E-Mail Surcharge
E-MAIL SURCHARGE
The last few months have revealed an alarming trend in the
Government of Canada, attempting to quietly push through
legislation that will affect your use of the Internet. Under
proposed legislation Canada Post will be attempting to bill
email users, out of "alternate postage fees".
Bill 602P will permit the Federal Govt to charge a 5 cent
surcharge on every email delivered, by billing Internet Service
Providers at source. The consumer would then be billed in turn
by the ISP.
Toronto lawyer Richard Stepp QC is working to prevent this
legislation from becoming law. The Canada Post Corporation is
claiming that lost revenue, due to the proliferation of email is
costing nearly $23,000,000 in revenue, per year.
You may have noticed Canada Post's recent ad campaign "There is
nothing like a letter". Since the average citizen received about
10 pieces of email per day. Since 1998, the cost to the typical
individual would be an additional 50 cents per day, or over $180
dollars per year, above and beyond their regular Internet costs.
Note that this would be money paid directly to Canada Post, for
a service they do not even provide.
The whole point of the Internet is democracy and
non-interference. If the Canadian Government is permitted to
tamper with our liberties by adding a surcharge to email, who
knows where it will end.
You are already paying an exorbitant price for snail mail
because of beaurocratic inefficiency.
It currently takes up to 6 days for a letter to be delivered
from Mississauga to Scarborough.
If Canada Post Corporation is allowed to tinker with email,
it will mark the end of the "free" Internet in Canada.
One back-bencher, Liberal Tony Schnell (NB) has even suggested a
"twenty to forty dollar per month surcharge on all Internet
service" above and beyond the government's proposed email
charges.
Note that most of the major newspapers have ignored the story,
the only exception being the Toronto Star that called the idea
of email surcharge
"a useful concept who's time has come" (March 6th 1999
Editorial)
Don't sit by and watch your freedoms erode away! Send this email
to all Canadians on your list and tell your friends and
relatives to write to their MP and say "No!" to Bill 602P.
Kate Turner Assistant to Richard Stepp QC Berger, Stepp and
Gorman Barristers at Law 216 Bay Street Toronto, ON
More info on this article can be found at
http://www.Homegardening-Solutions.com/Surcharge.html