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

Industry committee  I'm done.

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 thre

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 sho

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 incu

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 pri

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

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

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  Yes.

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 sa

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

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 econom

Industry committee  Yes.

Industry committee  Well, our main desire is to have a tribunal. In our mind, a tribunal is independent from the old CRTC and the current CRTC and Competition Bureau. We are hoping for a very independent, knowledgeable tribunal that will have the power to analyze and quickly take action if there is