Lawful access bill to be re-introduced into Parliament

Getting tough on crime is one of the new Conservative Party of Canada’s key priorities for this session of Parliament.With this in mind, the government has decided to get the ball rolling again on lawful access. Bill C-74 was introduced last fall, but died on the order table when Parliament was prorogued in November 2005. Discussions between industry stakeholders and the federal government have already taken place, according to some close to the issue. The fruits of those discussions are still unknown, but it is expected that the government will re-introduce the bill without any major modifications. A representative from the office of the Minister of Public Safety Emergency Preparedness Canada (PSEPC) Stockwell Day didn’t return phone calls by press time seeking comment on details of the new bill or when it might be re-introduced into the House of Commons. There is uncertainty with respect to the timing of the re-introduction of the bill, with some suggesting it won’t be until the fall while others believe the government is going to move much sooner than that. While it was welcomed by industry players for attempting to update Canada’s decades-old wiretapping laws when it was read in the House on November 15, 2005, Bill C-74 was also criticized for introducing provisions that weren’t previously believed to be in the bill. Small communications providers appear to be particularly vulnerable from a financial perspective as a result of the transition plan. A coalition of industry associations, including the Canadian Association of Internet Providers, the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association and the Information Technology Association of Canada, has been trying to convince the minister that changes should be made to the original bill. Bernard Courtois, president and CEO of ITAC, tells Network Letter now is the time to try and get concerns with C-74 addressed: he says the government appears to be listening to the industry’s concerns. But, he adds, there isn’t a sense yet on what particular changes, if any, will be implemented in the bill. The main concerns are still the same, though, at least for the small communications providers. Tom Copeland, chair of CAIP and president of eagle.ca, highlights the costs associated with complying with the legislation and the proposed three-year sunset clause for small providers to become compliant with the law as being the biggest concerns for small Internet providers. "Certainly, the bill as it was presented last time isn’t out of step with what’s perceived to be conservative interests. So at this point we don’t anticipate any big changes to ," says Copeland. Dave Elder, VP of regulatory law at Bell Canada, was also unhappy with the one-year transition, plan noting in an interview with Network Letter last year that it didn’t make sense (NL, Nov. 23/05). "We thought that once the bill came into force we would have a year before we actually had to put any equipment into play that would have lawful access capability, and that would allow us to do our usual long-range planning," Elder said. "What it does instead is it gives us a year where the Act doesn’t apply to new equipment that we put in during that year, but when the year is up we have to retrofit all that equipment, which is worse. We thought we would really get enough of a heads-up because our obligations are not going to crystallize until this legislation is actually passed." Elder also noted that service providers shouldn’t be required to pick up the tab for what is a policing matter. "We see this as a downloading of policing costs onto a particular industrial sector, and I don’t think that’s appropriate," he explained.

Lawful access bill to be re-introduced into Parliament

News | 05/25/2006 4:00 am EDT

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