Debates of Feb. 23rd, 2000

Municipal Grants Act

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

I think the hon. member is attributing powers to me that I do not have. In any event, I see that the clock now shows 5.30 p.m.

It being 5.30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's order paper.

An Act To Give Effect To The Requirement For Clarity As Set Out In The Opinion Of The Supreme Court Of Canada In The Quebec Secession Reference

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, it was not possible to reach an agreement pursuant to Standing Orders 78(1) and 78(2) with respect to the proceedings at committee stage of Bill C-20, an act to give effect to the requirement for clarity as set out in the opinion of the Supreme Court of Canada in the Quebec Secession Reference.

Pursuant to Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that, at the next sitting of the House, a minister of the crown will be moving a time allocation motion for the purpose of allotting a specified number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at that stage.

[Some hon. members]

Shame, shame.

Canada Post Corporation Act

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

moved that Bill C-229, an act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act (letter that cannot be transmitted by post), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to my private member's Bill C-229, an act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act regarding a letter that cannot be transmitted by post. Bill C-229 was first introduced in the House during the first session of the 36th Parliament by my colleague from Burlington, Ontario. At that time it was known as Bill C-409.

The current bill, Bill C-229, addresses an extremely important issue, the delivery of scratch and win cards. In responding to this issue I have heard from many Canadians and many members of the House who have supported my efforts in the subject matter of the bill. I would also like to note that the bill was reviewed by members of every party in the House and was deemed significant enough to Canadians to be deemed votable.

Bill C-229 ensures that Canada Post Corporation does not deliver contests, lotteries or prizes that require individuals to pay out before they collect a prize. The bill is about Canada Post's obligation to deliver responsible and ethical mail. It is important to stress that Bill C-229 would not prohibit Canada Post from delivering invitations to participate in contests or games, but only those that cost the participants to enter before they collect a prize.

Bill C-229 also requires that Canada Post not deliver mail that displays any logo which mimics the federal government logo. These logos are designed to deceive the recipient into believing that the mail is legitimate, that it is being sent to them by the Government of Canada. My legislation would provide for a company, if found guilty of an offence, to receive an initial fine of $5,000. For subsequent offences it would receive fines up to $20,000.

Telemarketing and mail scams have become so rampant within Canada and our society that an organization such as PhoneBusters now exists to address these scams. The statistics of PhoneBusters suggest that between 1996 and 1999 Canadians over the age of 60 had lost a total of $23 million. This represents 81% of the total moneys lost by Canadians.

PhoneBusters also report that the third most common method used to cheat Canadians out of their money is the use of 1-900 numbers. The cards indicate an all winners hotline at 1-900—whatever, for prize claim instructions. Callers are baited into staying on the line and following through a number of instructions while in the meantime the cost of the call goes up and up. As a matter of fact, in the case I have referenced in my own riding the 1-900 number costs $19.99 per minute. This information is written in very little print on the flip side of the game card. Many do not realize that the 1-900 number is not a toll-free number.

In my opinion it is unacceptable that government corporations deliver these cards. Scam Block, a local education group that visits with seniors, wrote to me in support of the bill. It stated:

Seniors often remark at our presentations that opportunities to win can't be fraudulent if they are delivered by Canada Post.

Seniors truly believe that our government would never allow a crown corporation like Canada Post to put income above the needs and the best interest of its citizens.

I stress to members of the House that the majority of Canadians affected by this issue are senior citizens. For seniors, being able to shop by phone and mail is a necessity. Unethical telemarketing practices affect the confidence of seniors who rely on using mail and phone to do their business.

We have a responsibility to consumers. The government has taken some action on this matter, but it does not go far enough. Merely to advise consumers on how to respond to cards does not prevent the financial loss that many Canadians have incurred. The legislation requires the government to proactively respond to this important consumer issue.

This summer I had the occasion to talk to CBC reporters across Canada as they followed this piece of legislation. One of the announcers talked about having to hire a lawyer to protect his father, a senior citizen, who through telemarketing fraud and mail scams had lost all his income and savings on which he relied to live. It is an important issue for Canadians.

