Do these changes come from officials or other entities?

[Janet DiFrancesco]

Thank you for the question.

The bill before you does very much reflect the previous Bill C-27, ECPA. The changes that were made, other than the two that I mentioned in my opening remarks, were made as the result of a careful review of the bill after the House was dissolved. For example, it was noticed in a number of areas that the French version of the bill was missing concepts that existed in English. There are maybe three or four of those types of amendments that correct the French-language version to reflect the English.

There was also, for example, an amendment that was made at committee to clause 8, which deals with.... Let me just look at the bill. Sorry. We added the provision for someone who is receiving the electronic message to consent to a change of the alteration of the transmission data, but that change should have been mirrored in clause 12, which allows someone to withdraw their consent, and that was missed. So the drafters noticed that in order for the parallel amendments to make sense under clause 8, we needed to make an amendment under clause 12 as well.

Similarly, a number of the amendments dealing with the changes to the Competition Act needed to be modified to make sure they were consistent with other provisions in the Competition Act--for example, reference to reviewable conduct, as opposed to just a contravention under the act.

So we took the opportunity when the House was dissolved to make sure that there were no other changes to the bill that were required. You will recall that there were a number of changes made the last time, and it was important that we took the time to make sure that the parallel changes were reflected all the way through.

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

As far as I know, the changes are minor and stem from your analysis. You said you had the opportunity to review a number of minor aspects and that is what you did. No other agencies contacted you. This truly comes from the group of officials.

[Philip Palmer, Senior General Counsel, Legal Services, Department of Industry]

Precisely. Some of our considerations were prompted by the Canadian Bar Association, which suggested some small changes. After due consideration, we made these changes, but they are very minor and very technical.

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

I have one last question.

We have been talking about the CRTC and other agencies such as the Competition Bureau and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. Do you think these agencies will need supplementary resources when Bill C-28 comes into force, or will they continue to work with their existing staff? I would like your opinion on that. What should be added in terms of budget, resources, staffing?

[Janet DiFrancesco]

Additional resources will be added to all three of the regulatory agencies involved to enforce the legislation. We do think that the additional responsibilities under the legislation require additional resources.

In addition, there are resources that will be dedicated to public awareness and education, because we do feel that a big element of implementing this act is making sure that people understand what the act can do for them and what they can do to protect themselves from spam.

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Have you estimated the number of additional employees and the supplementary budgets and funding? Have these numbers been communicated to these agencies, the CRTC, the Competition Bureau and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada? Have you communicated with them, are they aware, have they already made estimates? A budget is being prepared. Are things already being included in it?

[Janet DiFrancesco]

Yes, all three agencies were consulted and have identified new budgetary requirements. In fact, the government has allocated about $12.5 million a year in increased funding. That's a combined total for all three agencies to implement the legislation once it has received royal assent.

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Per agency or all together?

[Janet DiFrancesco]

That's all three together. It also includes a small portion of money for Industry Canada to implement a spam-reporting centre, which will assist the three enforcement agencies and to put in place a public awareness campaign working with the Office of Consumer Affairs as well.

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Did you say $2.5 million annually?

[Janet DiFrancesco]

It is $12.5 million.

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

It is $12.5 million annually for the application of Bill C-28, once it is passed and becomes law.

Thank you.