Canadian Heritage Committee on May 18th, 2023

[Sami Hannoush]

One thing we did highlight in the report was that for many of these infrastructure projects, one of the considerations for the departments was to look at scalability and whether or not the project going forward would be scalable to future speeds. I think it was very good to include that in the conditions of these projects.

We also looked at the low-earth satellite coverage to a certain degree to get a sense of how that's being deployed and how that can be used to temporarily, or in the short term, provide connectivity at a high speed until the fibre optic cables can reach the communities.

These were things we looked at.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Thank you very much.

Thanks, Mike, and thank you for your question on Starlink, because Starlink in rural Saskatchewan is exploding, if you don't mind my saying. It seems to be the most popular way to get connected these days.

We're on the third and final round, because we're coming close to 5:30. We'll give the Conservatives and the Liberals five minutes each. We'll go to the Bloc and the NDP for two and a half minutes, and then we'll wrap it up, as we have constituency week coming up.

We have the Conservatives for five minutes.

Mr. Shields, go ahead, please.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Hogan, in the report you did a lot of work, and we're going to read about some of the provincial results on rural. Why do you think there is such a discrepancy? I see high numbers in some provinces and much lower numbers in others. Why do you believe there is a discrepancy?

[Karen Hogan]

Anecdotally, it is likely because there is more funding provincially or municipally devoted to connectivity in certain provinces than in others. As I mentioned, seven provinces have MOUs because those provinces have connectivity strategies and initiatives and the others do not. I imagine some of that would contribute to the disparity among provinces.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Do you have any suggestions as to how that could be evened out or any directions you might suggest? Are you suggesting the other provinces or communities need to get more involved? How are we going to resolve this discrepancy from province to province?

[Karen Hogan]

I would expect that's something the federal government does when it assesses what projects to fund. If you have an accurate map that shows you that a certain province is really underserved, then you likely want to target more funding there than in a province that's almost fully served. I would expect that would be done at the level of project approvals by the federal government.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

When we get to indigenous communities, the number is much smaller. The federal government knows where indigenous communities are and knows where reserves are, yet the numbers are much lower than the provincial averages across the country. They're not provincial and they're not municipal, so does the partnership there go back to being federal and indigenous?

[Karen Hogan]

I think in the case of many indigenous communities, it comes down to not having the actual infrastructure yet in the areas where indigenous communities are located. It's about having the right financial incentives or programs in the strategy to ensure that infrastructure gets to the most rural and remote areas.

That's why one of our recommendations about actually costing out what it will take to reach those hardest to reach really needs to be done soon so that a better plan can be outlined between now and 2030.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

That's interesting, because in the largest and second-largest reserves in Canada—one is in my riding and one is next door—we're not talking about rural and remote, yet their numbers are down, so it's not remote.

[Karen Hogan]

I am not sure I have much more to add to that.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

I get that and I understand.

On the 10 months to almost two years to approve projects, as you've said, it takes a lot of talking. Now, it's fine to do a lot of talking, but the idea is to get something done.

How do we move that target from almost two years down to 10 months?

[Karen Hogan]

That's a challenge that I think both of these entities have to address. As I mentioned, they didn't expect the volume they received. They now know what they need to do differently so that this happens more quickly.

The funding of those projects even delays other spending, so the Infrastructure Bank will give loans once construction starts, but construction can't start if you haven't been approved for funding. There is really this snowball ripple effect, and that's why it's really up to the CRTC, as I said, to administratively go faster so this can have some concrete action.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Even though they've hired a lot more employees, it still hasn't reduced the time.

[Karen Hogan]

We didn't audit the whole process, unfortunately. I don't know where those resources went when they hired extra people.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I have a motion I'd like to read, please, to wind up. The motion is to summon Vicky Eatrides. I move:

That, considering the Auditor General report tabled on Monday, March 27th titled “Connectivity in Rural and Remote Areas," the committee summon Vicky Eatrides, Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, to testify before committee as soon as possible for no less than two hours.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Are you tabling that?

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

It's moved.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

It's moved. Okay.

Go ahead, Mr. Bittle.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

We haven't done committee business. We don't know where we're going. We have so few meetings left.

I have a concern about the language. We typically don't summon officials. I think the CRTC has appeared every time this committee has invited it. I don't know what the rationale is behind that.

I know there was some animosity the last couple of times the CRTC chair was here. There was, again, filibustering. We call them and do not want to hear from them, even though we summon them as a particular witness.

I don't know why we're doing this on the fly. We've heard some evidence. Perhaps it's useful to hear from the chair of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. I really don't think it's appropriate to summon that individual, and I think it's far more important for this committee to get on the path to figure out what we're going to do.

We have an important study on sport, which I think is every member's priority in terms of the protection of kids. This is very important. As the Auditor General mentioned in her report, it's very important, as it is fundamental for Canadians to have that access, but we're dealing with the safety of children. That was this committee's priority. We've taken a meeting to hear this, even though I believe this is the industry committee's jurisdiction.

We talk about the CRTC, but when everyone has talked about the Government of Canada, they have been referring to industry or ISED or whatever it's being called these days. This study is better left for them.

I want us to get to a point where we have a sense of where this committee is going, and then we want to hear from the minister. We've just passed a motion to hear from Gymnastics Canada. We want to hear from other sports organizations. We want to go through this whole list.

I think there are seven meetings left. There may be eight. In terms of what's left, are we putting this back in there? Is it something we want to see in the fall, which may be more important? Are we turning this into a study? Are we duplicating what's going on at industry?

Last time we had discussed.... There was a motion before industry, but it wasn't yet confirmed where that motion was going. Again, we don't want to be duplicating our efforts in what's going on there.

I don't know. What's the priority of the committee?

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Keep talking.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

We're going in and out.

I guess Mrs. Thomas is the one who gets concerned whenever I speak. She can heckle all she wants. That allows me to go off in that direction, if she wants.

I know we agreed to end at 5:30. I don't grant consent to go beyond that. I think that was something we had all agreed to.

Again, these are things that can be discussed in advance. I don't know the purpose of dropping this in at the last minute. This committee has worked very well through the sports study, but I don't know what the point of the surprise is. It doesn't make sense, especially when we have the absence of the rest of this committee's stated objectives to get to the bottom of what we want to look at.

I know sport is at the top of that. Perhaps it's wishful thinking, but I would love to be in the position—and I'm sorry to the analysts—to give the analysts homework for the summer and say this is what we want to do. I think this should be a priority so that we can come back in September and say, “Let's focus on this report. Let's have recommendations,” because the minister has already started announcing important initiatives to do things.

Let's just deal with this at a committee business meeting. We have to discuss that. We have to figure out the business of this committee. It doesn't make sense to start acting in this manner, dropping motions at the last minute without any consultation among the parties. I'm sure this is something we could have debated.

Mrs. Thomas made a very good point in terms of not hearing from Pablo on estimates. That was a very valid point to make back when she made it. I know there were some discussions of his intentions, but that was an earlier discussion. We agreed. We made provisions. We hoped that the minister would appear on that day.

Again, this may be a valid thing to hear about from the CRTC. However, my experience of calling a minister on estimates is that none of the questions are on estimates, and I expect that few of the questions asked of the CRTC will actually be on the Auditor General's report.

I would like to move this to a point where we can sit, discuss it, have a reasonable discussion about where we're going, set out our agenda—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

I have a point of order from Mr. Julian.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

I move that we adjourn.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

There's a motion to adjourn, but you can't do it on a point of order.

Go ahead, Mr. Bittle.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

On that point, I will move that the meeting be adjourned, per the agreement of the committee, and I don't consent that we go any further.