Good heavens! What won't the government do next!!!??

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 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


Because I care,
<+]::-{)}  (Cyberpope(the Bishop of ROM!))


--- PPoint 1.76