Madam Speaker, you were right to point out that it is the riding of Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière. There could be some minor confusion since my colleague is the member for Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-de-Beaupré et l'Île-d'Orléans, Montmorency referring to the falls.
But let us get back to the real issue. At first glance, Bill C-20 may seem important and interesting, but it includes some provisions that the Bloc Quebecois does not like. This is why we are proposing some amendments today.
Before explaining these, I remind members that Bill C-20 is, for the most part, patterned on Bill C-67, which had been introduced in the House before the election. That bill died on the Order Paper because the Prime Minister decided to call a general election earlier than expected. Indeed, instead of waiting four years, he called the election after three and a half years. Thus, Bill C-67 died on the order paper.
The bill was reintroduced last fall, and we had to start the whole legislative process over again, including committee work. We again heard witnesses, such as representatives of the competition bureau and those of business people and consumers. A lot of people have noted that the legislative process can be lengthy, for all governments, but especially for the Liberal government, which preferred to call an election rather than continue its legislative work.
That said, I think it is high time we legislate deceptive telemarketing. We must be very careful. We do not want to prohibit telemarketing here. In this technological and communications era, it is a modern, practical and efficient tool. But over time, some people have come to use it to make fraudulent sales over the phone or by some other means.
For example, in its bill, the government neglected to include the word “Internet”, but we will talk about this later. In our opinion, it really must be included in this bill.
The United States recognized the problem much earlier than did Canada. Some organizations are talking of losses of $40 billion for individuals. So this a significant phenomenon.
In Canada, the same groups are citing a figure of $60 million, probably because they have not managed to grasp all the ramifications of the problem. Deceptive telemarketing occurs not only nationally, but internationally. It is therefore not limited by borders. One reason this is the case is the reduction in long distance costs. Telephones are now available reasonably everywhere.
At first glance, going after deceptive telemarketing appears to be a good thing to do. Everyone agrees, including the members of the Bloc Quebecois. However, the government's approach seems paradoxical, to say the least. It wants to criminalize deceptive telemarketing, that is make it a new crime, and yet the bill talks of decriminalizing the penalties. That strikes us as paradoxical.
There are other paradoxes as well. Apparently to speed up the process, there is a series of fines. So then the matter becomes civil. Quebec's civil code differs from that of the rest of Canada. Quebec has many provisions regarding the whole consumer protection question. It even has an agency that deals with the issue on a specific, ongoing basis. But, in its wish to improve controls that should already have been improved, the federal government is using this bill as an excuse to interfere in provincial jurisdiction. As we have agreed, however, we will not focus on this exclusively.
What we are less happy about, though, is the manner in which the government is attempting to regulate this area. On the one hand, it wants to give the Competition Bureau's director, whom we shall henceforth call the commissioner, quite a few more powers than he previously had. He will now have sole authority for making decisions that used to be made by a bureau, following hearings, in consultation with commissioners who examined the issue with him.
Now the director, or the future commissioner administering the Competition Act, can act alone, but must give those who will be charged 48 hours' notice. Another paradox is that the bill allows companies who are breaking the law to negotiate an out-of-court solution before any hearing takes place or any ruling is made.
In our view, section 52 of the old Competition Act was preferable. The measures being introduced in Bill C-20 are measures that weaken the legislation. It is odd that there is a desire, on the one hand, to introduce tighter regulations over deceptive telemarketing, which was not regulated at all before, while, on the other, the controls are being weakened.
I took part in the hearings of the Standing Committee on Industry and people from the Competition Bureau said that they were already looking at certain situations.
It is not surprising that we are way behind the United States as far as the financial consequences for individuals are concerned. Witnesses said: “We could not list all the problems, but we have seen enough and it is sufficiently harmful to the disadvantaged, particularly the elderly with their savings, who are the most frequent victims.” It is the elderly who are most often the victims of deceptive telemarketing.
People might think that the bill would offer better protection. On the contrary, we think that the bill is weakened by this provision. The means available to the competition bureau are weakened and no one in the Department of Industry has indicated that the means or resources allocated to the competition bureau will be stepped up, yet we know this phenomenon is likely to increase.
That is the reason behind our motions Nos. 1, 2 and 3. Motion No. 1 covers everything we want. If Motion No. 1 were defeated, we would certainly move on to motions 2 and 3.
We are calling upon everyone in this House to pay close attention, because this bill has huge consequences for the entire population, but particularly for the elderly, the disadvantaged, the house-bound, who are seen as a preferred target by companies or individuals involved in fraudulent telemarketing.
Not wishing to end on a sour note, I would emphasize that there are many companies involved in very honest telemarketing. Those are not the ones targeted by either the government or ourselves. There is good telemarketing, but the target here is fraudulent telemarketing.