It is this type of situation that the legislation would prevent. Scratch and win game cards are deceptive. As legislators we must take the responsibility and act in the best interest of Canadians. That is why I fully support the amendment that will be put by the hon. member for Kelowna.

I call on all members of the House to support this matter as a non-partisan issue that impacts on all Canadians. The proposed amendments will protect Canadian consumers from losing their money daily to those sophisticated criminals by ensuring that Bill C-229 is proclaimed into law. I am confident that the bill will help reduce the victimization of residents across the country.

I fully support the bill. I hope all members of the House support the legislation which will protect consumers and which is good for Canadians.

[Werner Schmidt, Reform, Kelowna, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to participate in the debate on Bill C-229 moved by the hon. member for Kitchener Centre. The intent of the bill is noteworthy. She should be commended for presenting the legislation to the House.

However, I believe there is a better venue for moving the bill along a bit faster than would be the case if it went through the route of a private member's bill. Therefore, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar:

That the motion be amended by deleting all of the words after the word “That” and substituting the following therefor:

Bill C-229, an act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act (letter that cannot be transmitted by post), be not now read a second time but that the order be discharged, the bill withdrawn and the subject matter thereof referred to the Standing Committee on Industry, and the committee address the issue no later than May 1, 2000.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

The amendment is in order.

[Werner Schmidt, Reform, Kelowna, BC]

Madam Speaker, I will address the content of the bill and the amendment in particular. The reason for the amendment is that I think there is a very strong ability on the part of the industry committee to deal with the bill in the context of the Competition Act that is law in Canada today. Therefore I will divide my analysis of the bill and the amendment pertaining thereto by distinguishing between mail and telemarketing.

The overriding concern, and I commend the hon. member for her work in this regard, is the preoccupation and the desire to protect consumers. I only wish that other members of the governing party would support and protect the taxpayers of Canada and would be as judicious in protecting the way taxpayer money is spent as the hon. member now wants the consumer to be protected from certain unscrupulous marketers.

I emphasize the fact this kind of thinking is very much in line in its outlook with both compassionate and humanitarian thinking. It is also very justice oriented in the sense that it brings to justice people who would take unfair advantage of unsuspecting people. In particular I draw attention to the provisions of the Competition Act which deal directly with the subject matter of the bill. I refer to subsection 52(1) of the Competition Act which is pertinent to this subject. It states:

No person shall, for the purpose of promoting, directly or indirectly, the supply or use of a product or for the purpose promoting, directly or indirectly, any business interest, by any means whatever, knowingly or recklessly make a representation to the public that is false or misleading in a material respect.

What is being addressed here is very clear. It is significant that we use the existing legislation to its maximum extent.

It goes beyond that. The hon. member made a point about telemarketing. The example she gave about seniors being the group that is very often targeted and very susceptible to being abused by reckless or sometimes unscrupulous marketers is very true. In this connection I will read into the record the provisions of the Competition Act dealing specifically with telemarketing. The pertinent subsection is 52.1(1) which states:

In this section, “telemarketing” means the practice of using interactive telephone communications for the purpose of promoting, directly or indirectly, the supply or use of a product or for the purpose of promoting, directly or indirectly, any business interest.

One of the business interests is to get some kind of a benefit or a prize of some kind by using the telephone. First of all they send a card or something saying that they must phone in order to collect their prize or to get the product. Then they use the persuasiveness of the voice and the persuasiveness of their personality reflected in the voice to get them to part with their money.

The bill presented by the hon. member has a fine of $5,000 rising to a maximum of $20,000. The Competition Act is far more punishing than the bill. I suggest there is a good reason it should be referred to the industry committee and the bill be withdrawn in its present form. Subsection 52.1(9) states:

Any person who contravenes subsection (2) or (3) is guilty of an offence and liable

(a) on conviction on indictment, to a fine in the discretion of the court or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years, or to both; or

(b) on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding $200,000 or to the imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year, or to both.

