Mortgage Broker is the magazine of the Canadian Mortgage Brokers Association and showcases the multi-billion dollar mortgage-broking industry to all levels of government, associated organizations and other interested individuals.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/354755
Ray Basi Director of Policy & Education rbasi @ mbabc.ca MORTGAGEBROKER mbabc.ca summer 2014 | 39 legalease RIGHTLY OR WRONGLY (I say the latter) Canada's Anti- Spam Legislation (CASL) is destined to change the way businesses communicate electronically, how referrals are contacted, how a business's network of colleagues and clients is built and maintained, and how business is transacted. Mortgage brokers need to pay attention. e health of their businesses will be directly impacted. e definition of spam used to be clear. It was a specific canned pork meat product. Today it more oen refers to irrelevant or unsolicited messages sent indiscriminately over the Internet to large numbers of users to distribute advertising and spread viruses, spyware, malware and phishing programs. CASL takes the definition of spam one step further, it baits us by being presented as part of the fight against spam but then switches to addressing commercial electronic messages (CEMs). CEM is a far broader category of messages than simply spam and includes messages that are oen wanted. The problem ere are 250-300 billion emails sent per day worldwide. Industry Canada estimates 75-90 per cent of these are spam. Spam significantly disrupts business, perpetuates frauds and thes, reduces confidence in the online marketplace, congests networks, threatens the suitability of the Internet and online services as business tools and compromises personal privacy. e goal of minimizing the negative effects of spam is unquestionably legitimate and reasonable. The solution To minimize spam, Canada has enacted CASL. We are the last G20 nation to enact anti-spam legislation and we have taken the opportunity to enact what is generally recognized as the most stringent version. Most provisions of CASL came into force on July 1, 2014. Problems with the solution As much as CASL is well-intentioned, in many ways the effort is misguided and in other ways overkill. It is akin to ordering someone who does not know the difference between mosquitos, bees, butterflies and birds to kill mosquitos with a sledgehammer. e result is that there is a lot of collateral damage; many bees, butterflies and birds are killed unnecessarily and many more mosquitos than expected survive. e solution CASL presents is more detrimental to business than the challenges of spam. Some of the difficulties include the following. CASL is unduly complex CASL and its regulations are very detailed. e legislation prohibits the sending of CEMs, by way of a simple statement coupled with extensive definitions which sometimes incorporate further extensive definitions. e definitions are sometimes located in the legislation and sometimes in the regulations. e definitions are subject to detailed exclusions and exceptions that are extensive and oen themselves subject to extensive and complex definitions. CASL stipulates requirements that must be met in order to send a CEM and, as you might have guessed, they too are less than straightforward. If you think the legislation promises to be unduly complex, you are correct. A person wanting to comply with the legislation would have a difficult time determining what is needed to be compliant in sending a CEM. Bulletins have been issued by authorities to assist in the The birds, the bees . . . and CASL CASL is well-intentioned, but the effort is misguided and, in many ways, an overkill •