Industry committee  I'll refer you to the two paragraphs we took from the evidence submitted to the PN 2006-14 made by the Competition Bureau. It is very disturbing to us that the Competition Bureau has an opinion right now that is not in line with Industry Canada's view. The Competition Bureau says that wholesale access services should not be kept in the future in the telecommunications industry, while Industry Canada, in Minister Bernier's last comment on February 19, came back and said it had reviewed it, and in its view wholesale should be protected and kept as it is right now.

Industry committee  No. We're saying they should first do an analysis of the current market. Most of the companies or les intervenants in the market say wholesale access is needed for competitors to come in and build their infrastructure in the future. The Competition Bureau took an approach that was not based on an economic analysis.

Industry committee  Obviously, yes. On the entire deregulation, I think everyone agrees there needs to be deregulation. We're also in agreement with some of the recommendations of the panel and what they submitted in their recommendations. The only problem is that right now there is no formal economic analysis.

Industry committee  They are not controlled by the ILECs. What's happening is we obviously used the road of the CRTC in some actions and discussions with the various ILECs. In some of the decisions, the CRTC staff members told us it was beyond their control. Lobbying by the ILECs and cable companies is so strong and is putting political pressure on the CRTC staff members to either delay processes or the part seven we submitted took eight to nine months to be solved without any success.

Industry committee  We are saying that the answers we got and the timelines in which we got them were not reflective of the motivation or what the staff members would have done if they had been totally free in their actions.

Industry committee  I will briefly answer the first question. Three years from now, we would effectively see the disappearance of competitors who are using wholesale services today. They would stop offering service to their customers. In response to your second question, we recommend examining the entire process.

Industry committee  The issue is not only price, but quality as well. On this issue, the coalition and myself largely share Ms. Gordon's opinion. One very important point we have raised here today is network neutrality. That point is also being debated in the US. If we let infrastructure owners prioritize packets, be they those of companies that pay the most or those of their affiliated companies, those will be the ones to keep the most customers.

Industry committee  Good afternoon. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to express the views of the Quebec Coalition of Internet Service Providers, which I represent. In Quebec, the innovation which the Internet represents came from members of the coalition. At the end of the 1990s, the incumbents took control of the high-speed—DSL—and cable modem technologies, and started limiting access to their infrastructure.

Industry committee  In our minds, the way the companies are structured financially isn't important. The incumbent companies are still investing in infrastructure. In my view, the restrictions on those funds, the way in which these people can make the infrastructure operate in the future are what should be taken into consideration above all.

Industry committee  We at the Coalition believe that the general recommendation that there should be free market access is valid for every existing business because we believe that competition ultimately always protects consumers. However, the documents we've submitted to the committee contain three recommendations.

Industry committee  I'm done.

Industry committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Sophie Léger and I'm here today on behalf of the Quebec Coalition of Internet Service Providers. We represent about 14 companies with about 200,000 customers throughout the country. I want to talk about the directive to the CRTC and the strategy behind it.