Industry committee  I don't think it will, because I think we'll have a mixture of express and implied consent. When you look at the notion of implied consent, we can still put some words around it, as they've done internationally, so that implied consent arises from something—from a business relationship or some other relationship—to make sure it's not completely open-ended.

Industry committee  Yes, I was going to make a point. It's really that since we've had a chance to review the bill, we've been able to identify some situations in which the installation of a computer program might be problematic, either because it's not practicable to get an express consent in every case, or because there are situations where it's not possible to comply with the form of the consent because in order to get it there have to be certain disclosures.

Industry committee  There's been debate since at least prior to the year 2000 about the appropriate form for getting consent with respect to the use of people's information, which would include address information. People had that debate back in 2000 when we were debating PIPEDA and what form of consent should be used for privacy legislation.

Industry committee  Thank you. It's true, we all get irritating e-mails. Some of them we even get from people we like, with whom we have a personal and family relationship. So there's nothing we're going to do here to avoid getting e-mails that we don't all want to get. The issue is how you properly distinguish between the good ones and the bad ones, and that's where the debate is.

Industry committee  As we mentioned in our remarks, we are very supportive of the bill in principle. We're also very supportive of the objective of dealing with spam and harmful or malicious computer programs that could have detrimental effects. We agree with the approach of opting in as opposed to opting out in the United States.

Industry committee  Yes. Thank you. If I could supplement that, I agree with a lot of what Bernard was saying. The international experience is really helpful on this, because many countries have gone before us in enacting this kind of legislation. There is now a fair consensus that Australia is a good model for this.

Industry committee  Thank you, Susanna. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to reiterate the importance of legislation to deal with problems being tackled by Bill C-27. I think everyone agrees with the basic objectives of the bill. Some of the features of the bill, however, could create inadvertent problems.