OTTAWA – Budgets are set and regulations are being drafted for the new anti-spam law, an Industry Canada official told the Senate Transport and Communications committee this week.
Bill C-28, the latest Conservative effort to enshrine anti-spam legislation, was tabled in the House of Commons this fall and quickly passed through the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology in a single hearing.
Among other things, it will give the Competition Bureau the ability to target deceptive marketing practices, the CRTC the right to combat unsolicited commercial e-mail, and the Office of the Privacy Commission the authority to fight the illegal collection of personal information. But perhaps more importantly, the Competition Bureau and the CRTC gain the right to levy administrative monetary penalties (AMPs) that can be as high as $15 million for multiple offences.
Janet DiFrancesco, director general of Industry Canada’s electronic commerce branch, told Senators that the legislation could come into force with eight months of Royal Assent. As well, regulations are in the draft stage and could be ready for a public consultation within a couple of months.
“The three enforcement agencies are working hard to ramp up and to be ready for the legislation as soon as it is in force,” she said.
With respect to the budget available for the three agencies, the government has set aside $12.5 million annually for a total of $43 million over four years. The money will be used by the agencies to hire up to 20 investigators at the CRTC and the bureau. The budget also covers 10 to 12 people to run a spam reporting centre.
The bill also contemplates the creation f a spam reporting centre that, according to DiFrancesco, “is intended to be a national clearing house or repository of information related to spam.” The centre will be arm’s length government and will work with ISPs and receive complaints from citizens.
“The role of the reporting centre would be to provide information to support the three enforcement agencies in their roles in terms of investigation and also to facilitate public awareness and help Canadians understand that everyone has a role in protecting their personal information online,” she said.
Some members of the committee expressed concern about giving the CRTC more powers. Committee chair Liberal Dennis Dawson pointed to the National Do Not Call list which only served to provide names to telemarketers. Liberal Senator Terry Mercer asked Bernard Courtois, president and CEO of the Information Technology Association of Canada whether he shared the same concern.
“Here we are talking about catching the bad guys and punishing them,” Courtois said. “To us this is like having police fight crime. We were under equipped as a nation in that area, and in this case, we actually support those powers.”
Following the two sets of witnesses, Senate committee members went clause by clause through the bill and approved it.
