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
We've had services at 15%. Up to 40% is the typical range.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
Thanks very much.
With that, Ms. Fortier, you have five minutes.
Liberal
Mona Fortier Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I will ask my questions in French.
I find all of this very complex and I am surely not the only one. Consumers have to be informed of the changes, adjustments, and regulations in effect.
Are you involved in educating and raising awareness, even among service providers? In the current context, how can we protect the services that the industry offers consumers?
Executive Director, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Under our regulations, the traffic management practices adopted by ISPs have to be transparent. They have to publish information about these practices on their website and in various consumer publications.
On our own website, we provide information about net neutrality, as well as information about the complaints process.
Liberal
Mona Fortier Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
In your initial presentation, you talked about the complaints system. As I understood it, you have not received that many complaints this year. Looking to the future, we have to make sure the system is working effectively five or ten years from now.
In this context, do you expect to see an increase in the number of complaints? How can consumers ask questions or file complaints?
Executive Director, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
The number of complaints is decreasing every year. I think providers will want to offer competitive services that are of the best quality possible. They do not want there to be any control of content or traffic. Increasing competition might in fact lead to a reduction in complaints in the future. Given our regulatory framework, it is clear that providers have not chosen changes such as these.
Moreover, we have the authority to impose fines when problems arise. That is another reason they do not want this kind of management.
Liberal
Mona Fortier Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
I would like to talk about something completely different.
Right now, I am working a lot on the Official Languages Act. We will probably modernize it, which is necessary after 50 years.
Are there any considerations with respect to the Official Languages Act? I am thinking about access to content among other things. Are there any linkages to the Official Languages Act?
Executive Director, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Absolutely. That is another reason we decided that all communities in Canada must have access to quality service. We decided that universal service for all Canadians, a landline and a wireless network, is a necessity in all homes and in the streets, for safety reasons and all other reasons. We want 100% of Canadians to have access to that service, but it will take time.
Liberal
Mona Fortier Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Okay.
I have one last question.
We are looking into this more closely. Do you have any suggestions as to potential topics of interest or witnesses for our study?
Executive Director, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Are you referring to net neutrality?
Executive Director, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
You could talk to some providers about their practices, their service concept, and the impact of the changes made in other countries. That would be another topic to delve into.
Liberal
Mona Fortier Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Okay. We could invite some service providers.
Are there any consumer groups we could talk to? I am asking because you are no doubt experts on the consumers of these services.
Executive Director, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
You could talk to organizations such as the Intellectual Property Advisory Committee, or IPAC. I believe you have already talked to certain experts in the field, including Mr. Geist.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
Thanks very much.
To finish our round, we have three minutes for Mr. Angus.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Thank you very much.
I just want to talk again about the content providers who have a very protected market, the ISPs in Canada, and they're now handling all manner of television and other media.
When my daughter was working in Africa, she had much better download speeds and Internet service than she does in some major cities. When you get into northern Ontario and other rural regions, you have service providers who have no competition, who have no willingness to extend service, and they charge exorbitant fees to people who are stuck having to use satellite and all other means.
This is not really an issue for the ethics committee—it's more industry—but Canadians are not getting a great deal from our service providers. We pay Cadillac rates and get broken Volkswagen service.
Do you think that there's a way that we can crack this market open and get some better competition?
Executive Director, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
We obviously want to have competition sufficient to protect the interests of users and to have affordable and innovative services. Our approach has been to base it on facilities-based competition. That's where you do have the two main providers in most markets, not in the rural areas, and enabling wholesale access, as I mentioned earlier, is another way to get other providers to use those networks.
Then there is the funding of infrastructure and development. With the connect to innovate program, the government is funding a backbone for those remote regions, and having other providers able to access that backbone is a critical component to expanding the network out to other regions and to having more competition. Obviously, offering those services in those remote regions is challenging from a business case perspective. That's why some public support is needed to develop them, to just get them up to a level, and then hopefully some competition will follow through with that as well.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
I understand the business case, but we're not dealing with free market players. We're dealing with people who have been given very strong protections by government, by legislation, to protect their markets, and they're not providing the service.