People who take unfair advantage of older unsuspecting people should be punished rather severely. As a consequence of their illegal action I think they should be dealt with very severely, and I think the Competition Act does that.

While I think the bill is moving in the right direction, the amendment will do what the hon. member wants done more effectively, more efficiently and more readily. Therefore I encourage all parties of the House to get together and support the amendment.

The House should recognize that it began with the Liberal member acting as a private member supported by me and by a member of the NDP. We have a really good triumvirate going here.

[Ghislain Lebel, Bloc, Chambly, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise for the second time within half an hour, this time on Bill C-229.

I have great difficulty understanding the attitude of my Reform colleague. This bill originates with a member from across the floor who is most certainly close to the elderly and other more vulnerable members of society. The hon. member obviously wants to defend these people with her bill. CThis is something to be proud of, and I congratulate her for her initiative.

Some people in our society may be rather easily misled. If they are approached with false representations, fake brands, fake images or other devious means, this is a reprehensible act. It may not be legally wrong under the Competition Act, but it is morally wrong.

I believe we need to support Bill C-229. Its objective is to assist and protect those members of our society most in need of protection. I have great difficulty, and always will have great difficulty, understanding the attitude of my friends in the Reform Party. This is not the first time either. The same thing has happened a number of times.

During the last parliament, the member for Portneuf introduced an amendment to the Bankruptcy Act, so that when assets were being distributed in a bankruptcy, employees would have precedence over the banks, and the wealthy. To my great surprise, Reform Party members voted unanimously against that proposal.

I remember another instance. We wanted to limit the penalty imposed for getting out of a mortgage to three months interest. Nowadays, things go so fast that the mortgage lender who is paid back before the end of the term of a mortgage hardly suffers any prejudice, since capital funds are so mobile.

Yours truly had proposed that the penalty that can be imposed by a financial institution be limited to three months interest. Again, contrary to all expectations—I did not understand then and I still do not understand now, three or four years later—the Reform Party voted against that proposal. It is as though the western Canadians, whom they represent, were all very rich and happy to pay penalties when they pay back a loan for farm machinery, or the mortgage on a silo, a house or a barn.

It is this far right attitude that makes these people difficult to understand. We have a duty to protect the most disadvantaged, those who are most likely to be affected by illegal marketing, ploys and schemes. Again, I find it hard to understand the Reform Party's attitude.

Reformers seem to think “It is a free for all. If someone succeeds in fooling an elderly person, so be it. These are the rules of the game, the rules of commercial competition”. But what about ethics?

I think that they are forgetting something important, commercial ethics. It is a question of what is right. It is not my intention to say that the Reform Party members lack moral standards, although they seem shy about expressing them here. Yet this is the perfect place.

We must congratulate the member who introduced this bill on her initiative. I hope that she will be able to introduce others in future for our consideration. If they are like this one, it augurs well.

There are parliamentarians on both sides of the House who respect their fellow citizens and are concerned about their well-being and who introduce bills that reflect this. It is not easy to get a private member's bill this far. Sometimes, it takes the signatures of 100 other parliamentarians for a bill to be debatable and votable here.

Often political life throws us into various committees. They are not the best place to make friends and it takes a lot of courage and nerve to go through the hoops anyway and approach people with whom one has sometimes had run-ins or “coltaillés” as we say in French. The member for Matapédia—Matane will know what I mean by “coltaillé” as will the member for Stormont—Dundas—Charlottenburgh, who is also a francophone and knows our colourful expressions.

It takes courage to approach members individually for their signature and sometimes to get them to set aside their petty grudges. But when members succeed at this, that shows respect for democracy and for their fellow human beings. When one makes it through the procedure that the member embarked on and a bill gets this far, it is no longer the time to tear it apart and toss it into the wastebasket. It is the time to debate it. It is the time to recognize its merit. It is the time to take the necessary action.

I will not go on, but I congratulate the member. She can count on my personal support and that of the Bloc Quebecois members, because her bill shows respect for the individual.

