Industry Committee on Oct. 31st, 2017

[Christopher Padfield]

As we said, there is the web page but we've also been reaching out. I think we've given out about 3,500 of these so far this year to different police departments to reach out. We want to make sure that people are informed about spam and their identity theft pieces. Largely, our efforts are focused around social media and around our fightspam.gc.ca website.

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

In your function as director general of the small business branch, did you receive any complaints about the legislation at your office?

[Christopher Padfield]

No. I have not had any direct complaints. When I'm talking with small businesses, their focus is more on access to capital, access to talent, and access to markets. Those are the issues they generally speak to me about. If business owners are sophisticated enough to know about spam, they're generally reaching out to the enforcement agencies, either from an enforcement perspective or, if they are looking for changes to the law, they would be reaching out to my colleagues in the policy branch, seeking their views there.

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

So you're in charge of access to capital. I want to ask you a question about the reform the government did on small business taxes. Did you receive any complaint about that kind of reform?

[Christopher Padfield]

Directly?

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Yes. In your department you deal with business people who want to raise money and have more money to invest. Now the government is taxing them.

[Christopher Padfield]

Tax is the purview of the Minister of Finance and that department, so I leave it to them.

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Oh, you're good.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

I want to share the time I have left.

Matt or Jim?

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Sure.

You mentioned that the website includes mobile protection, a tool box, a quiz, FAQs, and infographics. You said that a number of people visit the website. You seem to have numbers on the number of visitors and the pieces of literature you have given out, but is there any analysis on whether this is effective? I was puzzled to hear that there's a quiz on the website. I've never used the quiz. I'm curious to know whether that's something that's effective in getting the word out.

[Christopher Padfield]

On the quiz, if you've never heard of anti-spam legislation, you're a new business, and you just decide you're going to send out emails to prospective people who you think might be interested in your business, the quiz gives you a sense in simple terms of the things you need to think about before you start emailing your clients.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Do you have the numbers on how many people are using the quiz?

[Christopher Padfield]

I don't have them in front of me. We can see if we can dig them out and provide them to the committee.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

I think visiting a website is one thing, but ensuring that it's useful for people is another.

[Christopher Padfield]

Again, our website is a gateway to the enforcement agencies. If you're looking for enforcement information about being in compliance, or how you can best comply, that's where you want to be reaching out to the enforcement agencies to get that kind of detail.

We're really a conduit, mostly for basic information for consumers—giving a small-business owner or business owners a general sense of the kinds of questions they need to ask themselves, then providing them that gateway to the spam reporting centre and to the enforcement agencies so they can reach out to them for clarity.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you.

Mr. Masse, you have seven minutes.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We've received a lot of terrible testimony, to be quite frank. We've had testimony about little girls not being able to run lemonade stands for fear of persecution on them. We've had cousins not being able to contact cousins. We've had basically a complete meltdown of communication in some business communities, according to some of the testimony provided here.

What can be done better with regard to the concerns expressed by those who are trying to understand how to actually do electronic communications better without engaging, I guess, a private sector business to do so? Can improvements be made to this through amendments? Or can it be done through regulations or improved public coordination or efforts from the department, either more resources or focus to assist small and medium-sized businesses that might still find compliance daunting?

[Christopher Padfield]

Just to clarify my role, those questions are better to loop back to our folks responsible for CASL in the legislative piece. Our role is more around the awareness-raising piece in how we can promote compliance.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

In that, do you have the necessary tools to bridge that gap? From what we're being told from small and medium-sized businesses, in terms of what you're capable of doing for public awareness and coaching those small businesses that perhaps don't know the specific clauses in regulations or legislation.... That's what I'm looking at. Can we narrow that gap between those who perhaps don't want to spend the money on hiring a third party to be compliant?

[Christopher Padfield]

When I talk about the awareness-raising being multi-faceted, it's not incumbent just on us for making sure that every Canadian is compliant and aware. I think you met the Chamber of Commerce here. I know they spend a lot of time with their members making them aware, making sure they understand the basic tenets of the law, and that they need to be aware that it's there.

We look to a lot of those partners across the country to help raise awareness, as any law would, about how a business should be helped to be compliant and what they need to do to take action to make sure they are aware and understand the legislation.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

We're trying to the close the gap here. If there is a legitimate argument to be made on CASL, it's that it's very complicated and difficult for some businesses to be able to use electronic messaging and marketing in an effective and responsible way. They have to engage another party, a third party, for a business to do so, and then there are extra costs and so forth.

My question is, does the department—especially for tourism—in looking at small business, have the resources and the capabilities, and was the budget increased, as this was incurred over the...? This is one of the reasons I asked for the three-year review, because it's a legislative part. It's in the legislation to have that three-year review. Are there resources allocated there to help bridge the gap between those who want to comply and don't?

Again, I haven't found evidence of CASL being that credible—when we hear about the lemonade stands and stuff like that. If you're going to spend your time to come here and say that at committee, then it really says something about your other testimony, in my opinion. What I want to get to at the end of the day is what we can do to close the gap of the legitimate concerns. Does your department have the resources necessary to do so, if there's an enhanced campaign to do that?

[Christopher Padfield]

Yes, I wouldn't say we were constrained at the moment in terms of raising awareness of it. There's a broad issue around enforcement and understanding of law from any business on any law. On CASL, I wouldn't say there's anything particularly outstanding compared with any other law in terms of awareness-raising.

We find that the web page, with however many hits it's getting a month, seems to be getting a fair amount of take-up, and it gives that basic information for people to be aware.

In terms of the complexity issue, you get multiple views from different folks, as you have from your witnesses and their testimony here, about how far you can go in terms of clarifying without diminishing the impact the law has for consumers.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

That's an easier fix than, say, fixing the law. We have to do a report here. We have to send it back, the minister looks at it, and then eventually he has to table legislation, whether it's through legislation or amendments. It can take a long time versus if there was better coaching and resources available to close the gaps. There were some legitimate concerns raised by, for example, businesses not understanding it. I think that's what we have to come to a conclusion on very soon.

I know that, as New Democrats, we're not looking to scrap CASL. In fact, I don't have people clamouring from the business community or from the general public wanting more spam, unsolicited electronic messaging, or extra viruses. Security provisions, privacy, all those things, are even heightening at this point in time. There are even questions about deviating from the private right of action and others.

At any rate, I guess my concern is whether or not the department has the capability to help meet some of those concerns we have that are legitimate, and that's understanding CASL, abiding by it, and having those supports, because it would seem to me that, if we are going to have some changes in the meantime, waiting for the legislative review is going to take very long, and it's very onerous. The regulatory review is less so, but there's still gazetting, and a series of other stumbling blocks take place, whereas immediate action could be an investment in the outreach capabilities of the department right now to the chamber and other affiliate organizations. That could be done immediately.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

We'll move on to Mr. Longfield.

You have seven minutes.