In my region, we had Ontera, Ontario Northland, providing the service where Bell wouldn't. The Liberal government decided to sell off Ontera at a fire sale to Bell. We wrote to the Competition Bureau, and the Competition Bureau agreed that this was not in the public interest, but hey, it was big giants buying up the little guy. They went along with it. Now when you call Bell and say, “Listen, I have businesses on a main trans-Canada highway that can't get Internet services”, they say that there's no business case.
I put it to you that we protect the market, we give them preferential treatment, we keep out American competition, and we're still getting hosed. Businesses and families can't get Internet services when government tells them that this is a priority. Government tells them that this is how they're going to pay their taxes, this is how they're going to get their medical care, yet we do not have a market that does that.
What do you see, from the CRTC, that we can do to force them, if we're going to have a protected market, to actually service Canadians? As I said, you get better cellphone service in Somalia, a broken nation, than you do in a lot of the region that I represent.
February 6th, 2018 / 9:50 a.m.
Executive Director, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
We came up with our basic telecom service decision back in December 2016, when we set the universal service objective. We did indicate that it really is a shared responsibility to bring that level of service to all Canadians. All levels of government, as well as the industry itself, should do whatever they can to offer that. We've identified $750 million to go towards that broadband fund, which comes from the service providers paying into a contribution fund. We're going to design that and roll it out. The government has put forward the connect to innovate program with $500 million towards expanding broadband.
I think there's obviously a lot more to be done, and more can be done on the broadband front to really bring that out there. If you have more of that service infrastructure out there with open access, I think you'll see more providers, including local providers in local communities, being able to offer their own service.
It does take time.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
Thanks very much.
We have time if other people have questions.
I had one question in relation to net neutrality, although I would piggyback on Mr. Angus's concerns.
I lived in the U.K. for a year seven years ago, and broadband networks were pretty competitive. You mentioned TekSavvy and being able to piggyback on existing networks to provide additional competition, but we really don't have the same thing in the mobile world to the same degree as we have with the TekSavvys of the world. In the U.K. seven years ago, I had more content for a lower price than I've had for the years I've lived in Canada since, so keep pushing to bring more competition.
On net neutrality, subsection 27(2) and section 36 provide the foundation for protecting against anti-competitive behaviours, and that's been interpreted as providing a strong foundation for protecting net neutrality. However, net neutrality isn't defined in the act and it isn't enshrined in the act in any principled way, so while we have existing interpretations from the CRTC, which I think are incredibly effective, and it's great to see that you have a document that strengthens that neutrality and you have the differential pricing telecom policy that you just introduced last year, do you think Parliament ought to be seized with the idea of improving the act, enshrining the principle of net neutrality, and effectively taking some of the jurisprudence that has been developed by the CRTC and codifying it in law?
Executive Director, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
I think it's definitely worth looking at.
As I mentioned, from our perspective we've had the flexibility and the powers that are needed to introduce that. All of our decisions have been unanimous, and I've been involved in all of them over the years. We've based them on the record we've developed and on very detailed discussion in these cases, so I would be cautious in terms of putting anything hard into the legislation that might not fit with the flexibility you might want going forward.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith
Okay.
We have Mr. Saini for a question and Ms. Murray for a question.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
This is more a commentary.
We have a decent net neutrality regime here. In the United States that has changed, and Europe is pretty firm. Many parts of the world do not have this concept of net neutrality as codified as we have or as legislated and regulated as we have. New Zealand or Greenland have tried to zero-rate their local content because the foreign content is more expensive. When we look at it on a trade basis or a competitive basis, we see Canadian companies that have websites and want to sell to those countries or that have content that they want to deliver to those countries.
What is your comment about zero-rating by other countries whose regimes are not as strong as ours to protect their local content? What would you do in that case?
