Madam Speaker, the Conservative Party will be opposing Motion No. 6 put forward by the Bloc.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-20, a bill that we had hoped would be expedited so as to provide our law enforcement officials with more tools in their ongoing battle with telemarketing fraud.
Recent estimates have put telemarketing fraud figures at $50 billion annually in Canada and the U.S. A quick calculation tells me that this equates to over $137 million each and every day. I ask that members pardon my frustration, but I have to wonder why we are allowing even one more day of delay on this issue.
Perhaps these amendments are reasonable. However, I believe that deceptive telemarketing provisions are already adequately addressed by legislation.
I must add that perhaps if this motion, as well as the preceding ones, had been introduced at the committee stage we would have had the opportunity to study them in an in-depth fashion. That is the purpose of our parliamentary committee work. Once again I feel that we would be slipping into an indiscriminate approach to legislation if we were to pass this motion. This could only lead to shoddy legislation, and the PC Party will not be supporting it.
Let us stop battling semantics and let us get on with the job of battling crime.