Debates of Oct. 19th, 2005

Questions on the Order Paper

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Motions for Papers

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, Notice of Motion for the Production of Papers No. P-4, in the name of the hon. member for New Brunswick Southwest, is acceptable to the government, subject of course to the usual reservations concerning confidential information, and the documents are tabled immediately.

That a humble Address be presented to Her Excellency praying that she will cause to be laid before this House copies of all exchanges between the government of Canada and the government of the United States of America relating to the proposed construction of a liquid natural gas facility at Eastport, Maine, and of the possible passage of liquid natural gas cargo through the Canadian waters of Head Harbour Passage.

[The Speaker]

Subject to the reservations or conditions expressed by the parliamentary secretary, is it the pleasure of the House that Motion No. P-4 be deemed to have been adopted?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

(Motion agreed to)

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, would you be kind as to call Notice of Motion for the Production of Papers No. P-17 in the name of the hon. member for New Brunswick Southwest?

That a humble Address be presented to Her Excellency praying that she will cause to be laid before this House copies of correspondence between Commanding Officer Gordon Sellar, or his widow, and the Departments of National Defence, Veterans Affairs, Health, Environment and Justice concerning the use of, and compensation for the use of, chemical defoliants at CFB Gagetown.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I am informed that the Departments of Environment, Health, Justice and National Defence have indicated that they have no record of correspondence with Commanding Officer Gordon Sellar or his widow. Under the Privacy Act, Veterans Affairs Canada is obliged to protect the personal information of individuals from unauthorized disclosure.

I therefore ask the hon. member to withdraw this motion.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, under the rules of the House, I ask that this matter be transferred for debate.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Mr. Speaker, now that this matter was so effectively dealt with, I would ask that all other Notices of Motion for the Production of Papers be allowed to stand.

[The Speaker]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Request for Emergency Debate

[The Speaker]

The Chair has notice of an application for an emergency debate from the hon. member for Vancouver East, and I will hear her now.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I provided notice to you yesterday under Standing Order 52(2) to request an emergency debate on a situation of grave concern involving a labour strike in western Canada, and specifically the federal government's mandate to meet and report on its international obligations under the ILO treaties, specifically ILO Convention No. 87 signed by Canada in 1972. That convention ensures the freedom of association and the protection of workers of the right to organize.

In B.C. the provincial government unilaterally imposed a contract on teachers in the absence of fair collective bargaining and flies in the face of a recent ruling of an ILO tribunal that found the B.C. government to be in violation of the convention, which is very troubling.

In Brooks, Alberta there is a serious situation of intimidation and continuing violence undermining the basic rights of workers to organize and bargain for a fair agreement. This situation, I believe, requires national attention and action to meet our international obligations under the ILO.

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I implore you to consider the urgent situation and the need for Parliament to act and to meet its international obligations. I hope that you will agree to my request for an emergency debate.

[The Speaker]

I thank the hon. member for Vancouver East for her able submissions on this point. I have read the letter she sent me. I have heard her comments today, but in my view at the moment the request does not meet the exigencies of the Standing Order, and therefore I decline to grant an emergency debate at this time.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-37, An Act to amend the Telecommunications Act, as reported (with amendment) from the committee.

Telecommunications Act

[The Speaker]

There are 10 motions in amendment standing on the notice paper for the report stage of Bill C-37.

Motion No. 7 will not be selected by the Chair as it could have been presented in committee.

All remaining motions have been examined and the Chair is satisfied that they meet the guidelines expressed in the note to Standing Order 76(5) regarding the selection of motions in amendment at report stage.

Motions No. 1 to 6 and 8 to 10 will be grouped for debate and voted upon according to the voting pattern available at the Table.

I shall now propose Motions Nos. 1 to 6 and 8 to 10 to the House.

