Madam Speaker, earlier there was a discussion in the House about enforcement and making it work, and this is an area of serious concern. The member has now raised the criminal element, which is not part of the bill effectively, except that the spam aspect is only one aspect of the problems we are facing. They include matters such as spyware, malware, computer viruses, phishing, viral attachments, false and misleading emails, and use of fraudulent websites and harvesting electronic addresses, all of which cause a lot of difficulty to individuals as well as businesses.
My concern, and that of a number of constituents, for a very long time has been on the issue of phishing, particularly with regard to those representing themselves as being a bank, using official logos of banks, and suggesting that an account has been suspended and if people respond to it, it will be taken care of for them, which is of course simply a mechanism to get people drawn into a problem.
The question has to do with international collaboration with other countries because most of this stuff does not happen or does not originate within Canada. The bounds of our legislation only allow us to deal and to monitor those basically in the domestic environment. The question for the member is whether or not this legislation has maybe missed the opportunity to set up a specific body with resources to be able to collaborate with international partners, all the other G8 countries who are there already with good legislation, to find out and track down those who are a big part of the problem in Canada.