Madam Speaker, the one thing we have begun to find with Conservative government bills is that we get neo-con spamming. It buries these Trojans. It is just like when they warn us about the emails, we have to be very careful what we agree to because there is something buried in it that will affect our computers. With Conservative government legislation, there is always something buried in the bills that will affect the fabric of what has been a great country.
For example, the Conservatives buried the attack on pay equity in its so-called budget stimulation package and an attack on environmental protection for riverways. What that had to do with an economic stimulus is still beyond me.
Here we have buried in the bill the provision to kill the do-not-call registry. I think it is buried in there because the Conservatives have a hard time admitting when they absolutely blew it, and they blew it on the do-not-call registry.
Rather than come out and say, “Yes, we blew it”, they hid it in the legislation. However, what is disturbing is when we asked them about it, we could not get a straight answer. First we were told no, we did not read the bill. We said, yes we did. Then they looked at it and said, that does not mean what it means. We said, yes it does. Sections 41.1 to 41.7 of the act are repealed. That is the act that represents the do-not-call registry. Then they said “Pass it. That does not mean that it is repealed. It will be repealed when we decide that it is repealed”.
Again, here is a government that allows itself leeway on legislation that it wants powers to be able to strike things, start things, stop things, and then bury them in other pieces of legislation.
The concern here is that this should be a bill that is focused on dealing with fraud artists and spammers. Let us do that, but if we are going to deal with the do-not-call registry and the debacle around that, either fix the do-not-call registry or say, “This bill is going to supersede the do-not-call registry because the do-not-call registry was a failure”.
I have not seen in the bill how it would actually become enforceable or actually utilized in terms of opting-in and opting-out clauses for commercial activity. I do not think the government has thought it through and that is very disturbing.
I would finally say in response to my colleague that perhaps I read too much into the Conservatives response. Perhaps they have not read the bill thoroughly. Therefore, we need to get it to committee so that all the members of the House, especially those on the government side, will actually know what is in their own legislation