[David Emerson, Liberal, Minister of Industry]

moved:

Motion No. 1

That Bill C-37, in Clause 1, be amended by replacing line 6 on page 1 with the following:

“41.1 Sections 41.2 to 41.7 create a legislative”

Motion No. 2

That Bill C-37, in Clause 1, be amended by replacing, in the French version, lines 17 and 18 on page 2 with the following:

“rapport sur l’utilisation de la liste d’exclusion nationale pour cet exercice.”

Motion No. 3

That Bill C-37, in Clause 1, be amended by replacing, in the French version, lines 36 and 37 on page 2 with the following:

“aux termes de l’article 41.2 pour les besoins d’une liste d’exclusion nationale ne”

Motion No. 4

That Bill C-37, in Clause 1, be amended by replacing, in the French version, line 4 on page 3 with the following:

“ci est faite — a une relation d’affaires en cours,”

Motion No. 5

That Bill C-37, in Clause 1, be amended by replacing, in the French version, line 6 on page 3 with the following:

“sion quant à la”

Motion No. 6

That Bill C-37, in Clause 1, be amended by replacing, in the French version, line 13 on page 3 with the following:

“lois provinciales pour les besoins d’une élection”

Motion No. 8

That Bill C-37, in Clause 1, be amended by replacing, in the French version, lines 4 to 6 on page 4 with the following:

“« relation d’affaires en cours » Relation d’affaires qui a été créée par une communication bilatérale entre la personne”

Motion No. 9

That Bill C-37, in Clause 1, be amended by replacing, in the French version, lines 38 and 39 on page 4 with the following:

“doit maintenir sa propre liste d’exclusion et veiller à ce qu’aucune”

Motion No. 10

That Bill C-37, in Clause 1, be amended by adding after line 45 on page 4 the following:

“(5) Subsections (3) and (4) do not apply in respect of a person making a telecommunication referred to in paragraph (1)(f).”

[Jerry Pickard, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to begin the process of the report stage debate on Bill C-37, an act to amend the Telecommunications Act.

The bill would augment the powers of the CRTC to establish a more effective regime to protect the consumers against unsolicited telemarketing while protecting their privacy.

The bill provides the legislative framework for the creation of a national do not call list.

The bill enables the CRTC to do three things: first, impose fines for non-compliance; second, establish a third party administrator to operate a database; and third, give the ability to set fees to recover costs associated with maintaining the list.

Bill C-37 has been reviewed in detail by the Standing Committee of Industry, Natural Resources, Science and Technology. In its report to Parliament, the committee recommended amendments to the bill, including an exemption from the national do not call list for survey and polling firms for the sole purpose of collecting information from the general public

The committee's recommendations also required a caller to identify the purpose of the call and the person and organization on whose behalf the telecommunications are being made.

The committee recognized the importance of the survey and polling firms in collecting opinions of all Canadians to support research and to allow companies and organizations to make sound decisions.

However there are unintended consequences of these amendments for survey and polling firms that could possibly create unrepresentative samples of the Canadian public created by unreliable survey results. If survey and polling firms do not have the ability to contact all Canadians, this could create a misleading survey. The survey results would be, at best, a subset of Canadians, the opinions of individuals who are not on the do not call list, instead of capturing the views that represent all Canadians.

In addition, if a survey and polling firm has to identify on whose behalf the call is being made, the possibility of biasing the survey exists.

I am proposing the following amendment that further clarifies an amendment adopted by the committee by adding a new subsection 41.7(5) that would read:

notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, subsections 3 and 4 do not apply in respect of a person making a telecommunication referred to in paragraph 41.7 subsection 1(f).

As originally intended by the committee, survey and polling firms would be exempt from the do not call list and would continue to be allowed to collect information from all Canadians.

Also, there are a few housekeeping matters that need to be addressed. Section 41.1 of the bill, as introduced at first reading, stated “sections 41.2 to 41.5 create a legislative framework for a national do not call list”.

In its report to Parliament, the committee recommended amendments to the bill by adding new sections, sections 41.6 and 41.7. During the reprinting of the bill, section 41.1 was not updated to reflect the new sections added at committee.

