Yes.
Good afternoon, and thank you for inviting us to be here today.
We are really pleased to be here this afternoon.
My name is Janet Yale, as you know.
Here with me is Monique Simard.
Beside me is Monique Simard, a member of the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel.
We're here today on behalf of the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel, which included four other members. They are Peter Grant, Marina Pavlovic, Monica Song and Pierre Trudel.
Together we were appointed in June 2018 by the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry and the Minister of Canadian Heritage. Our task was to review Canada's Broadcasting Act, Telecommunications Act and Radiocommunication Act and to make recommendations for modernizing the legislation and regulatory framework.
This marks the first time these decades-old laws have been reviewed in such a comprehensive and integrated manner. The need for this work has never been more urgent.
This work has never been so urgent.
Digital technologies have transformed the ways in which we communicate, entertain and inform ourselves and conduct business at home and around the world.
The pace of change is dizzying, the opportunities unprecedented and the risks to our privacy as consumers, to our cultural sovereignty as a country, and to our economic competitiveness significant.
Today everyone, no matter where they live in Canada, expects and deserves to live a connected life, one that allows us to connect to one another, to new ideas, to news and entertainment, and to the services and economic opportunities that new technologies and platforms offer us, and we expect to do so in a safe and secure environment.
While we embrace this new world of endless choices and voices, as Canadians we also expect there will always be a place for Canadian voices and perspectives, where we can showcase our diversity as a country, including the stories of indigenous and official language minority communities. We expect access to the most advanced technologies that drive innovation and contribute to creating jobs and economic prosperity—technologies that can enhance our competitiveness at home and internationally.
Our report entitled “Canada's communications future: Time to act” is a road map for addressing the challenges of today and seizing the opportunities before us, while remaining flexible enough to anticipate and adapt to the unforeseen changes and challenges of the future.
The scope of our task was significant, and that required us to make choices about where to focus. We chose measures that will have the greatest impact and from which the benefits to all of us would be most tangible. We embraced the open global market, preserving people's freedom to choose the news and entertainment content they want, when they want it, from wherever they want it and on whatever platform or channel they want it.