Madam Speaker, the hon. member for Kelowna—Lake Country and I have been on the industry committee for a couple of years and I have enjoyed his interventions there as well.
The hon. member has raised a very good point. The testimony we had regarding the cost was vague. Between $1.5 million to $2 million was the suggested cost in setting it up. It does seem eerily familiar in terms of other registries set up by the government. That is why we insisted on an early review of it.
It is very important to note that a big change could happen in terms of some of the charitable organizations or businesses in that their calls may whittled down, but at the same time they will have to pay for this registry. Small businesses are affected by this and they would not necessarily have the same resources in structure or finances to weather the storm of change as some larger businesses might have. It could be significant. That burden cannot be passed on to them alone. There has to be a greater accountability.
The CRTC seemed a little surprised that it would be enrolled through that system. It begs the question, is that the best vehicle for doing this? Will it have the proper support from the government under its current mandate as well as this additional duty to do the job effectively and not pass off a system that might become so dysfunctional or difficult to deal with that the costs escalate quite significantly?
There are two issues here. I spoke extensively about those groups and organizations that could be affected and I will not reiterate that. I would point out that it could lead to a list which is not very good for the Canadian public, if it is not updated as often as it should be, if it is not as accurate as it should be, or if it is not as accountable as it should be. All of those things could lead to greater frustration by the Canadian public about the value of a do not call list. If that happens, there would be an erosion of Canadian confidence in the registry, as we have seen with the long gun registry. There would be further frustration out there.
That is why we should focus on the fact that there has to be reports back to Parliament. That is not sufficient in itself, though it was the reason we insisted upon the three year review.
Quite frankly, this would mean a significant shift in our GDP if there are major changes and businesses and charitable organizations lose access to revenue. It affects not only the employees but also the services in our communities related to funds generated through telephone solicitation.
Once again, the reason that the New Democrats support it and I believe everybody in the House of Commons supports it is that at the end of the day we should have some ability to choose how we are contacted in our homes. That is why we are supporting the bill.
The hon. member raised a very important question in that it can erode the confidence of the Canadian public if the system becomes one that is not sufficiently able to keep up with the workload. We have to ensure that it will be accountable to the taxpayers.