Justice Committee on Oct. 19th, 2010

[Normand Wong]

It's a very topical question, given what happened on Facebook in B.C. Facebook itself is a U.S. company, and it's based in the U.S., so it would be subject to U.S. laws. As the minister has indicated before, Canadian law enforcement officials and U.S. law enforcement officials work in tandem on many of these investigations. The reach of the legislation is only inside Canada, but certainly we would expect the cooperation of entities such as Facebook, which provide services to Canadian citizens. We would expect it to abide by Canadian law and to cooperate with Canadian law enforcement.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

As the minister mentioned earlier, we are able to reach out to other countries in order to deal with these particular types of issues. Do you have any commentary on that, as well? We're speaking of the U.S. and Canada right now, but I'm just curious as to some of the other associations we have with other countries.

[Normand Wong]

There are programs. There's a national strategy for child sexual exploitation on the Internet. The Minister of Public Safety is responsible for that. The RCMP, through the National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre, has many contacts through Interpol and the international law enforcement community. Also, Cybertip.ca, Canada's national reporting tip line, is part of INHOPE, which basically links all the different tip lines in existence throughout the world. So Canada has its hands in many different international partnerships to deal with combatting child sexual exploitation over the Internet.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you very much.

I'm advised that Mr. Murphy and Ms. Jennings have two very short questions, and we'll wind up with those. Then we'll take a brief recess, and then go in camera.

Go ahead, Mr. Murphy.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mine may have been covered, I don't recall. We're talking about Internet service providers, and when I asked for the 30-second question in the interim you mentioned Facebook and that it was American. But Facebook is made available to people through Internet service providing companies in Canada, I would suggest, so would they not be caught by this, number one? I think the answer is yes.

Number two, what Internet service provider consultation have we had? This piece of legislation we agree with. Even the minister, however, said it's really just a first step or it's a step. It strikes me that those witnesses have a huge stake in this: that is, the people who provide Internet services, ISPs, have a huge stake in this. If they're not in this room listening to this, they should be. If they're not willing and able to come quickly as witnesses, they should be--even necessarily, maybe, the thought of demanding that they come, but let's not go there.

But you're our safety blanket here as a department. What kind of consultation did you have with the people who are affected directly by this legislation? Could you give me a relative degree of consultation?

[Normand Wong]

I've personally worked in this area since 2000, so for about ten years I've been working on child sexual exploitation over the Internet, and I've had many occasions to meet with members of the ISP or telco community.

In developing this legislation I had the opportunity to speak to a number of key players from that community. As the minister has stated in his speeches and in the press release, we've tried to tailor the bill as closely as possible to the business arrangements or business processes of the larger ISPs we've talked to. Those ISPs basically constitute 90% of all Canadian subscribers, so it covers the vast majority of them.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Could you give me an idea of the number? Is it under 100?

[Normand Wong]

In terms of the ISPs?

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Yes.

[Normand Wong]

Under ten. Well, under ten in terms of major ISPs. Some of the smaller ISPs through the Canadian Association of Internet Providers, which is an independent body that represents 30 or 40--

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

But I guess what I'm getting from what you're saying--

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

We're going to keep it short, because we're not doing another round.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Well, I'll talk to you later.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Ms. Jennings, one short question.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

A very short question.

Our researchers here provided us with an excellent document analysis of Bill C-22. There were a series of technical questions that I found fascinating. I don't believe you have time to respond to them now, but perhaps you would respond to them in writing to the committee through our chair.

It's section D of the report produced for the committee entitled “Technical Questions”, point 4, and then it has a series of questions. And the ones that are particularly of interest to me are the zombie computer issue and the territorial application of the law. I'd like you to respond to all of the questions in writing through the chair to the committee.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Does anyone at the committee have objection to requesting that those questions be answered? No? All right.

If you could do that and then pass it through the chair, we'll circulate the answers to the committee.

All right, what we're going to do now is just suspend for a couple of minutes as the room clears and then we'll go in camera.

[Proceedings continue in camera]