Evidence of meeting #11 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was businesses.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
I bet you'll get a chance to answer. I get to ask very few questions.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
Others may have strong views on this. Do you see major obstacles in Canada to the development of e-commerce?
4:25 p.m.
Director, Customer Solutions, UPS Canada
My comment there would not about an obstacle but is an observation. The cost of setting up e-commerce, getting it up and running and completing a first shipment, is similar in Canada and the United States when you look at the total cost. One of the realities is that their domestic market is much bigger. So the payback can be faster if you only look at the domestic marketplace. It is a reality.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
4:25 p.m.
Director, Customer Solutions, UPS Canada
No, I'm not talking of just the Internet service.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
I mean, the cost of Internet service is one of the things we've heard about as an obstacle. Would you agree that it's an issue in Canada versus the U.S.?
4:25 p.m.
Director, Customer Solutions, UPS Canada
In some markets, I think it is more expensive. Although, when you look at the total cost of getting up, getting a warehouse, getting your product, and getting ready to sell, I think your total cost is going to be similar north and south of the border.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
I want to ask about spectrum, but I should give Mr. Rupcic and Mr. Maduri a chance to answer the first question, if they'd like. I would like to go on to the spectrum issue, so it's up to you.
4:25 p.m.
Vice-President, Core Network, Globalive Communications Corporation
Very quickly, I think it is about consumer trust. It is about knowing that you can take your cell phone and use it to buy things. I think we certainly are becoming more PC and Internet access savvy, but it's just about trusting the device as being capable of buying things. That is one of the key roadblocks.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
Mr. Maduri, I think you're going to want to talk about spectrum.
4:25 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Xplornet
It's an important issue to our company.
But again, on digital literacy, what is the number? Seventy-five per cent of Canadian households have a working PC and 25% don't. It's those small percentages, it's about the danger of those small percentages. Twenty-five percent may not sound like a lot. Fifteen percent of Canadians don't have access to broadband. These are all small percentages, but when you do the Venn diagram, it results in a number that I think is debilitating to the advancement of e-commerce and mobile commerce.
This is my final comment. We talk a lot about the state of mobile in Canada, and the state of broadband. Never underestimate the challenges of the Canadian shield and the Rockies, meaning the challenges of geography and low population density. If we were Montreal, Toronto, or Vancouver, and we looked like Singapore, some of those challenges wouldn't be as significant, but we're Canada. We've got some great big cities that are easy to serve, and then we've got a lot of space in-between. It's what makes the country great. It's what makes the country challenging to knit together.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
So in view of those challenges, how are we doing in Canada on the rollout of spectrum versus the U.S.?
4:25 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Xplornet
I think we have an issue. Frankly, I think all countries with a significant rural challenge have the same issue. How do you get enough infrastructure into the rural parts of the country? The U.S. has an issue similar to Canada's, which is that gaining access to spectrum is challenging. Remember, the things that make rural areas challenging are the elements of geography and low population density. So we're already disadvantaged from a cost structure standpoint. Wireless and satellite negate or offset that risk and problem, but we need spectrum to be effective, and the rules to gain access to spectrum are really challenging.
4:25 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Xplornet
As an industry, we're awaiting the new spectrum rules. We don't know what they're going to look like, and my hope is that they will address the rural issue. If they don't, we're back to talking about subsidies, subsidies, and more subsidies, when in fact the challenge is spectrum, not subsidies.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
Has spectrum been rolled out slowly in Canada as compared to the U.S.?
4:25 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Xplornet
I can't comment on that. I know that neither country has addressed the issue of how to partition urban and rural, and that's a real issue.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
That's the big focus for you. You're saying it has been a mistake, I guess, to hand out segments of bandwidth to companies without segmenting them. We've essentially been saying in some cases that you've got this segment for the whole country, without saying, no, you'll have it for this area but not another, because we're going to give it to somebody else.
4:25 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Xplornet
To be clear, the mobile people need it for a different reason. We need it for fixed networks. What I'm saying is that the rules don't enable us to get spectrum on a cost-effective basis. I don't want to negate what folks are saying about mobile, or all the great things you're talking about in terms of mobile commerce, but right now, that's an urban construct and an urban opportunity, until we get spectrum in rural communities.