Madam Speaker, I am pleased to join in the report stage debate on Bill C-276, a private member's bill proposed by the member for Sarnia—Lambton, which would curtail the use of negative option marketing in industries subject to federal jurisdiction.
The bill is remarkable for several reasons. First, it has survived so long in one form or another in spite of all of its numerous attackers, detractors and opponents. More on that later.
Second, it took a backbench member of parliament to introduce a piece of legislation protecting consumers. In my time as a member of parliament, I do not recall a single piece of consumer legislation coming directly from the industry minister himself. We have not seen any kind of progressive consumer legislation come from the government. It has always been from private members like the member for Sarnia—Lambton.
Most Canadians do not realize that the department of consumer and corporate affairs was long ago renamed the Department of Industry, reflecting quite well the concerns of this Liberal government and the Mulroney Conservatives before it.
Except for the member for Sarnia—Lambton, the Liberals care only about industry and care nothing for consumers as we have seen over and again, whether it is gas prices or all kinds of other issues. Liberals are shoulder to shoulder with millionaire hockey players and millionaire oil company execs to protect their particular situations.
Consumer affairs is now a little branch tucked away in the corner of the industry department. The consumer affairs minister is the industry minister, not that one would notice.
We only need to look south of the border to see how things might be different. There the U.S. attorney general is prepared to take on a giant company like Microsoft and win. They have anti-combine legislation which actually protects consumers. They have competition legislation which actually encourages competition.
We have an act which the Liberals have misnamed. They call it the Competition Act. From all experience seen under that act, everyone I know calls it the lack of competition act because there is no competition this particular act encourages. It encourages large, wealthy corporations to do whatever they want at the expense of consumers.
In Canada, when the banks come calling, the finance department and its various political flunkeys in the Liberal Party fall over themselves to co-operate and basically they cave in. It did not work, however, with this bill at the industry committee but it will be interesting to see how the junior finance minister, and the member for Etobicoke North, who both supported Bill C-276 at second reading, vote on it at third reading. I would hope they will support it as they did at second reading.
Will they vote for the bankers or will they vote for the consumers? I suspect the bankers will be first on their priority list, as they always have been, but we will be watching very closely.
I say to the member for Sarnia—Lambton that I was not always able to be at the industry committee hearings on this bill since I was also responsible for Elections Act amendments which were in committee at the same time in the procedure and House affairs committee. However, I followed the evidence and various amendments proposed, some of them constructive and some destructive, and I speak on them today as consumer affairs critic on behalf of my party.
As I said at second reading, banning negative option billing is a way to tell enterprises that where there are consumers involved, yes means yes and no means no. There is no implied consent in silence.
If they want customers to pay for a new service, they have to ask first, nicely. They just cannot ram new fees down customers' throats or sneak them in through the back door. Every consumer I have spoken with agrees with this statement.
This bill follows similar legislation adopted by the NDP government in British Columbia and by the Parti Quebecois government in Quebec.
The bill, as now amended by the committee, changes negative option marketing from a criminal to a civil reviewable offence. This amendment comes at the suggestion of the Competition Bureau which would be charged with administrating the Competition Act as amended by this bill.
There are arguments in favour and against. The criminal route has stiffer fines and can include every industry, but has a much higher evidentiary threshold and so is harder to enforce. The civil route amounts to a slap on the wrist, but it can be administered more quickly and, one hopes, very publicly. Given the public outcry against the cable companies back in 1995, we have some good evidence to believe this can be effective.
Our party reluctantly supports these changes so as not to let the purpose be the enemy of the good, but there is another unfortunate consequence. While the criminal law can apply to all industries, the civil reach of federal legislation extends to only those industries under federal jurisdiction. This limits us to the banks, the cable companies and the phone companies. Unfortunately, the insurance and trust companies and the credit unions have been dropped from the application of the member's bill.
That is what is so confusing about the latest report stage amendment being tabled by the Bloc member for Témiscamingue. The Bloc wants to exempt the province of Quebec from the bill. It claims the bill is not constitutional because it relates to commerce and other fields which come under provincial jurisdiction. If so, why does it not just exempt the whole country? Why exempt just Quebec? This approach is quite outrageous.
With all respect to my progressive colleagues in the Bloc, I do not know how in all good conscience they can oppose this bill which protects consumers in their own province. They apparently believe in the fiction that federally regulated companies comply with provincial legislation. I do not think they should rely on that when push comes to shove, especially not with the banks.
Even the Quebec consumer group, Action Réseau Consommateur, which testified at the Standing Committee on Industry, sees the need for this bill in Quebec. The Liberal government will sacrifice consumers at the altar of industry. The Bloc Quebecois will sacrifice common sense at the altar of ideology. That is appalling and, needless to say, we will oppose that amendment as the New Democratic Party as I am sure all other federalist parties will.
The banks could not defeat the bill in committee. The Bloc will not defeat it in the House. But what about the other place, the Senate, where friends of the Prime Minister are appointed to ensure that the rich and powerful have veto over common sense legislation which protects consumers?
In the last parliament the cable companies effectively sabotaged an earlier version of this bill in the Senate. This time we can expect the banks to take another try at it, unless of course we can abolish the Senate before the bill gets there.
My party believes there is substantial merit in even this modified version of the member's bill so we hope he has enough friends in the chamber of so many second thoughts. We wish him luck in the Senate.
In summary, the New Democratic Party will be opposing the Bloc's amendment and supporting the member's bill at third reading.