Industry Committee on Oct. 31st, 2017

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thanks. I'll be sharing some of my time with Mr. Jowhari.

Thank you for coming and spending time with us this morning. We've had a lot of questions around the definition of what a commercial electronic message is, and businesses are looking for advice on whether they can send messages or not send messages. I'm looking for the interaction part on the website. I'm not seeing a lot of interaction on the website where businesses can ask questions. There are frequently asked questions on the website, but is there another place or is there another way that you're grabbing information?

Let's say I have a question about the definition of commercial electronic messaging. How do I find the answer?

[Christopher Padfield]

I think that goes back to my point that we're really a conduit. A question like that would be an enforcement question, so that's really a question for the CRTC to answer. That's where we would direct them, to the CRTC. If you had specific questions about a definition like that in the law....

We have to be very careful that we're not making any interpretations on our fightspam.gc.ca website. We don't want to have anything that's going to impact a future investigation by our having given some misinformation that, say, was offside of what one of the enforcement agencies would want to say.

If a company came to us with a question along those lines, we'd direct them to the CRTC. The CRTC has done a fair amount of outreach effort. They did round tables this year, going around to meet with industry groups to explain some of the more detailed pieces like that, give their interpretation, and explain how that interpretation impacts their enforcement activities.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

What does that referral look like? Do they have a website that we can include in our report?

[Mélanie Raymond, Director, Office of Consumers Affairs, Department of Industry]

The CRTC has on its website the sections basically dedicated to CASL. They have guidance documents that try to get to the specific questions that businesses might have. Also, this year, we connected them with the Canadian Business Network. They did a live Twitter chat, where they had those live interactions that you were talking about. They try to supplement, because when you go to a city, not all the businesses are in that city.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Right.

[Mélanie Raymond]

There's always that issue of trying to reach as many businesses as possible. Whenever feasible, they do those in person, but they will also have a portion done as a webinar. The CRTC does a lot of that outreach directly to small businesses.

Again, it's a question of the businesses coming at it from their very specific reality and they're seeking to understand how they fit within the law. That's really the interpretation of the law, and we're not in a position to do that.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I understand that. It's just a question of how we help to educate, and your site has a lot of educational opportunities on it.

Is your hit rate increasing or decreasing? Do you have a trend line on whether it's being used more now than in the past?

[Christopher Padfield]

It was fairly calm, and as the regulations were brought into force, it peaked. It has been running along at about 25,000 a month.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Is that fairly constant?

[Christopher Padfield]

That's pretty constant. When the private right of action changes were made, we had a peak again because it was in the media. Whenever it hits the media we get a blip in terms of usage rates.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I found it very helpful. I hadn't seen the site until recently. I did the quiz myself, to see where I was at.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Did you pass or was it a crushing defeat?

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

It shows more need for education, which is why we're here.

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

His lemonade stand is in trouble.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Exactly. And he can't talk to his cousins about it.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I'll turn the rest of my time over to Mr. Jowhari.

Thank you.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

Welcome to our witnesses.

I want to specifically focus on the rate of adoption. If I understand you correctly, a number of times during your testimony you talked about being in the education process and generating awareness through various means. You talked about a video, webinar, quiz, and infographics through which businesses learn the importance of getting consent, providing identification, and offering the option to unsubscribe. You also touched on how many times people are accessing your site. The whole goal of CASL is about protection of the consumer and small businesses from unwanted emails. Through these vehicles, through these means, and through these platforms, what has been the rate of adoption by businesses such that we have fewer and fewer infractions, and the same for consumers?

[Christopher Padfield]

On the consumer side, your indicator is really how much they're reporting into the spam reporting centre. I think we've had 1.1 million reports into the spam reporting centre now in terms of actual submissions around—

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Has that gone down?

[Christopher Padfield]

That's the total since the spam reporting centre has come up.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Over what period of time is that?

[Christopher Padfield]

That would be since 2014.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Okay. Since 2014 we've had 1.1 million reports. On an annual basis, has the amount of spam reported by consumers gone down?