Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona talks about criminalizing people, putting people in jail because they have done something. If they are taking part in a fraudulent act, the Criminal Code will cover it. If they are trying to defraud someone of money, this is an instrument in catching those individuals and pressing the criminal charges that apply. They are not getting off scot-free.
Let us take a look at sending out spam. What is the intent of this legislation? The intent is to stop spam. The individual the member referred to sent out millions of spams. I do not know what the number is but it was a huge number and it was very annoying. What is the intent of this legislation and how would this do it? It would cause him first to declare bankruptcy. He would be shut down. Second, he would stop spamming. When we look at it, for most people declaring bankruptcy is a bit of an inconvenience, if not a complete embarrassment. It would cause someone to stop.
If someone is a repeat offender and causes problems over and over and keeps spamming, bankruptcy can only be declared so many times and suddenly the person has a problem coming up with money. I am not sure what we are going to get as we cannot get blood from a stone. The intent of the legislation is not to criminalize someone unless it goes to the next step and there is fraud committed. The intent is to stop the spamming from continuing and that is what the bill would accomplish.