For your question, I want to let you know why we're doing that. I think it's important to put it in context.
Recently the OECD issued a very interesting paper, based on a study about why we want to have more market forces in the telecom sector, why we want to have more deregulation in Canada's telecom sector.
The study estimated that the growth in Canada's business sector productivity could have been much higher. It would have been 1% higher every year between 1995 and 2003. I'm saying this because—and it's not me, it's the OECD—if we didn't have the overregulation that we have in this country, we could have better productivity for our economy as a whole. If we had aligned our regulation with that of the least restrictive country in each sector, we would have had that 1% increase between 1995 and 2003. This 1% more per year makes a huge difference after a few years, and I think you're going to agree with me.
But there was another important observation in the OECD study. Excessive regulation has a worse effect in sectors that produce and use information and communications technology intensively. So telecom is an example. It's even more important to have less and better regulation in this sector.
This is why we decided to deregulate the telecom sector, so that the economy as a whole would benefit.
In the end, this will have an impact on productivity growth in this country, because as you know, excessive regulation has always been a huge cost. This cost is more important in the telecom sector, because it's so important for the country's innovation and productivity.
Answering your question concerning
Access to services provided by wholesale Internet access or telephone access resellers is very important. That is why we asked the CRTC, in the policy direction which is currently in effect, to strike the right balance between market forces and regulation in this segment of the telecommunications industry.
We also recognize that mandatory access to wholesale services is needed to promote competition, and the CRTC is currently reviewing that. The CRTC is the most appropriate agency to regulate that segment of the industry, if need be, and ensure that Internet service is accessible, particularly broadband, all across the country.
We want to ensure that deregulation does occur, and that it occurs in an orderly manner, and that service providers…