[Dennis Gruending, NDP, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to support my colleague from Kelowna in moving that the bill be withdrawn but that the subject matter be sent to the industry committee.

This is a good procedure, as he has outlined it, as it will allow the committee to give this idea a very thorough perusal and bring it back under the auspices of the Competition Act. This procedure would, if anything, enhance the bill brought forward by the member for Kitchener Centre.

I commend and congratulate the hon. member for the obvious hard work she has done in bringing forward Bill C-229, an act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act to prevent the delivery of certain mail that perpetrates telemarketing fraud.

I note that another member introduced similar legislation about a year and a half ago which would ensure that the Canada Post Corporation would not deliver contest lotteries or prizes which would require individuals to pay before they collect the prize.

This bill would ensure that our beloved crown corporation is not used inadvertently as a tool to mislead consumers. Specifically, it would prevent Canada Post from delivering mail which displays a logo that mimics in any way a federal government logo.

I note that approximately 70% of telemarketing scam victims in 1999 were over the age of 60.

I would like to refer to the personal experience of an elderly person who was taken in by this kind of scam artistry and fraud artistry. It was not a pretty sight.

The person received mail indicating that she would be getting a prize if she made a phone call. I want to make the point that often senior citizens are lonely and talking on the phone is therapeutic. If we would call them more often it would be good for them. When they make these kinds of calls and the clock is ticking, and they do not know it is a scam, it is a particularly cruel type of fraud that is perpetrated on our senior citizens.

In the case of this person, I do not know exactly, but she lost hundreds, perhaps thousands of dollars. She was ashamed to tell her children and family members about what had happened. These scams victimize people, most often the elderly, and for that they are particularly heinous crimes.

I am glad to see a bill that will make it unlawful for the post office to be used as a delivery mechanism for scam mail. The post office, like many other crown corporations, including the CBC, has a special place of trust in our minds and hearts. It is particularly cruel when it is used for these sorts of devious ends.

I know from our labour critic and other people in our party that the people working for the post office, the mail workers and the letter carriers, are also concerned about this because they are the people who process this mail and they can see the ends to which it is being put. We have been told that the people who work for the post office would like to see something which would make it unnecessary for them to have to deal with this sort of mail. Many of them know people on their mail routes personally and are particularly concerned when they are victimized in this way.

The Canadian Association of Retired Persons has stated that its members are fully in support of the bill put forward by my hon. friend from Kitchener Centre. The association wrote: “With so many thousands of Canadians falling prey to unscrupulous persons who use the mail to facilitate illegal activities, it is vital that legislation be passed which will prevent them from doing so and will punish them if they persist”.

The organization known as PhoneBusters was mentioned earlier today. Representatives of PhoneBusters are also in support of what they call crucial legislation which can be used successfully in the ongoing battle against telemarketing fraud. They indicate that Canadian consumers have been losing money daily to these sophisticated criminals. They also indicate that they are confident this bill would help reduce the victimization of residents across the country.

I support the bill as it was put forward for many reasons which relate to its content. It is very important to many Canadians, especially senior citizens. I want to reiterate my support for the motion of my colleague from Kelowna to refer the bill to committee where it will get the kind of airing which it deserves.

Again I congratulate the member for Kitchener Centre for having introduced this legislation.

[Gilles Bernier, Progressive Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-229, which was put forward by my hon. friend, the member for Kitchener Centre.

Let me first offer my congratulations to her for taking up the torch on this important issue and for trying to find a solution to this problem so that consumers can be protected.

In the few minutes I have I would like to quickly review the problem with mail scam cards and why legislation is needed to ban them.

Second, I would like to talk about how this bill would help address this problem and how I think this bill could be strengthened to provide even more consumer protection against mail fraud.

Finally, I will talk about a private member's bill which I will be introducing shortly that is meant to supplement and strengthen this bill.

