Industry committee  Good afternoon, and thank you very much for the invitation. I am a law professor at the University of Ottawa, where I hold the Canada research chair in Internet and e-commerce law. I am also a syndicated weekly columnist on law and technology issues for the Toronto Star and the

Industry committee  Thanks. I think that's a good question. I think the experience we're seeing is that, as time goes by, there are more and more examples. When people were talking about net neutrality a year or two ago, we didn't have the Vidéotron example, we didn't have the Shaw example. We were

Industry committee  I think it can have an enormous effect. In many respects, this is really where the fight is. The worst-cast scenario is that the Googles and the Amazons and the eBays pay and leave everybody else unable to pay, because the fees are simply too high. I think that in a Canadian en

Industry committee  I think it's opportune at a minimum, given that there's a move towards deregulation. It's the sort of thing we know the large providers are anxious to obtain. A net neutrality provision as part of that would probably be seen as a worthwhile price to pay as part of the broader der

Industry committee  The TPR report recognized the issue of net neutrality and raised it as a concern, and it talked about the concern particularly around blocking content and applications. If you're looking for justification from the report, it's already in there. As long as we take a full approach

Industry committee  The national task force on spam was struck by the Minister of Industry, who at that time was Robillard. We presented our report to Minister Emerson, at that time recommending a bill and recommending the specific kinds of provisions that one would find in an anti-spam bill. My und

Industry committee  I think there's real concern there as well in Canada. Network providers are finding now that at certain times of the day, upwards of 90% of their traffic is now spam. There are huge costs involved, and if one takes a look at the anti-spam legislation in many other countries, ther

Industry committee  I would only note that the scenario I just heard described really does rely heavily on Vonage and some of these other third-party providers coming forward. That's one of the reasons why net neutrality advocates are so concerned, because if you're creating a system whereby you'r

Industry committee  That's the conclusion of the TPR report. They did an analysis and took a fairly aggressive approach in assuming that the market would fill in wherever viable, but they still reached the conclusion that a sizeable percentage of Canadians will never have access. The marketplace sim

Industry committee  It will. There are a number of different possibilities. One is to look to the various municipalities and local towns and provide them with the necessary support to try to create municipally owned infrastructure to ensure they have broadband. Another is to simply invest the money

Industry committee  I think we're going to see a growing digital divide in our own country. Only a few years ago Canada was ranked second globally in broadband access. I believe the most recent ranking had us dropping out of the top ten. Unless something is put in place, there's every reason to th

Industry committee  Well, sure, the TPR report refers to this issue as well, and they talk about the development of what they call U-CAN to provide universal access across the country to broadband connectivity. So the TPR report, if you take the time to ensure that you address all the various issues

Industry committee  I think there was reference to it just now, and I think it has proven to be a largely successful model. But I don't think it's the only one, and I think that as we start to see an increasing number of municipalities engage in Muni Wi-Fi and the like, there are a number of differe

Industry committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon. My name is Michael Geist. I'm a law professor at the University of Ottawa, where I hold the Canada research chair in Internet and e-commerce law. I'm also a syndicated weekly columnist on law and technology for the Toronto Star and the Ottaw

Industry committee  I'd at least like to respond to your first comment about fake pharmaceuticals, just to make sure my comments are clear. I first noted that I felt health and safety issues were the top priority on this particular file. When I suggest there was only one such incident, I'm quoting