Canadian Heritage committee  In terms of the remaining gap, I think it remains a given that the last 2% is the hardest to reach. It's always been that way. It was the way with the traditional telephone system. It's the most challenging geography and the least dense population, so that even with a subsidy, th

Canadian Heritage committee  Last year's official statistic, which just came out from CRTC, was 95%. We're working towards closing that to 98% by 2012.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes. That was the data collection period.

Canadian Heritage committee  In response, could I clarify your question? I'm not precisely sure what you mean by “different approaches”.

Canadian Heritage committee  I would like to say that I think we all have common objectives. Common objectives are promoting innovation, competition, and investment. Concerning the particular case that you've just mentioned, I think that the Prime Minister has said that this decision on usage-based billing i

Canadian Heritage committee  It's an excellent question. I think the response is that the strategy is in progress and that there is a consultation on the digital economy strategy. A wide range of views have been expressed through various forms of online consultations and submissions. The minister made an int

Canadian Heritage committee  We have a consultation on this that was launched at the end of November. The consultation period will close at the end of February. It's a wide-ranging consultation. We are asking wide-ranging questions about the state of competition in Canada in the wireless sector and about typ

Canadian Heritage committee  We regard 1.5 megabits as the minimum, and we have some good progress to report. According to the CRTC, at the end of December about 82% of Canadian households had access to five megabits. I think we're already at a good standard. We have done that mainly through private sector

Canadian Heritage committee  You were suggesting that wireless be considered as a....

Canadian Heritage committee  In terms of the provision, I think you have to distinguish between carriage and content. Telecom services are the carriage of the actual telecom signal. What is regulated under the Telecommunications Act is separate from what's regulated under the Broadcasting Act. The wireless s

Canadian Heritage committee  Speaking for Industry Canada, I would point to the digital economy strategy, because I think our minister has really laid a very clear vision of where we see the priorities. There are five priority areas. The first is to have world-class infrastructure. Another is having business

Canadian Heritage committee  The question is with regard to the impact of changes in foreign ownership rules, including legislative and regulatory changes, on Canadian content and culture. In June of last year the government released a consultation paper inviting views on foreign investment in telecommuni

Canadian Heritage committee  We will turn now to the fifth question: What could be done to ensure that all Canadians, no matter where they live or what their socio-economic status is, have access to emerging and digital media? The Government of Canada has adopted an approach that consists in enabling compe

Canadian Heritage committee  There is a program to address that need, the Broadband Canada program. There are already 220,000 households that will be served through that and there will be additional funding forthcoming through that. And that was the priority of the economic action plan.

Canadian Heritage committee  It's done by a competition process. There was a mapping to identify all the unserved communities. We then asked for tenders from the private sector who would then come back with their bids. The communities have been identified that will be served, so that's in the process of bein