I should mention that a lot of information I received on this file came from an organization called Phonebusters. It was started in 1993 by the Ontario Provincial Police, the RCMP, Canada Post, Industry Canada and a number of other partners. Phonebusters is a national deceptive telemarketing call centre that collects complaints from throughout Canada on telemarketing deception and fraud and passes the information onto local police.

Since it began collecting data on mail fraud in 1995, it has had 2,031 complaints about scratch and win game cards sent through the mail. The game cards, or scam cards as I like to call them, invite the recipient to scratch off a box to see if he or she has won a prize which the card claims can be anything from a colour print up to $5,000 in cash.

The deceptive thing about these cards is that every one is a winner. There are no losing cards but in order to collect a prize a person must call a 1-900 number. Of course, those who call the number get a phone bill in the range of $20 to $30 and in one instance for $158. The consumer either receives no prize at all or an item of very small value. A value of $3 is typical.

Especially troubling to me is that 60% of the victims of the mail scams are senior citizens. From 1996 to 1999 seniors lost $20 million from the scam cards. That was out of a total of $29 million lost by all Canadians.

Existing legislation offers only limited protection at best. Under the misleading advertising provisions of the Competition Act persons who perpetrate this kind of fraud are seldom prosecuted and rarely if ever jailed. Even then the sentences are light and average two to six months.

For example in a prosecution involving Cave Promotions Ltd. last October, the company received a fine and prohibition order but none of the people who ran the company were punished, fined or sent to jail. There was nothing to prevent the perpetrators from closing down the company, finding a new partner and opening for business the very next day.

By comparison, the United States has an unlawful mail matter law that prevents scam cards from being delivered by the U.S. postal service. Telemarketing fraud is treated as a serious crime.

Bill C-229 is an important step in helping to protect Canadian consumers from becoming victims of these types of mail fraud. The bill introduces changes to the Canada Post Corporation Act to prohibit the post office from delivering a game card or similar item that is not in an envelope where the recipient is invited to participate in a game of chance but must first pay a sum of money or incur telephone charges in order to collect a prize.

This is an appropriate measure to take in order to reduce mail fraud. Canada Post has a monopoly on mail delivery and as a crown corporation occupies a unique position of trust in the minds of Canadian consumers. Bill C-229 is an honourable piece of legislation and my friend the member for Kitchener Centre deserves our praise for advancing this cause.

As I prepared for the debate on this bill, and as I consulted with Canada Post, I learned that Canada Post accounts for only 20% of the ad mail which is frequently called junk mail. If Bill C-229 passes we will prevent scam cards from being delivered in the mail, but that potentially still leaves 80% of the problem unresolved. One could argue that if we shut down the post office as a delivery system for the perpetrators of these scams, they will simply switch to other private delivery firms and we will not have slowed down these mail scams one bit.

What we have before us is good legislation that is well intentioned but nevertheless it has a sizeable loophole. Upon discovering this loophole I undertook to meet with the member for Kitchener Centre to discuss different options on how to close this loophole so that all Canadian consumers would be protected from scratch and win game card mail scams.

My goal was essentially to build on her efforts and to extend the prohibition of the delivery of these game cards to include all organizations, not just Canada Post. We looked at the possibility of amending Bill C-229 but learned that in order to make this an all inclusive bill would require passing amendments to either the criminal code or the Competition Act which would be outside the scope of this bill.

After further consultation, I decided that the best way to accomplish this would be to draft another private member's bill that would use changes to the Competition Act to establish legislative protection for consumers against all forms of mail scam cards regardless of who delivers them. That bill has now been drafted and it is my intention to introduce it in the House very shortly.

I briefed my caucus colleagues this morning on the bill. I am happy to say that they are in full support of my efforts.

I have also consulted with the member for Kitchener Centre on this bill and she is supportive and wants us to continue to work together to achieve our common goals in putting an end to this type of mail fraud.

My bill uses a similar approach to that of Bill C-229 which is before us today. As I stated, my bill would amend the Competition Act so that no person can deliver or have someone deliver on their behalf a game of chance that conveys the impression that the recipient has won a prize, but the awarding of that prize is contingent upon the prior payment of money or the incurring of telephone charges.

