Bill C-28 came into force yesterday.
As a member of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email for over a decade and participating member of the Task Force On Spam, I had waited for years for anti-spam legislation to pass in Canada. But of course the proposed bills appeared to have major issues until now.
Hopefully the spammers will leave Canada in response to this legislation, like they did in Australia, the U.K and USA when those countries passed anti-spamming legislation. And yes, this legislation covers those costly text spams, unless these are non-commercial solicitations (charities/political parties).
Additional information on this new legislation can be found at the Industry Canada web site.