Information & Ethics Committee on Feb. 6th, 2018

[Christopher Seidl]

I probably shouldn't comment. Obviously, it's an issue for Trade, Global Affairs, Industry Canada, and others that may be involved in those discussions. Clearly, there are cross-impacts if there are different rules in different jurisdictions. That should be looked at, but I'm not one to comment on that.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Okay.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

I want to follow up on Mr. Angus's comments about rural broadband.

In B.C., starting in about 2003, there was a program to bridge the digital divide. By now, I think something like 97% of communities across B.C. have high-speed broadband access at a price comparable to that for a Vancouver customer. I totally understand how critical it is for rural community members and businesses to have access to high-speed broadband.

When you talk about it being a partnership to make that access to the pipe available and the systems for connecting people to the pipe, is there anything that the CRTC can do to facilitate partnerships or the sharing of ideas across the provinces so that the practices in one province can be shared with the other provinces or help the other provinces to get their communities connected as well?

[Christopher Seidl]

We're certainly a voice in that discussion. I don't see us being focused as a regulator. Our objectives are in the Telecommunications Act and really trying to facilitate that deployment in different regions.

The people who are in those regions and understand those regions in detail can make much better decisions on what's needed, how to expand that, and where the money can be put forward. That's why we're calling for shared leadership. We'll step in. We have an open proceeding right now, so I can't get into how we'll design that, but we're obviously going to put our $750 million to work to help expand the networks to all Canadians.

We had a large proceeding to determine the appropriate level of service that Canadians should have, and that was very forward-looking as well. It continues to evolve with the appetite for applications in the world.

We're all going towards more mobile services. You folks may have heard of 5G coming down the pipe as the next generation of mobile wireless, where everything will be connected. There's no end to the amount of infrastructure we'll need to ensure that all Canadians can participate in the digital economy.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Nathaniel Erskine-Smith]

Thank you very much to you both for joining us this morning.

We'll suspend for five minutes and come back for committee business.

[Proceedings continue in camera]