Madam Speaker, to put this in some context, Canada is estimated to be the source of nine billion spam messages a day, which is about 5% of the worldwide spam traffic. It has been estimated by Cisco Systems that 200 billion spam messages are sent every day in this world. To put this in perspective for Canadians who may be watching this or following this issue, that is double the volume of spam messages sent last year. Therefore, it is a growing problem.
Part of what this bill would do, which follows the spam task force's recommendation from 2004, is the establishment of a private right of action to facilitate lawsuits against Canadian-based spammers. ECPA, the act under consideration, would create a new right that would allow for such lawsuits with penalties that reach a maximum of $1 million per day. This private right of action extends beyond just violations of ECPA, as it includes contravention of the new PIPEDA provision and the Competition Act provisions as well.
My friend has already mentioned that he is concerned about the lack of criminal sanctions that are in this bill, but in terms of the private civil rights of actions, I would be interested in hearing his views on whether he thinks that those will be effective in helping to address this serious problem that really irritates and affects millions of Canadians every day.