Evidence of meeting #8 for Canadian Heritage in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was media.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Seamus O'Regan Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
What are your customers telling you about their access to broadband, the quality of it, and whether or not they feel they consider it a right?
Vice President, Broadcasting Policy and Regulatory Affairs, TELUS
First off, we listen to our customers very seriously, which is one of the reasons we have one of the lowest complaint rates with the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services, the CCTS. Whenever we do receive these comments, we take action on them on a regular basis. Our customers generally have shown a high degree of satisfaction with the services that we offer. We know, however, that we need to keep increasing them, and we know there are areas and pockets where we need to continue to invest. That's why we're continuously making these announcements of new investments because we know there can never be enough.
Liberal
Seamus O'Regan Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
On that note, then, what are your thoughts, perhaps personally, but certainly on behalf of Telus, on broadband being considered a right of a Canadian?
Vice President, Broadcasting Policy and Regulatory Affairs, TELUS
Certainly, as the chairman of the CRTC said on the opening day of the hearing yesterday, there is the want and there is the need. On broadband itself, there are certain minimal aspects that can be considered an absolute need, but there's a whole lot of “want” in the whole broadband space.
There's a spectrum that we need to consider, and we can't simply say that everyone deserves the highest possible capacity and speed of broadband. It's simply not possible. We are constantly improving, and those improvements will migrate throughout the country, but not at the same steady pace. You will always have certain pockets that have better broadband than others. While there's a certain minimum that needs to be met, there's also significant capacity that will continue to be well beyond that minimum and that we will address from a competitive standpoint. We know we can sell this broadband, so we will continue to invest for that reason. But we will also ensure that no one is left behind.
Liberal
Seamus O'Regan Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
How would you define “need” as opposed to “want”?
Vice President, Broadcasting Policy and Regulatory Affairs, TELUS
Minimal standards are certainly being discussed in the hearing over in Gatineau right now. I wouldn't want to venture to say any specific amount at this time. The information provided by the CRTC at the beginning of the hearing certainly does indicate that some minimums have been met in Canada.
Liberal
Vice President, Broadcasting Policy and Regulatory Affairs, TELUS
The definition of minimum need, I think, will depend on region to region. Certainly having access to downloading 4K content is not a need.
Vice President, Broadcasting Policy and Regulatory Affairs, TELUS
Yes, I'm sure it will continue to evolve year after year, month after month, which is again, and I don't want to sound like a broken record, why investments need to be made. As more services and more data-intensive services continue to proliferate, yes, just as we need to keep updating our browsers, we will need to upgrade our networks.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you very much, Mr. O'Regan.
I want to thank Telus for presenting to us.
I do have a question, though. Ms. Dabrusin asked you a question about the fund that you use to bring in your local programming through local producers, etc. Do you consider that to be your contribution as a cable network towards the 5%? Is that part of your 5% contribution, since you don't have a broadcast fee?
Vice President, Broadcasting Policy and Regulatory Affairs, TELUS
That's correct. As a broadcasting distribution undertaking, we are required to spend 5% of gross revenues on various efforts. Some of it is directed to the CMF, the Canada Media Fund. Some of it goes to our community.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Part of that 5%, 2.5% of it I think, is supposed to be news, so how are you contributing to that news piece?
Vice President, Broadcasting Policy and Regulatory Affairs, TELUS
At this time for community programming there is no requirement for news.
Vice President, Broadcasting Policy and Regulatory Affairs, TELUS
Vice President, Broadcasting Policy and Regulatory Affairs, TELUS
There's no requirement for how the community television programming is spent, so we direct 2% to the CMF, and another to an independent production fund that focuses on health programming. We launched the Telus Fund a few years ago. Then the rest of that amount is now directed to our community programming service, Optik Local, and there are no direct requirements for news programming.
Community programming is divided into portions. Half of it at least—for us it's closer to 80% or 90%—is what's called “access programming”, where independent producers come up with the idea and are the producers of that programming; and the other half would be Telus-produced. But we have very little Telus-produced programming.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
It's all very innovative what you presented to us, but I just wanted to ask a question.
You referred to the TED Talks and the idea of this emotional attachment to the community and, therefore, you said that it's not necessarily about giving the community the facts as they stand. Do you feel that simply looking at emotional content, without looking at the factual content, is actually appropriate? I think Mr. Waugh referred to that, in that if you're going to reach people emotionally, do you also need to do so with a certain amount of factual information and not simply emotional information?
Vice President, Broadcasting Policy and Regulatory Affairs, TELUS
Absolutely, and the point was not merely to be emotional, but these are documentaries that he is creating. In this case, it was a documentary on the life in a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan. There are a lot of facts to be had there, but rather than present them in a newscast as a talking head, where you will absorb that information in a different way than if you actually put on the virtual reality gizmo and enter that world and see it for yourself.... To be told that there is very little drinking water or any access to hygiene is one thing, but to actually see the conditions through this virtual reality is—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you, Ms. Mainville-Neeson.
Can you move that we adjourn, Mr. Van Loan?
