Mr. Speaker, I find it interesting that the Bloc Quebecois makes the statement that the minister has dropped consumer interests over industry interests with this legislation.
I remind the House that the Bloc voted against government legislation like that of Bill C-20, amendments to the Competition Act intended to fight deceptive telemarketers. This legislation was intended to protect Canadians from coast to coast. Our seniors are a particularly vulnerable population who are targeted by telemarketers and consumers in general. The Bloc voted against that legislation.
On Bill C-54 I remind the House and the hon. member from across the way, and the divide is pretty big on this legislation between the two sides of the House, that without consumer confidence in electronic commerce industry that industry cannot grow. Canada has an interest in seeing that it is one of the players in the electronic commerce industry nationally, across North America and internationally.
The government understands that the key to successful electronic commerce is to establish trust with consumers. That is one of the main objectives of this piece of legislation. It will do it.
This legislation will create the condition so that there will be consumer confidence in this budding electronic commerce industry in Canada and will then allow us to become a major player internationally. We have to put the person back into personal information, and this legislation does that.
Let me inform the hon. member from that wide divide across the other side of the House that there are quite a number of organizations that promote consumer interest.
Those consumer organizations, to name a few, are the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, La Fédération nationale des associations des consommateurs de Québec, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association and Option consommateurs from Quebec, my native province.
When it comes to the use, collection and disclosure of personal information this bill represents concrete action, something this government is known for doing. We take concrete action. We deal with issues one at a time but we deal with them. We do not let them live on, destroy confidence of investors, of Canadians, of Quebecers like the PQ government does in Quebec with the referendum issue. But I digress. Let me come back to the main point.
I am a Quebecer. Quebecers already have good legislation in Quebec on this issue. This legislation is not impeding on that legislation. It complements that legislation.
The opposition, particularly the Bloc, does not want to say that because, as the PQ, it wants to muddy the waters in order to push its agenda forward, whether or not that agenda is in the best interests of the people of Quebec and the people of Canada. We see it again here. It is muddying the waters, distorting information. If I were a journalist and those members were journalists we would call it yellow journalism. But they are not journalists.
These amendments will create consumer confidence in Canada in our budding electronic commerce industry. This legislation complements the legislation which exists already in the province of Quebec, my home province, my place of birth.
This legislation will also complement the actions which are already being taken by community organizations and public interest groups. This legislation will allow them to do their job better. This is concrete action to ensure Canada has the real opportunity of becoming a leader in the electronic commerce industry today and tomorrow.
