Evidence of meeting #30 for Canadian Heritage in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was content.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
Is there a time limit on it, such as 30 days, 60 days?
Chair, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Scott will look up the exact time limit. It's very short, that much I know.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
Okay.
In your brief you say that you'll be holding public hearings on the new media broadcasting in early 2009. I'm wondering how many public hearings you are undertaking or how many major studies you'll be having. You're expecting to have a CBC study afterwards, I think. Will there be other things? And will you be expecting to report on this in 2009 or will it take a couple more years?
Chair, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Our time for making decisions on specific applications, such as Ramstar's, is usually 30 days. In terms of our major policy ones, we just did one on diversity of voices, as you know. We did one on over-the-air television. We are just in the process of doing one on cable companies, or BDUs as they're called. It takes a bit longer, but we try to do them in the timeframe of three to four months maximum.
You have to make the decision when the evidence is fresh in your mind. You evaluate it and you come to a conclusion. Also, time marches on. The underlying facts change. So to give a decision one year after you've heard the hearing, you're--
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
Good, because that's the biggest criticism of the CRTC. I have a private member's bill asking that when public hearings are submitted or requested by the CRTC, they render a decision within six months. And that's nowhere in the law.
Chair, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
That's the past. That's not happening right now.
Liberal
Chair, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Sorry, Mr. Chair, I have the answer for Mr. Siksay.
Scott.
Executive Director, Broadcasting, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
The licence condition, the temporary licence, is September 20, 2008, so six months from the time we granted it.
Conservative
Michael Chong Conservative Wellington—Halton Hills, ON
My question is tangential to the presentation here today.
I have a question about 911 service over Voice over IP. Recently there was an incident in Calgary where a family tried to contact 911 through their VoIP provider and was unable to. My understanding is that in 2005 the CRTC issued its decision requiring all VoIP providers to comply with the decision and to provide the same level of 911 service, within 90 days, as the conventional telecommunication companies provided.
So my question is this. What sort of investigations, if any, has the CRTC undertaken with respect to this incident, and what regulatory regime is in place to ensure that this doesn't happen again? Or what plans are in place within the CRTC to ensure that this doesn't happen again?
Chair, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
First of all, there are two VoIPs. You have the static one and the nomadic one. The nomadic one is a phone that you take along. You can plug it in anywhere in the world on the high-speed Internet and you have a working phone. The static one is what Rogers gives you. Over the Internet line, you can also get it.
The static one is no problem. When you phone, this machine will say where you're calling from, etc. The problem is with the nomadic one. We're working on a technical solution. In the interim, we have instituted a system. If you use a nomadic phone, which is what happened in Calgary, you get a human voice automatically. If you are in Canada, the voice will ask who you are and where you are calling from, and your number will show up on the screen. The operator can then pass this information on to the emergency response. They also see on the screen where the phone is registered, which may not be where the call is coming from.
That's the system. It should work. It clearly didn't work here. I don't know why. We asked for a report from the company. We will get that report shortly and it will be assessed.
The way we devised the system, we thought this couldn't happen, but obviously it did. What broke down? If there is a problem in the system, we'll obviously fix it.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
I must again thank you for your candid answers today, for your forthrightness with the committee. I appreciate your taking the time to come to this committee.
I'm going to ask my committee to hang around for a very short time.
Even as our witnesses are leaving, I'd like to mention a short bit of committee business: I was unsuccessful today at the liaison committee. I'm batting one for five.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
No, we're not we're going to Banff. I'm not a very good salesman at the liaison committee.
The hearings will be held here. Our clerk has just sent out the list of witnesses to everyone. If there are people on the list you don't think should be there, please let my clerk know by tomorrow at noon. The hearings will begin on the 27th, the Tuesday after we're back from break. We have to get witnesses lined up. We will then determine how many days we need.
We're looking at video conference too. We're trying to get that up, because there are quite a few witnesses from Vancouver. Our clerk is looking after that.
Mr. Siksay.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
I am really disappointed that we're not going to Vancouver. I know you did your best to sell the trip to the liaison committee. It is hugely disappointing, given the number of people in Vancouver who are interested in this. When it comes to scheduling the video conferencing and trying to accommodate the number of people from Vancouver who are interested in this issue, perhaps we might look at extended meeting times or evening meetings. With the time change between here and Vancouver, this might also accommodate folks who have difficulty leaving during the day for these appearances.
I do hope we can consider these options. We need to accommodate our people and to get this concluded before the summer recess.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
We'll take that under consideration. Right now our clerk has a fair bit of work to do to make sure that we have witnesses here for the 27th and that the necessary arrangements are made. Stay tuned. Everyone will get an agenda as we go forward.
With that, the meeting is adjourned.