Madam Speaker, the member raised an extremely valid point. What ends up happening is that we become that international laggard that we do not want to be.
I am not only talking about this. I am talking about copyright as well. Copyright legislation has been passed and is currently in a special committee. This is one of the issues that comes up dramatically in international fora. Right now we are in the process of working on a comprehensive free trade agreement. What is comprehensive? Does that have any attachment to it? Yes, it does. The agreement is with the European Union and it will be one of the most extensive, detailed, intricate free trade agreements that we have with any other entity. The European Union and its 27 nations thereof have well over 800 million people.
The reason I raise that is because it ties into my colleague's point. This is the type of legislation that we need to be out in front on in order to get involved in free trade agreements in earnest. A lot of people will refrain from interacting with us in international fora and, even on a bilateral basis, if we do not have legislation that deals with spam emails and spam activity, or copyright for that matter that we are currently going through. It is almost like we have been catching up over the past while and it is unfortunate that we are in this situation. The government needs to improve that and, as legislators, we need to follow suit.
The member also raised the point that this deals with electronic commerce in general. Boy, is Canada a player. He mentioned that we are fifth in the world when it comes to spam. For a country of 30 million to 35 million people, that is an extensive amount of activity on a per capita basis given that we are fifth in the world. With only a small population, it gives us an idea of just how intertwined we are as nation, our citizens from coast to coast to coast, with not only the Internet, but e-commerce, copyright and free trade. We are incredible exporters but, unfortunately, if we are going to export not only the good stuff but the bad stuff as well, then we need to get our own house in order.