Lastly, we are proposing administrative amendments to improve the French terminology for the national do not call list. I am proposing to amend section 41.1 to accomplish that. This amendment simply acknowledges the new sections of the bill adopted by the committee.

I urge the hon. members to support the amendments to the bill so that we move forward to give individual Canadians an easy way to curtail intrusive telemarketing while protecting their privacy.

[James Rajotte, Conservative, Edmonton—Leduc, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak today to Bill C-37, an act to amend the Telecommunications Act. The debate centres around the government's latest set of amendments in an effort to establish a national do not call registry and whether or not the registry will be workable and fair.

I want to discuss several of the amendments that are before us today but first I would like to reiterate the position of the Conservative Party on the bill and on the establishment of a do not call registry in general.

As I have said before, the Conservative Party does support the establishment of a national do not call registry within parameters that are clearly defined by Parliament and with reasonable exemptions provided for charities, political parties, polling firms and companies that wish to contact their current customers. That was our position at second reading on the bill and that has been our consistent position throughout the debate on the bill.

When we first debated the bill in December 2004 there were no exemptions at that time laid out by the government. In fact, many would say that the bill, as it was first introduced, would have created quite a mess. Even witnesses from the CRTC stated that they wanted some exemptions clearly defined by Parliament. It was also evident that the bill would be facing stiff opposition from a number of sectors for being too rigid.

The government did realize that it would face opposition to the bill from various sectors and various parties. Early on there was talk of a dual registration type system where the government considered allowing individuals to either receive calls from charities or register to receive absolutely no calls from anyone else. We, in our party, did not see that as an efficient way to handle the registry and the list. The creation of two lists, in our view, would have been an inefficient way to do that.

As the bill progressed through the House and into the Standing Committee on Industry, Natural Resources, Science and Technology, there were some problems with regard to the length and breadth of hearings. Many groups complained that hearings were cut short or that they were not heard at all. The only witness from the private sector who was called as a witness was a representative from the Canadian Marketing Association, which our party certainly regretted. We felt that any interested parties who wanted to come before the committee should certainly have been allowed to do so.

As members can tell, there is a lot to discuss in the debate when it comes to the creation of a do not call registry.

I would now like to address charities. For those witnesses who did appear at committee it became very clear that a number of exemptions would have to be in order to allow charities to continue to use telemarketing to ensure their survival. The first amendment that was passed in committee allows registered charities within the meaning of the Income Tax Act to be exempt from the national do not call list.

Dr. Gordon Hope, member and program coordinator for the Canadian Council of the Blind appeared at committee on May 4, 2005 and stated:

Because of the nature of the impairment of our members, communication with them and by them for public awareness, membership recruitment, and fundraising is best done through the auditory medium of the telephone, as verbal communication, better than any other form, meets the standard of accessible exchange of information, something that many would argue is a human right. It is conceivable that Bill C-37 could cause the Canadian Council of the Blind to cease to exist as we know it if alternatives to make up for the effects of this bill cannot be found.

We also heard from Ms. Dawn Regan, the director of finance and fundraising for Mothers Against Drunk Driving. She said:

Not only would Bill C-37 have a devastating financial impact on MADD Canada, it would cripple our ability to effectively serve Canadians. We have public awareness campaigns, educational programs, victims services, youth outreach, and legal education, as well as fundraising efforts. The vast majority of these activities occur by using the telephone as our primary communication tool.

As we can tell from the testimony, it is very important to continue to allow charities to use telemarketers.

Another issue that has received a lot of attention is that of existing business relationships. The do not call registry in the United States allows telemarketers to call a consumer with whom it has a voluntary established business relationship for up to 18 months after the consumer's last purchase.

Both small and large businesses argued in submissions to the committee that they needed to communicate with their existing customers. Thus, an exception was made to do so.

The committee also felt that calls made for the sole purpose of collecting information for a survey of members of the public should be allowed. This amendment, along with amendments to allow political parties or candidates for electoral district associations, allows for freedom of speech and for get out the vote campaigns.

