You may have received a chain letter with the contents shown below.
Do not pass this chain letter on; it is a hoax.
Subject: CDN Gov't Plans to Charge 5 cents
per email (per Bill 602P)
Check it out, what! What a scam!!
Dear 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 bilk 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 without pay 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 in 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 exhorbitant price for snail
mail because of beaurocratic [sic] 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
M1L 3C6
Thanks for not clogging the Internet pipes with this sludge. Please
forward this URL to anyone who would benefit this information!
