Evidence of meeting #89 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was content.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Executive Director, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Absolutely.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
I'm curious, because if we take a step back from the Internet, before the delivery of the Internet, it came through a cable. In cable, there was that period of amalgamation. The cable companies were buying up the phone companies and the content. Bell and Rogers were doing this specifically to promote their content through their pipes. We never looked at carrier neutrality, rather than Internet-based neutrality.
You mentioned that these Internet-based laws were based on common carrier laws. Why did we never apply that? Even to this day, if I want to get something through my cable, it's completely tiered: you pay for this, you don't pay for that; this one I'll give you free, this one I own. We didn't apply any of this common carrier concept to cable, which effectively was even more of a monopoly than an Internet Wi-Fi provider, for example.
Executive Director, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
I'm not an expert on the cable regulations, but we have quite a few regulations that control carriage in terms of having availability of channels and programs of national interest and making sure there's no exclusivity on that content so that it's available on multiple platforms. Consumers do have a choice. You don't have to subscribe to multiple cable companies, for example, to get the content you want.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
The concept of all content being treated equally is completely non-existent when it comes to cable: you pay for this, you don't pay for that. It's completely blocked in. That is what I understand people fear if we go away from net neutrality—that a similar cable-style regime would be imposed.
Executive Director, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
That has come up when we discussed the net neutrality, the idea that you'll get the ISPs choosing the content that is best for you. You can even take it to an extreme. If you charge a lot of money for some content and give other content away for free, people will gravitate to the free side, which could influence the content you consume and then, very importantly, the news and information you consume, which is obviously something you want to keep fairly neutral.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
As I'm saying, that does not exist with cable to this day. Cable is monopolistic in the sense that it's very rare that a house has two or three cable lines coming into it.
Executive Director, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
No, but you do have choice in which provider you want for your content, even now, over the top providers as well. You have several choices, and we obviously support competition. If you had perfect competition, you might not even have to have that strong a regulation, because competition and market forces will take care of anything that consumers don't like.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Mr. Kent asked a question about subsection 27(2) and section 36, which are in the act, not in the legislation. Are they specific just to the Internet? They can't be specific to cable, because cable.... Am I right there?
Executive Director, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
They're in the Telecommunications Act, which is the legislation that applies to all telecommunications service, be it Internet, voice, or any other data application or data service. Any transmission of content that—
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
If they—section 36 and subsection 27(2)—apply to all forms of transmission, they clearly have not been acted upon when it comes to cable delivery.
Executive Director, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Broadcasting—
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
They're doing exactly what we don't want to have happen in Internet. I'm trying to understand that.
Executive Director, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
The broadcasting aspects that have been carved out of the Telecommunications Act are in the Broadcasting Act, so all the rules, regulations, and objectives are captured there in terms of the undue preference and unjust discrimination. They have their own rules in that space, and it's not something that would fall under the Telecommunications Act.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
You're saying that the cables are not subject to those particular clauses. They're—
February 6th, 2018 / 9:25 a.m.
Executive Director, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
It's only when they're providing telecom services. The broadcasting services and the distribution services are considered broadcasting services, so they fall under the Broadcasting Act.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
You mentioned 19 complaints. How long a period do those 19 complaints span? As well, is this a constant pressure that you're feeling at CRTC or is it just one-offs that come up now and then when these providers try to break through the net neutrality concept in different ways?
Executive Director, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Let me parse that a bit. Over the years, we've seen the complaints go down. These are last year's numbers. We received 19 in 2017. Prior to that, it's been a little more, 30 or 40 per year. Those are the ones we get from individuals. We deal with those. With some of them, there's not enough information to deal with the complaint, and we go back and ask for more information. The way the act is written, you just have to prove there's some discrimination, not that it's undue or unjust.
We then go after the service provider to explain what they're doing and why they're doing it. In some cases, we found they were not complying, and they went into compliance. In other cases, it was just that they were doing some traffic management, but it was within the guidelines that we allow for congestion purposes or other reasons.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Is there no push-back once you talk to them? Have you had to fine companies?
Executive Director, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
No, once we point it out, they realize it and say, “Oh, yeah, we didn't realize our software didn't do that correctly. We had better fix it.” It's at the margins very much, so if there's a big issue, we will run a major proceeding to really address that, as we have done with the mobile TV and differential pricing.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
Thanks very much, Mr. Baylis. With that we go to Mr. Gourde.
Conservative
Jacques Gourde Conservative Lévis—Lotbinière, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to thank the witnesses for being here.
As consumers, we always wonder if our Internet service provider is giving us enough for our money. In Canada, we often think we pay more than elsewhere.
Is that just an impression or is it actually the case?
Executive Director, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
I think you are referring to Internet connection fees in Canada.
We would always like to see real competition among the companies. The various companies offer a lot of packages. Every year we conduct a study to find out what consumers pay for these services. There are a number of differences among regions, in particular as regards the number of competitors, the technology used, and regulations.
We would like to see more competition to give Canadians access to more affordable services.
Conservative
Jacques Gourde Conservative Lévis—Lotbinière, QC
Traditional ISPs in Canada often exert strong pressure because they established the Internet here. They invested in the infrastructure, antennas, and fibre optics and want a return on their investment.
Are these providers exerting pressure to retain their market for several more years? Will competitors be able to enter the market after a certain number of years or will these providers try everything in their power to limit competition? They are, after all, the ones who paid for the infrastructure across the country. Providing universal Internet service is a big challenge in Canada.