The example here is to allow a candidate from any party, or even an independent for that matter, to actually phone people, offer what they offer in terms of service to the country and, after they have identified some supporters, be able to phone those persons to get them out to vote on election day. It is a very important part of our political process.

Part of my speech addresses a motion which unfortunately, I think has a bit of a technical problem. I hope we can get unanimous consent after my speech to introduce the motion because I think it is an important one. Motion No. 7 allows for an exemption for calls made for the sole purpose of soliciting a subscription for a newspaper of general circulation. I support this amendment. It is about literacy and freedom of speech. Newspapers contribute to the democratic dialogue in Canada. In fact, section 2(b) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects the freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including the freedom of the press.

We would consider the bulk of the remaining amendments before us to be administrative. Because of the number of changes made in committee, changes had to be made to correct the bill. In addition, there are a number of corrections that must be made to the French version of Bill C-37.

Motion No. 10 is perhaps the most complicated amendment we are dealing with today. There are now a number of practical exemptions to the national do not call registry. However, Conservative members of the Standing Committee on Industry want to make sure that those organizations that have received an exemption do not prove to be a burden on Canadian consumers. The Conservative Party member of the standing committee made motions to require exempt organizations to do two things.

First, charities, political parties, businesses, et cetera, at the beginning of the phone call must identify the purpose of the call and the organization on whose behalf the call is being made. Canadians would know immediately who is calling and why.

Second, even though they are exempt from the national registry, charities, political parties and businesses must keep their own do not call registry. If people do not want their bank to call to remind them that their mortgage is up for renewal, even though they have an existing business relationship with that bank, they can be asked to be placed on the do not call list. This responds to some of the concerns of many consumers. Even though there would be an exemption, and they agree that some exemptions are reasonable, for certain exemptions they could still be asked to be put on a do not call registry for that specific company, charity or whatever.

However, one of the amendments we are considering today grants an exemption to the exemption, if I could put it that way. Motion No. 10 allows polling companies to make calls without identifying their clients or the purpose of their call and does not require them to keep their own do not call list. The question here is, why? Why would we allow telemarketers who conduct surveys to do so anonymously? There are two reasons in this case.

First, it is believed that if people know the polling firm is calling on behalf of a particular political party, their answers may be influenced by that and therefore skew the results. Second, the government believes that polling firms should not be restricted as to whom they call, otherwise the sample or the results could be skewed.

I would like to address the whole administration of the system.

We have reviewed the amendments to Bill C-37, both the amendments passed in committee and the amendments on the order paper which are before us today. The package of amendments taken as a whole is a good start in the creation of a national do not call registry. I am pleased that the registry would be reviewed by Parliament after three years. This is one of the changes which was asked for at committee and was granted. It will be very important to evaluate how the exemptions are working, if anyone is violating the law and the effect it will have on the Canadian economy.

Like it or not, the telemarketing industry has been Canada's number one job creation industry for nearly 20 years. Statistics Canada reported in May 2005 that employment in this industry grew by 447% between 1987 and 2004. The average growth for all service industries during the same period was a comparative 37%, which is obviously a big difference.

For the Conservative Party the next big challenge is the administration of the do not call registry.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the CRTC, is empowered to deal with telemarketing in Canada. However, it has complained for a long time that its powers were restricted and thus it could not regulate and monitor telemarketing effectively. In May 2004 the CRTC stated in a National Post article that it was not equipped to administer a national do not call list. However, the CRTC is now charged with making this registry work.

A government press release on December 13, 2004 stated:

Once the legislation is in place, it is expected that the CRTC will undertake consultations to find an administrator, to determine how the list will operate and how much it will cost, and to consider whether any types of calls should be exempt from the Do Not Call List. The implementation of the list by the CRTC will follow these deliberations in due course.

