Industry Committee on Jan. 11th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank, Mr. Généreux.

Mr. Sorbara, you have five minutes.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Welcome to all of our witnesses, and good morning to all of my colleagues.

Over the break period and the time we had in our constituency offices, I was able to meet with some stakeholders with regard to AI—with some folks who are much greater subject matter experts than I profess to be. I asked them specifically to frame AI for me so I could understand it better. One individual wrote something to me that has helped me understand, because AI includes everything from putting waves on your app to showing you how to get home by the quickest route.

The framing was, first, that it is for diagnosis or analysis using AI-defined patterns and insights more quickly than humans can find them. The second element is that it can propose action plans or generate content using further insights to determine what actions would provide the most effective outcomes while reducing risk—and I'm going to emphasize reducing risk—as much as possible. This is where content generation shines. This includes the ability to generate travel itineraries, treatment plans for health, essays—and I'll preface that by saying one should not do something wrong on the essay side—videos, music and much more. The third element is automation. In certain cases where it is appropriate to do so, one can give the AI system the autonomy to take the appropriate actions without human intervention.

When I think about this ecosystem and these three elements that this individual so nicely laid out for me, I think to myself that we have this bill in front of us and we need legislation and a robust framework that will allow AI to evolve—because it is evolving, and hopefully in areas such as health care it will be able to be used in a very effective manner for diagnosis and treatment. I think that's quite exciting.

Given those three elements and the thoughts on them that I've laid out, in terms of this AI system and the framework, does the current bill have the robustness to handle the evolving technological innovation that we are seeing within AI?

Todd, perhaps you can answer or comment on that, and then I'll ask the gentleman beside you, depending on the time.

[Todd Bailey]

Absolutely.

Thank you for the question. I think it's a great question.

We all struggle with understanding what AI is, partly because we are prone to thinking that it's one thing, and it's not.

With respect to what is in part 3, or AIDA, right now, I think you have two pieces. There's the high-impact AI portion that we've talked about, and then there's also the general-purpose technology. Both are mirroring what's in the EU, but in terms of defining what the high-impact areas are, I think we will not be able to capture everything that AI is going to become, so we need to start somewhere. I think this is a good start. I think some wordsmithing needs to be done because the definitions are a little bit broad.

When you move over to the general-purpose technology, this is also causing issues now. President Macron in France has said this general-purpose technology regulation is a little bit misguided, and we need to rethink that.

In terms of the high-impact piece, I think that makes sense and I think the approach we're taking is good.

Do I think it's perfect? No, but it's something we can work on.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Wyatt, before you jump in, I want to give some equal time to our virtual attendees. Sometimes they get lost when they're not 10 feet away and beside us.

Gillian, can you comment and add on to what Todd mentioned and what I mentioned prior to that, please?

[Prof. Gillian Hadfield]

Yes, I think it's important to act and to act now. I wouldn't want to see AIDA shelved or restarted or something. I would have started at a different place, but I do think it's important to act now. That's why I think creating an agency of some kind is important.

I think that framework needs to be general, as you've just very accurately mentioned. It's soup to nuts. It's everything across the board. We need to have a learning type of system that's going to be able respond in an agile way.

I would move ahead. I would have started at a different place, but I would move ahead for sure and leave the capacity for evolving as we discover the issues.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Okay.

With whatever time we have left, we'll go to Wyatt, and then, if there's time, to Catherine.

Go ahead, please, Wyatt.

[Wyatt Tessari L'Allié]

Thank you.

I think I agree with the comments that have been mentioned so far. There's one thing I would add in order to make the bill more robust and future proof.

Right now, in the minister's amendments, they've added value chain entities—for example, developing a model and making it available for use and operating. That value chain is still being evolved. I recommend instead using a second schedule, basically, and allowing regulations to identify the entities that need to be regulated as time progresses, so you can include things like AI hardware providers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Sorbara.

Mr. Williams, the floor is yours, sir.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses. This is great testimony.

I do apologize. I had to do some new business today.

Mr. Chair, Canadians are paying the highest cellphone bills in the whole world. I don't think that's news to a lot of people around here, but we did have testimony from the minister not too long ago, and from the CEO of Rogers, who said those prices would go down. What we've seen in the last two weeks through the news is that Rogers has indicated that they're going to increase their prices.

Stats Canada had some data out in the last couple of weeks. When we look at the numbers, we see that the average cellphone bill in Canada is $106 a month. We can compare that to Australia. Australians are paying only $30 a month. The increase is indicative of about an 8.5% increase, or nine dollars per bill. With these increases, we're going to see that discrepancy be about four times.... We're going to see an average cellphone bill of $115 per individual in Canada, and it's only $30 in the U.S. That's almost four times as much. I use Australia because Australia has the same large geography as us but a lower population—at least, it used to have.

