The Government of Canada has suspended the implementation of the
private right of action in Canada's anti-spam legislation
(CASL).
The provisions in connection with CASL's private right of
action were scheduled to come into force on July 1, 2017. They
would have given people the ability to seek damages against those
who contravene certain sections of CASL, including the provisions
with respect to sending commercial electronic messages, as well as
certain sections of the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic
Documents Act.
The coming into force of these provisions was repealed by an
Order in Council on June 2, 2017. The short preçis
associated with this Order remarks that the coming into force was
suspended "in order to promote legal certainty for numerous
stakeholders claiming to experience difficulties in interpreting
several provisions of the Act while being exposed to litigation
risk". The Government made the announcement on June 7, 2017,
in a