Mr. Richard French, vice-chairperson of the CRTC, appeared in front of the standing committee to discuss, among other issues, the future administration of the registry. He said:

—at the moment there is no clear indication of what the government's intentions might be with respect to recovering the costs of just under $2 million, which we estimate would be one-time start-up costs. Furthermore, our best efforts to plan a rapid calendar for implementation indicate to us that it will take some 19 months, at the fastest, between the time Parliament passes the law and the time we could begin to operate a national do not call list.

It is my understanding that a third party will be contracted by the CRTC to maintain and operate the list. I hesitate to remind the House that anytime we set up a registry in this country, we have to keep in mind another registry implemented by the Liberal Party of Canada which turned into an absolute fiscal disaster. I am talking about the firearms registry which in 1994 the then justice minister said would cost $2 million, but I think he meant to say $2 billion because that is what it is approaching right now, sadly to the detriment of all taxpayers in this country.

When I spoke to this bill at second reading, I outlined some of our concerns with respect to the administration of this database. Parliament must continue to seek out details as to how the registry will be run. For instance, how will the list be maintained? How will the list be accessed? Who will maintain the list? What will be required of telemarketers? How often must they check the list? Will there be a maintenance fee for telemarketers? These are all questions that must be asked and must be answered in my view to Parliament itself.

I have spoken with the CRTC and have outlined my concerns and I appreciate its attendance to them. Some of the amendments that were made in committee will allow Parliament and Canadians to keep abreast of the administrative workings of the registry.

In conclusion, the Conservative Party does support the establishment of a do not call registry within parameters clearly defined by Parliament and with reasonable exemptions provided for charities, political parties and companies that wish to contact their current customers.

I am looking forward to the public hearings and the public tender of the contract to administer the database from the CRTC. It is my hope we can create a workable list that will strike a balance between the interests of Canadian consumers first and the contribution telemarketing makes to our economy, as well as the interests of groups such as charities and political parties to continue to contact those people they need to in order to survive, especially with those who have an existing business relationship or voluntary business relationship.

I look forward to the creation and the operation of this list. I hope that all my colleagues in Parliament will support not only the amended bill that was done with a lot of work at committee, but the motions before us today.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Rivière-Du-Loup—Montmagny, QC]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on his presentation, and all my colleagues who have worked on this bill in committee.

We had to start by getting a clear picture of the situation and identifying an appropriate approach. We have all received unsolicited telephone calls at one time or another in our lives. We must, however, make sure that any legislation to curb this problem will not have a significant negative impact, particularly on democracy.

That is why amendments were put forward. We have also had to look at the normal way of doing business. These amendments concern registered charities. It is understandable: without protection, they would have been condemned to die. These amendments deal with business relationships, which means professionals, individuals who have not requested an exemption, political telecommunications and opinion polls. Their purpose is to ensure that democracy can continue to play its proper role. Otherwise, there would have been a glaring contradiction between our commitment to democratic debate in Canada and a bill restricting the ability to have such a debate.

There was an amendment that all parties were prepared to accept, but unfortunately the speaker ruled it out of order. It would have allowed the exclusion from the legislation of a telecommunication made for the sole purpose of soliciting subscriptions to a widely distributed newspaper. This amendment, presented by the government, received support from all parties, but the Speaker of the House ruled it out of order.

I have a question for my colleague. If he had wanted this amendment to be deemed in order, would it not have been pertinent for this type of amendment to be made to this bill? Furthermore, should we not be doing our jobs as parliamentarians and allow such a thing? I do not know how this could be done.

Nevertheless, I am addressing the hon. member during this period for questions and comments in order to get his opinion on this issue. I think we all agree that we did a professional, constructive and serious job on all the other amendments, but that the work deserved to be completed by this additional amendment. If this amendment is not made to the bill, then there may be a significant economic impact. We have to find a way to do this.

I want to know whether my colleague agrees with me that this amendment should be made to the bill. Would he like to have the same type of support from all the parties in this House, including the government, in order to obtain the desired result?

