Madam Speaker, each day when we start the business of the House, we say a prayer, and at the end it says that we make good laws and wise decisions. After listening to the assessment of hon. members so far in this debate, I can say that we have missed the boat probably on both counts.
We just dealt with a bill on tax treaties with Greece, Turkey and Colombia. Part of that whole arrangement was to have information-sharing agreements. We have information-sharing agreements with more than 90 countries already around the world. We have relationships, we have tax treaties and we have trade deals with them. I think it is absolutely unconscionable that the bill does not somehow link to these relationships, that we have information-sharing agreements with regard to matters related to the bill before us now on spam.
It is $130 billion a year in terms of costs around the world for spam and the damage that it does. That is just spam. We are ranked fifth. Yet somehow the government does not seem to get it.
It has been five years since the bill first came to us. It has already been disclosed that we have not gone as far as the other G8 countries. We are the only G8 country that does not even have legislation yet, and one of four OECD countries. One member of the committee said that we are going to be playing catch-up because we did not go as far.
I think the bill is going to be a failure unless the government steps up, considers criminal sanctions, enters into international agreements with our partners in other fora and takes this very seriously because it is costing Canadians as well as the Canadian economy. Therefore, Canada is the worse for it.
I wonder if the member would care to comment on whether or not the bill is doing justice and in fact represents a good law and a wise decision.