Mr. Speaker, I am privileged to speak today on Bill C-353 presented by a colleague. He is someone the House has grown to know as one of its foremost members in terms of generating ideas. Many people talk about creating ideas, but in the context of the private sector it is interesting to know that the hon. member who earlier styled himself as a techno peasant. He should not be so willing to deprecate himself with such terms. He has earned the esteemed role of the wizard of ideas within the House of Commons.
It is interesting the House would be seized with an idea that is of the 21st century. The Internet is something that we all know is one of the most interesting modes of communication. It has gripped every country and can be translated for many people around the world in various forms, whether music, sending information, raw data or transmitting important information to people.
Every month the growth on the Internet worldwide is anywhere from 15 per cent to 20 per cent. The current world usage is some 50 million. That number will be closer to 250 million as we reach the advent of the next millennium.
The hon. member has taken a personal experience and tried to contextualize it, to make it relevant to the House of Commons. He has given the House of Commons and the committee that will hopefully treat this with relative speediness an opportunity to understand the importance of how we are to regulate.
My hon. colleague from Dartmouth indicated earlier how we need to get above and beyond allowing the mob, the underworld or unsavoury elements from taking control of the growing area of gambling. There are certainly ethical considerations dealing with gambling as there are ethical considerations dealing with the Internet in terms of pornography and the dissemination of hate literature.
The House must at some point quickly come to grips with those issues, lest Parliament be treated as irrelevant in the age of cyberspace. Compliments of the help of the hon. member for Broadview-Greenwood, we are allowed to begin to look very seriously at the question of the Internet. We can also look at the question of where the federal government can best use its authority.
Because the Internet is interprovincial-it is also extraterritorial-it makes no sense to have the provinces look into it from a regulatory point of view and to regulate those companies which would receive information so that those who are gambling not only within Canada but around the world might have an opportunity to know they are doing so within a trustworthy context.
Trust is very important in this context. Canada is considered a leader not only among the G-7 but certainly around the world. It is important to note that because we are basically a country that has a high degree of trust when it comes to relationships and transactions of various types. We are in the very unique position of being able to actually look forward to a day when we might be able to regulate this industry.
Other members will have an opportunity in the next few minutes to relate their interests in the bill. However I will summarize mine as being the ability to license it, to regulate it and ultimately in the interests of the taxpayer to tax it so that billions of dollars that might potentially be leaving the country might remain here.
Let us follow the wisdom of the hon. member for Broadview-Greenwood. Let us get the bill into committee and let us keep the bad guys out of it. I applaud the hon. member for his wisdom, foresight and his ideas. May the wizard live long.