Evidence of meeting #50 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was deregulation.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
4:35 p.m.
Executive Director, ARCH Disability Law Centre
I think your question is won't the market just follow the aging boomer population?
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
No, I'm saying that usually, when there's a need somewhere, that companies and industry move towards that need because—
4:35 p.m.
Executive Director, ARCH Disability Law Centre
It hasn't proved to be the case for disability. It may be that there are many different kinds of disabilities, so one adjustment or one accommodation doesn't fit all.
I'd like to look at a situation slightly outside of telecom. When you use your bank card at an automatic teller, people who are blind regularly ask the person beside them for help and give them their pin number and ask if they'll help them do their banking, because the banking industry just simply has not come across yet. That's the same for phones, and it's the same in the telecommunications industry. Mobile phones, as I said earlier, until extremely recently in Canada had not started to respond at all, and we've deregulated them. So it does not respond.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
March 21st, 2007 / 4:40 p.m.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
If I understood what Mr. Van Kesteren said earlier, there will soon be wholesale prices for seniors, since the population is aging.
Mr. Proulx, you said that you were prevented from having access to 500 km of fibre optic cables in Prince Edward Island. Ms. Léger spoke earlier about a duopoly. Since we began hearing witnesses on deregulation, we have noted that two major players will decide who uses their lines or wiring. I think that the fact that you were not given access to the 500 km of fibre optics shows blatantly that you were not selected as a player to compete with them. So we will continue to say that deregulation is necessary, so that everyone can benefit from it.
Ms. MacDonald, a little earlier, you mentioned an amount between $25 and $29 for phone service, $55 for the Internet, and $79 for cell phone service. It will take some time for us to see competition in the larger centres, even in that price range.
As for people with disabilities, I think the proof is there that people will have no choice but to use the same service. In the health sector, some people with disabilities cannot use the Internet. That could be made possible if a voice-activated system were available, but I do not think we are there yet. We are monitoring development since the start of the hearings. Ms. Léger, you made a very eloquent presentation, and we support your remarks.
That leads me to my question: who will benefit from this deregulation?
4:40 p.m.
President, Xittel Telecommunications Inc.
We are currently serving 50 communities, and in every case, they are the ones who asked us to come up with a solution to the fact that they did not have broadband access. Everyone has heard Bell's advertisement where the beavers explain how nice it is to have broadband access. However, many communities do not have access to it.
When we go into a community to offer high-speed Internet, we work in partnership with the communities and our principle is to offer service that is no more expensive than in the cities. But in doing so, we run up against the dominant companies, who use the very high costs in regions to subsidize the battles they are waging in the large cities.
For example, the factor is 10 to 1 for the same broadband capacity in a region and in large urban centres. In addition to the fact that citizens no longer have access to the same services when they do not live in densely populated regions, the situation is such that industries and businesses that are increasingly reliant on electronic business move. For the dominant companies, that changes absolutely nothing, since they drop one Bell service for another Bell service, or they remain clients.
We serve rural communities, but we are unable to have fair access to the infrastructure because we are stealing part of the monopoly's market. Deregulation works in large urban centres, but it is untrue to say that it works in rural regions. There are always monopolies, and it is not profitable for other players to enter the market. As soon as we try to do it, they throw a monkey wrench into our plans by refusing to grant us access to the infrastructure and circuits.
So deregulation may work in large urban centres according to the law of the jungle, if I can put it that way, but that is not the case in rural areas. There will continue to be a monopoly, even with deregulation, and companies will require assistance through more comprehensive deregulation.
4:40 p.m.
Staff Lawyer, British Columbia Public Interest Advocacy Centre
Briefly, I also agree with the comments from Mr. Proulx. In terms of who would benefit, I would say it would be urban areas. I also believe the middle class would benefit by having more choice. I don't think they're going to see better prices as a result of that choice, but they will have more choice available to them in the urban areas.
4:45 p.m.
Executive Director, ARCH Disability Law Centre
From our point of view, you'd have to say it's the companies that don't want to provide it, or that it's a bother. It's not that they don't really care about people with disabilities, it's just that we're a tack-on.
There have been 38 decisions at the CRTC dealing with disability. When we've done our litigation there and asked the questions on the interrogatories, the companies have said they do everything the CRTC tells them to do with respect to disability. Literally, that's a quote. They say they have always complied, but, no, they don't have a disability program and they don't have an accessibility program on their own.
So our view is that we must have regulations with respect to accessibility, because nothing will happen. There's a list here of the 38 cases, and this is all in response to the CRTC's regulation.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
4:45 p.m.
Spokeswoman, Quebec Coalition of Internet Service Providers
Deregulation is, nevertheless, necessary, but we believe that if it is done in a disorderly fashion, it will benefit the companies that have market share.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for coming out. I do have a question I'd like to follow up on with Ms. Léger.
I see you're a chartered accountant, and you're a spokesman for the telecom people, I guess. You say that if there is no more competition, then there's no competition. I'm not sure what you mean by that, because if there isn't competition, then there won't be deregulation. Do you have a comment on that?
4:45 p.m.
Spokeswoman, Quebec Coalition of Internet Service Providers
What we're saying is that if the private or the non-dominant players disappear from the market, there will be no more competition. We will remain with the two major or dominant players in a specific region.
When I talk about the duopoly, this is what I mean. It's in a specific region. Competition will totally disappear, and it will be up to the two only remaining players to fix the innovations and prices.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON
Do you understand the report, what it says, and what the recommendations are then? That isn't what actually happens, I don't believe.
4:45 p.m.
Spokeswoman, Quebec Coalition of Internet Service Providers
What we're saying is that their report itself says there should be deregulation to improve competition. If only some parts of the recommendations are implemented, the result that will come from a partial implementation will be a totally opposite effect from what the government is looking for.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON
We talk about the second phase requiring changes to existing legislation to be implemented. Part of that recommendation is going to be a three-way test. Can you comment on that?
4:45 p.m.
Spokeswoman, Quebec Coalition of Internet Service Providers
Right now, we do not think and we don't say that the three technologies.... You can have competition among the three technologies. Wireless and local lines are complementary, but they are not competitive right now. We are not there with the network. We'll wait for the results of the tests, but we don't believe this is the case.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON
Then the requirement for the deregulation would not be happening.
You actually made a comment about discouraged, disorganized deregulation. I don't know what your terminology for that is.
4:45 p.m.
Spokeswoman, Quebec Coalition of Internet Service Providers
What we're saying is that recommendations were made to lead into a very organized regulation. If we take some recommendations only partially and forget some others, we will have some holes.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON
In fact, in the recommendation it says that it needs to be done in two phases.
4:45 p.m.
Spokeswoman, Quebec Coalition of Internet Service Providers
We agree that there are going to be some phases. It's impossible to regulate a market all at once, but there needs to be a full analysis to associate recommendations together, in order to ensure that there are no holes and that we don't miss some recommendations.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON
Can I go to Ms. Gordon just for a second, please?
Actually, some of the comments you have made are sort of startling. We've been here for just a short period of time, but over all these years under regulation, none of the issues that you've brought up—and they're serious ones—for the disabled have been looked after. That's what you're saying.
4:50 p.m.
Executive Director, ARCH Disability Law Centre
There have been some that have been looked after, but only subsequent to the CRTC ordering it.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON
And that's when we're under full regulation. What I'm wondering about is this. When you make these suggestions, who should make the equipment available? I think you talked about other jurisdictions having the equipment. Actually, you made some good comments about the impaired. I'm not too sure what the total definition of “impaired” is, but on this thing here, they're kind of difficult, regardless of what you do.
