18 electronic documents to avoid dealing with a variety of formats; private sector parties can set their own rules by contract or other agreements. Under the Canadian federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, 7 federal departments and agencies may “opt in” to the e-government initiative and begin using electronic means of doing business when they have the necessary technology in place in order to deal with the issue of whether government departments are technologically equipped to deal with e-government. There is a provision for making regulations using electronic versions of forms and methods of filing or otherwise submitting information to a department or agency. The Canadian province, Ontario, takes a different approach in the Electronic Commerce Act, 2000.8 While no one is required to make or accept an electronic document, consent may be inferred from a person’s conduct if there are reasonable grounds to believe that the consent is genuine and is relevant to the government ministries and other public bodies, however, consent must be explicit. Thus, a public body need only do business electronically when it is in a position to do so. In New Zealand, the rules of courts and tribunals will govern whether and to what degree they will accept the use of electronic technology for court purposes (as opposed to accepting electronic documents as evidence in a case). In addition, New Zealand expects government departments to issue guidelines as to when they will or will not accept electronic communications: e-government websites with forms and the availability of e-mail addresses on websites will imply, of course, that electronic communication is welcome. 2.3.12 The Canadian statutes do not apply to wills, powers of attorney for property or personal care, trusts created by will or codicil, deeds and mortgages, and election documents. Part of the rationale for this is that these are documents where there should be only one copy, an original in the traditional sense, and part is that these documents may require the more ceremonial act of a traditional handwritten signature. Most ecommerce laws provide for some exceptions and these are the common ones. In New Zealand, in addition to similar exemptions, certain types of notices must continue to be in writing. Some jurisdictions make exceptions for notices of cessation of service from utility companies, for example. 2.3.13 E-commerce legislation takes a functional approach. For example, legal requirements found in statutes that documents be in writing is considered to be based on the need to ensure that the document be 7 8 S.C.2000, chapter 5. S.O. 2000, chapter 17.