Thank you very much to everyone for another thought-provoking session.
I am glad we're reviewing the legislation, based on all the testimony I've hard so far. I want to continue on with some of the questions I asked in the last session. The particular legislation talks about the “activities that discourage reliance on electronic means of carrying out commercial activities, and...amend the Canadian...” and it goes on. It talks about the various means of contacting and picking up.... There were some questions about Facebook today again.
Michael, when I take a look at when your task force went out, in 2004, I reference the fact that the same year there was another big thing happening, then called TheFacebook. You probably weren't delving into TheFacebook at that particular time.
My question is based upon these numbers that I see: Facebook just hit two billion users a month; YouTube has 1.5 billion per month; Instagram has 700 million; Twitter has 328 million, and so on. I'm not going to name the other various social platforms that are out there. They're all important. I use them all. They're generational too. Certain ages use more than others do. Generationally, privacy, in my opinion, is a different issue. My daughter is not as concerned as my father is about who sees what on social media.
My question concerns why or how this particular legislation affects the various platforms that are out there. Even Facebook has a messenger now, which uses basically email. I can't get into the technical terms of it. How will this legislation affect these various social platforms going forward? If it doesn't, why not, and should it?
Does anyone want to kick it off? Michael, I guess I'll start with you, and then perhaps other people will have an opportunity.