Angry in the Great White North
Bill 602p?
Monday, March 27, 2006 at 11:25 PM

Read other posts by Steve Janke published by the National Post
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I got this email, and I'll quote it without naming names:

Bill 602p is being ushered through Parliament at this time, it will give Canada Post the ability to levee a charge of 5 cents on every email that internet users get. The internet provider will be sent a bill from Canada Post and they in turn will bill the user.

I have emailed my MP Rona Ambrose to suggest that I did not vote for more taxation and told her if this bill gets passed don't come looking for my vote next time. How stupid do they think the Canadian public is that Canada Post can charge a service they don't provide

I thought to myself, how can there be any bills being ushered through Parliament? Any bills died when the election writ was dropped. Parliament hasn't been recalled so a new bill can't have been submitted. And the numbering is wrong.

So I did a quick check:

A new, localized variant of the venerable modem tax legend (a perennial headache for the Federal Communications Commission in the U.S.) has swept across Canada during the past week in the the form of a bogus email alert. The message claims that the Canada Post Corporation (the post office) is pushing legislation to impose a 5-cent surcharge on every email "delivered" to Internet users...

The bogus email is shown:

Subject: E-MAIL SURCHARGE

Internet Subscriber:

Please read the following carefully if you intend to stay online and continue using email:

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.

<snip>

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
MlL 3C6

There is no firm "Berger, Stepp and Gorman", and the postal code "M1L 3C6" is for Stellarton Road in Scarborough. There is a reverse search page for postal codes, by the way.

The page has more information about this hoax, the Australian and American counterparts, and how it has been rebutted over and over again. Like a rash, though it comes back. I suppose it depends partly on people having never heard of the hoax before. I hadn't. It was only my natural skepticism that kept me from reacting.

So if you get this email, ignore it. Don't write your MP. And if you are an MP or one of the people who writes responses to letters from constituents, be nice when you tell the person it was a hoax. It's easy to be taken in by these things.

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