When we look at what really needs to happen on this, I know that this committee has been adamant on focusing on cellphone prices, because we've had the Rogers CEO and other CEOs here to talk about it. The minister has been in the House saying that he wants lower cellphone bills.

He's also said that through this deal with the Rogers takeover of Shaw the cellphone bills would go down. As I indicated, this is just not the case, so I have a notice of motion. I'm effectively asking for this committee to condemn the price increases by this oligopoly, which is strangling Canadians, and to then, as soon as possible, have the CEO from Rogers and the minister here before committee so he can answer Canadians as to why prices continue to go up.

Mr. Chair, I'll read the notice of motion into the record. I move that:

Given the CEO of Rogers stated that the Rogers takeover of Shaw will result in lower prices, a claim repeated by the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, and that Rogers has increased cell phone prices this year, the committee call on the following witnesses to appear before the committee:

a) Tony Staffieri, President and CEO of Rogers;

b) Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry;

c) The Competition Bureau of Canada

And that these witnesses appear within two weeks of the motion being adopted.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Williams.

I will recognize Mr. Masse and then Mr. Turnbull.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Williams, for putting forward the motion. We did talk before committee.

What I would encourage as an amendment to the motion is that we report to the House and that we condemn as well all increases from any company and expand it a bit to include Telus and Bell and their CEOs. I think that would be appropriate for this matter. I thank Mr. Williams for bringing the motion forward and bringing it to the attention of Canadians.

Those would be the amendments that I would ask to move.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

We have Mr. Williams' motion, and now we have your amendment that we need to debate.

Mr. Masse, can you give us some exact wording?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Yes.

The amendment is that, in the interest of affordability for Canadians, the committee condemn any price increases by telecom companies in Canada, and request representatives from Bell and Telus to appear amongst committee witnesses as well, and report back to the House.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Just to be clear, does that replace Mr. Williams' motion? Would that be the new text of the motion? Is that it, or is it on top because there's...?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I've amended it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Okay, so we have Mr. Masse's amendment.

I'm just not entirely clear how the motion would read exactly because Mr. Williams had the minister invited, and now it's not in the text that you've just put forward.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. We didn't have a chance to plan this out fully, but I would just add that to his motion. His motion would stay consistent, with the addition of “That, in the interest of affordability for Canadians, the committee condemn any price increases by telecom companies in Canada, and also have Telus and Bell representatives appear at committee, and report this back to the House of Commons.”

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Masse.

We have Mr. Masse's amendment, which needs to be discussed and voted on.

Mr. Turnbull.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate this. I believe that the subcommittee report adopted at the beginning of the meeting had a way forward in relation to any witnesses that would need to be called forward on the topic. I'm not sure whether we need any reference to specific witnesses in this particular motion. I like some of the wording that Mr. Masse has suggested, but I would be more inclined to support a motion that generally framed our displeasure as a committee or our condemnation of price increases by telecom companies in general in Canada.

I would suggest that we subamend Mr. Masse's amendment to read as follows: “That, in the interest of affordability for Canadians, the committee condemn any price increases by telecom companies in Canada”.

I would propose that subamendment. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

You're proposing a subamendment to Mr. Masse's amendment.

Can you just read again how the motion would read so that it's clear for all members?

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Absolutely. Let me read it into the record: “That, in the interest of affordability for Canadians, the committee condemn any price increases by telecom companies in Canada”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

That would be the motion as it reads all in all, so there is no invitation given because, as you've mentioned, some of the witnesses suggested are already included in the subcommittee report.

We have the subamendment by Mr. Turnbull up for discussion or debate. Otherwise, I'll put it to a vote so that we can proceed.

Mr. Garon.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Obviously, we'll be supporting this subamendment. I would, however, like to remind the committee that this is a complex issue. The media told us that fees would increase. In light of that, our committee will need to study a number of structural issues. Telecommunications infrastructure is now indispensable. We need it to be able to work. It's no longer an optional part of our lives.

I'd like to refer to the notice of motion tabled by my colleague Mr. Lemire, which indicated the need to conduct a more in-depth study on connectivity, resiliency and competition. We know that the legislation to amend the Competition Act is quite advanced. Such a study would allow us to see what's happening hin that industry in terms of mergers, acquisitions and costs.

Naturally, we support the proposal before us, but it doesn't change the fact that the committee will need to undertake a meaningful and in‑depth look at the telecommunications issue. I invite the committee to move in that direction.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Do I have any other speakers to talk about Mr. Turnbull's subamendment?

Mr. Perkins.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I just have a question.

We have the main motion, an amendment and a subamendment. Did MP Turnbull read the full motion, or is that just a piece of the full motion? Can I get the full motion?