My bill would make any company liable for an offence of this sort committed by one of its employees. It would also hold liable the officers and directors of any company found guilty of such an offence.

Any person who commits an offence under this legislation would be liable for a fine of up to $200,000 or imprisonment of up to one year on summary conviction. For conviction on indictment, imprisonment could be up to five years and a fine to be set by the courts.

Faced with these consequences, I am confident that the measures outlined in my bill together with the bill before us today will help put an end to the type of mail fraud we have seen with the scratch and win game cards.

In closing, I want to thank again my friend from Kitchener Centre for the work she has done to advance this issue. I also want to thank her for working with me and for providing information and advice on both her legislation and mine.

I look forward to working with members from all parties to put an end to these fraudulent practices.

[John Bryden, Liberal, Wentworth—Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, about a year ago an elderly woman in her seventies came into my office accompanied by two other women of about the same age. I will call her Mabel, if you will, Mr. Speaker. She is about five feet high, I would say in her late seventies and she is a widow.

She came in carrying two plastic bags full of envelopes. Her friends were carrying plastic bags full of envelopes as well. They spilled all this down on the desk in my office which created a huge heap of really beautiful flashy envelopes. They were all contest envelopes. There were all kinds of contests involved: scratch and win contests; contests whereby if one purchases a book one has a chance at a million dollar lottery or cruises around the world.

The problem was, as the two other ladies explained, that Mabel had been participating in these contests for some years. In fact she was spending about $4,000 a month participating in these various fundraising efforts, all for various kinds of prizes.

I said to her that it was a lot of money for someone on her own and I asked her why she was doing this. She said, “Since my husband died I am trying to do things for my grandchildren because we never had a lot of money and there is always just a chance, just a very bare chance, that I might win and I will have such a wonderful thing to give to my grandchildren”.

The problem was that her two other friends who lived, shall we say, in a very modest high rise, were of course scandalized, but they could never persuade Mabel that these were actual scams and that she was being taken advantage of. They had hoped by coming to me, because I have the title of member of parliament, that I could somehow persuade Mabel not to continue doing this. I did try my best.

I have to tell the House that Mabel did say that she would no longer do this and she listened to me. About six months later the same friends came in and explained that Mabel was still doing it and they were really in despair.

This is the meanest kind of activity that I can imagine where people deliberately take advantage of people who are vulnerable and perhaps no longer have the ability to make the kinds of decisions that the rest of us would make, and they are also essentially poor.

Bill C-229 introduced by the member for Kitchener Centre addresses directly I think a cruel problem that everyone in society who knows of senior citizens who are vulnerable would want to see fixed.

Last year the government passed an excellent bill amending the Competition Act that was targeted on telemarketing and raised very appropriately the fines and penalties for people who carry out fraudulent or false fundraising and take advantage of people like this. But the competition bill had a big flaw.

When I sorted through the pile of envelopes soliciting money from Mabel asking her to participate in these contests for these great prizes, half of them came from the United States. There is nothing in the Competition Act that enables us to stop this type of thing flowing across the border and taking advantage of senior citizens like Mabel.

I do not know all the implications of this legislation and how it would be enforced with Canada Post or indeed whether it is possible to enact legislation that prevents Canada Post from passing on this type of literature, this type of mail solicitation.

But, Mr. Speaker, if it is at all possible, then I think the industry committee should consider this issue very thoroughly and make a recommendation so that we can solve this problem once and for all and stop these people in the United States and elsewhere in Canada from taking advantage of some of the most vulnerable people in Canadian society.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

The question is on the amendment. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the amendment?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

All those in favour of the amendment will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And more than five members having risen:

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

The recorded division on the amendment stands deferred until tomorrow, February 28, after question period.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

The House has another 15 minutes before we proceed to the adjournment proceedings. Because the requisite members and parliamentary secretaries are not in the House, we will retire to the call of the Chair.

(The sitting of the House was suspended at 6.14 p.m.)

The House resumed at 6.16 p.m.