In my opinion, all the widely distributed newspapers in Canada want this type of intervention. This is a matter of democracy. Information is distributed by television, radio and the Internet, and also by newspaper. If this bill is not properly amended, it could have a major negative impact on those who buy these papers. Does my colleague agree with me on this? Would he like this amendment to be made to the bill?

[James Rajotte, Conservative, Edmonton—Leduc, AB]

Madam Speaker, my colleague is a very hard-working member of the industry committee and I commend him on his work. All members of that committee worked quite diligently to amend this bill for the better.

He is very correct in that the bill was really inspired by concern about the calls that we and our constituents receive, which we perhaps find to be increasingly annoying or come at times of the day or evening when we would not like to receive them. It is a desire for Canadians to have a registry on which they could put their name to not receive those types of calls. As my colleague pointed out, there were reasons to provide exemptions to charities or other organizations and businesses with which there is an existing relationship.

In response to his specific concern about the newspapers, we did agree to a motion and the government put it forward, to its credit. My understanding is the Speaker felt that the amendment could have been moved at committee. I would take the liberty of saying to the Chair that this is in fact true, but one of the issues was that the people who wanted the amendment put forward for one reason or another were not able to put it forward at committee. Therefore, the government has moved Motion No. 7, which reads:

That Bill C-37, in Clause 1, be amended by replacing lines 23 to 26 on page 3 with the following:

“(c) for an electoral district;

(f) made for the sole purpose of collecting information for a survey of members of the public; or

(g) made for the sole purpose of soliciting a subscription for a newspaper of general circulation”.

In response to my colleague's question, if we could seek unanimous consent to allow this motion to be debated, I think there would be unanimous consent to debate it and then to pass it. I would certainly support the motion. I think all members of the House would support it. If that is the proper course, I would seek unanimous consent to debate and pass this amendment and thus improve the bill even more.

[The Acting Speaker (Hon. Jean Augustine)]

Is there unanimous consent?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Edmonton—Leduc for his speech and contribution in committee. I know he worked hard, as we all did, in the spirit of a cooperative Parliament to get a bill improved with amendments that make it a lot more palatable. It is a first step.

In his speech, the member referenced a number of significant consequences on charitable organizations through this bill, either by accident or by changing their procedures over the next few years if they are denied an opportunity to reach their supports and the people who have contributed to their charities for years. Does the member believe the government has a responsibility, as I do, to intervene by improvements to charitable tax donations as well as supports for those organizations to ensure there is an offset?

I come from a community where there were changes in the bingo industry, which resulted in a significant loss of revenue for hospitals, schools, basketball teams, associations and groups because the laws had been changed. The definition of how to acquire those types of supports was then denied but there was nothing to fill the void. We now are witnessing a significant impact.

If there is a subsequent negative consequence on a charitable organization, I hope the government would take action through the Income Tax Act to make it more advantageous for individual Canadians to give to charitable organizations and to provide some supports to ensure organizations do not crumble because of the situation in which they might find themselves.

[James Rajotte, Conservative, Edmonton—Leduc, AB]

Madam Speaker, I recognize the work that my colleague did. I also recognize the vice-chair of the industry committee, the member for Kelowna, who carried an issue for us at committee. In fact, there was an issue on which we found a lot of common ground in committee, even if we did not always agree. I know members of the Bloc and the NDP wanted to expand the exemption for charities to all non-profit organizations. Even though there was some disagreement, I thought there was a very good spirit in the committee in general.

With respect to the member's specific question about registered charities and the effect the bill might have on them, that is one of the reasons why I think the committee decided to put in a three year review. It wanted to see the effect of the bill not only in terms of how it works but also its effect on charities. The quote I read from the two groups that appeared before committee illustrates the serious impact it may have on these charities and we obviously want to mitigate that.

I have a lot of sympathy for expanding or increasing the charitable tax credit. How much, I do not have that specific information. It is interesting that our political tax credit is more generous than a charitable tax credit. For many years I have thought that should be equalized. A charitable tax credit should be as much as a political tax credit.