HOAX: Fwd: RE: federal e-mail tax????

["Jean-Francois Avon" <jf_avon@citenet.net>]

I, too, tried to locate the barrister's firm of Berger, Stepp and Gorman but could not locate it.  I used http://canada411.sympatico.ca/

Garry Breitkreuz is a canadian federal MP (Reform Party).

==================BEGIN FORWARDED MESSAGE==================
>From: "Breitkreuz, Garry - Assistant 1" <BreitG0@parl.gc.ca>
>To: "'dave hammond'" <dhammond@cadvision.com>
>Subject: RE: federal e-mail tax????
>Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1999 15:30:02 -0400

>Dear Dave:
>
>1.Bill 602P does not exist. 
>2.Neither the government or Canada Post are preparing to table legislation
>of this nature.
>
>A Reform MP, has attempted to contact the Toronto lawyer who is working to
>stop this legislation.  Apparently, the individual and the firm and do not
>exist.
>
>Thanks, Dennis

[Dennis Young is the Parliementary assistant to the Hon. Breitkreuz]
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[via the Canadian Firearms Digest]

Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1999 05:39:43 -0600
From: "Steven W. Klassen" <steve@geonexuscorp.com>
Subject: surcharge on email

The following was sent to me by a friend.

Steve Klassen (klassens@acm.org)


- -----Original Message-----
From: <name withheld> 
Sent: Thursday, April 15, 1999 1:42 PM
Subject: ...

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.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 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
MlL 3C6

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