Paul Szabo

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, October 19th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I want to address the last statement that the hon. member made.

He is a very learned parliamentarian and he is aware that, once passed at second reading, the bill is approved in principle, and in referring it to a committee, one cannot amend the legislation beyond the scope of the bill. However, his declaration at the end is to somehow reserve some right to do that if he feels that it is necessary based on the committee investigation.

I would like to ask the member if he can inform the House whether his reservations in fact are in the nature of being potentially contrary to the approval in principle that we would give it at a second reading vote and whether he would like to elaborate on the nature of his potential concern.

[Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act, October 18th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, when we think about what we are trying to achieve here, certainly the international requirements make it problematic. I wish I had all of the legislation from the other G8 countries and the comparatives to find out whether or not we have covered them all.

I still think that one of the most important progressive things that we could to is to promote the public education part of the equation. I do not know how many members here have ever read the licensing agreement when they install or download a piece of software and fully appreciate it. It is like reading an insurance document with the small letters.

This seems so fundamental to me and yet I do not see, in terms of the government's approach, that commitment to a public education mandate for the Privacy Commissioner so that we as Canadians can be part of the solution to protect our privacy.

The member may want to comment.

[Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act, October 18th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the issue of communications purporting to be from financial institutions and bearing their logos I see as a problem. I have received many of those. I have provided the bank with copies of what I have received. I do not know if the member has experienced this but the banks have said that they see them all the time and there is not much that they can do.

That is where clause 61 of the bill comes in. We are dealing with something that originates offshore. A lot of the spam originates offshore and that is the problem. If there is no integration of laws between Canada and foreign jurisdictions, then our laws are not going to be worth very much in terms of dealing with the real threats to personal information and security of information.

I wonder if the member believes that the bill is sufficiently robust with regard to pursuing international agreements to ensure compatibility of the laws and the purpose of the laws.

[Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act, October 18th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to follow up on the theme of regulations.

I am not sure if the member is familiar with this. Subclause 11(5) refers to sending a communication and installing some information or a program on the computer. It lists the number of items they should not be able to do, such as changing or interfering with the settings, preferences, et cetera.

However paragraph (g) includes, “performing any other functions specified in the regulations”. It is very simplistic. In my experience on the scrutiny of regulations committee, this is close to being an inappropriate clause, because the items that would be in the regulations would not have an enabling provision in the act.

I am not sure if the member shares my concern, but I hope that the committee members will raise this when it gets to committee.

[Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act, October 18th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the more we talk about the bill, the more we understand why it was so important that it be dealt with in the last session before the House prorogued and why it should have gone to committee before second reading.

Looking at the regulations that are required, one of the things is defining personal or family relationships. If the person communicating with us is a personal or family relation, he or she is going to have to define it. It really is quite strange. It does not apply to certain classes or circumstances, as per the regulations. What are they? What is the scope of this? One that was really interesting was if a computer program was installed and performed any other function specified in the regulations other than what we thought it would do.

It is going to be very interesting for members to look at this legislation in the light of regulations, which we will not see until it gets royal assent and after the order-in-council develops them. Does the member share my concern about the regulations and does he have any experience with regard to how long it really takes for regulations to be drafted, promulgated and in fact enacted?

[Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act, October 18th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I want to touch on one other area that the member spoke about, which is quite important, and that is the aspect of public education.

As a past chair of the access to information, privacy and ethics committee, we have reviewed the Privacy Act and PIPEDA. In fact, PIPEDA is up for another legislative review. I raise this because the Privacy Commissioner has encouraged and basically pleaded with the government, particularly with the Minister of Justice who is responsible for those bills, to provide for a public education mandate and to provide the funding.

The response of the government has been that it is somewhat implicit. However, being implicit does not help because it does not involve more funding for the Privacy Commissioner to be able to do the job. This is the same problem with passing legislation that affects the Criminal Code. We can make the offences greater and ask for more enforceability but if we do not give the resources to the policing authorities to be able to enforce those laws, what good are the laws?

I would ask the member to comment on the public education mandate. He might want to amplify on how important it is that we are all part of the solution.

[Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act, October 18th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, as the member knows, I am concerned that we have waited so long. As a matter of fact, Bill C-28 was introduced in the House on May 25 and we had the first round of debate on September 27. Here we are now, about a month later, and we are continuing on with that debate at second reading. It is an indication of how the process is being dragged out by the government on important legislation such as this. However, the member laid out some interesting points.

I was looking at the bill in a little more detail and at the regulatory requirements. When we pass legislation at all stages it goes through the whole process, but there is one thing we have not seen with regard to the bill and that is regulations. The regulations are important and can have a significant bearing on either the interpretation of the application of the legislation or in terms of the impacts that we should assess as legislators. I wonder if the member would agree that maybe the government should consider presenting draft regulations to the committee before the committee completes its work.

[Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act, October 18th, 2010]

The copyright bill is another one, Mr. Speaker. How many times are we going to go through copyright?

Would the member reflect a bit not only on the inaction of the government on this bill, but also the inaction of the government in all of the major areas of legislation that Canadians need and want?

[Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act, October 18th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's comments and I do understand there was prorogation, but the fact remains that when we started this third session of the 40th Parliament, the minister had the opportunity to refer the bill directly to committee before second reading. A bill can be referred to committee right after it is tabled. The government's failure to do that showed Canadians that the government has no intention of getting its legislation through, whether it be this bill or whether it be all of its other recycled crime bills. The government says that it is tough on crime, but it just does not want to pass any bills.

[Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act, October 18th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I hope to get a chance to speak to this bill later because the bill is very important. In his speech, the minister reminded us that we are the only G8 country that does not have anti-spam legislation. He also laid out the cost. As the member also alluded to, the cost is very significant. On a worldwide basis the cost is something like $130 billion a year as a consequence of not having this legislation.

There are privacy issues as well. The minister did not spend very much time on the aspect of personal privacy information under PIPEDA, another area in which personal information is being collected by harvesting addresses.

When we consider that the bill was going along very well and there was all-party support in the House for Bill C-27 in the last session, if it is so important, why did the minister have to introduce it again and start the process all over rather than refer the bill straight to committee so that we could get this legislation passed?