Information & Ethics Committee on Feb. 13th, 2018

[Pam Dinsmore]

Are you talking about Wi-Fi First-type providers, MVNOs, resale of wireless networks? Is that the gist of the question?

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

That would be the gist of the question, yes.

[Pam Dinsmore]

There's currently a proceeding taking place before the CRTC regarding whether or not Canada should have Wi-Fi First providers in Canada. That's ongoing. I believe we've probably all intervened in that proceeding and provided our views.

From a Rogers perspective, we don't think it's necessary. We already have low-cost plans out there in the marketplace that allow access to Wi-Fi for as low as $10. Our view is that it will not be good for investment. The example in Europe has been that it has not been good for investment from facilities-based carriers.

We will await the ruling of the CRTC. Our thoughts are that it would be better to have a targeted voucher program to low-income families who might need that boost. That process is under way right now, and that decision is pending.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

Thank you, Mr. Erskine-Smith.

Next up is Madame Fortier.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Woodhead, I would like to give you the opportunity to answer my previous question; I would appreciate it. If you do not recall the question, I can put it back into context.

[Ted Woodhead]

I don't remember it. Could you repeat it?

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

That is not a problem.

I said that the digital space was constantly evolving and that we were all aware of that. The CRTC has decided to consolidate its commitment to net neutrality, and for the time being, things are going well. One of my concerns has to do with protecting consumers. I want to ensure they have access to francophone content, everywhere in Canada and not just in Quebec.

I would like to hear your position on how to ensure there will be an active supply of francophone content, among other things, right across the country.

[Ted Woodhead]

Thank you. I remember now. I was interested in your question for a very strange reason: it brought me back to the almost 10 years I spent at the CRTC as a policy analyst. Dennis's comments reminded me of it too.

First, the general issue of the promotion of Canadian content is an interesting one and an important one. Bell and Vidéotron are big content producers, for example, in the French language. What you see in Quebec is a very high consumption of content by people we should be concerned about. Largely, I think, that's probably for linguistic reasons. English Canada is more exposed to American content, so it has to compete with American content.

How do we deal with that? Generally, we all deal with it through mandatory carriage rules of mandatory services with the Canadian content quotas that they are required to broadcast.

I'm sorry for the long answer, but at Telus we're a bit different from all of the companies here, because we don't actually own content resources. We do it through promotion of what is branded for us as Telus Stories. Those are available online. They tell Canadian stories. They tell Canadian stories of Syrian refugees. They tell all kinds of interesting stories about accessibility and all kinds of things.

That's my answer.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you.

I can tell you all that what is happening with regard to francophone content outside Quebec is very worrisome. There are two official languages in Canada and net neutrality is a major issue that has an impact on access to Canadian content in both French and English. This issue is very dear to my heart.

Is there a complaints system? Have you received complaints from consumers regarding net neutrality? If so, how do you deal with them? Can you respond quickly? Ms. Dinsmore, would you like to answer?

[Pam Dinsmore]

Again, I'll respond in English.

Following the 2009 ITMP decision, Rogers decided that it would throttle upstream traffic for a time, BitTorrent traffic. Unfortunately that had an impact on some gaming applications, because they too were using peer-to-peer technology. As a result, some of the gamers got aggravated. The net neutrality activists got motivated. The commission decided to investigate, and Rogers dealt with a number of complaints, particularly around games like World of Warcraft, which require a very fast response time. We dealt with those complaints.

We ultimately abandoned our throttling in 2012 because we were able to build more capacity into the network. Since then the complaints have slowed to a trickle.

We addressed a very specific issue that people were concerned about at the time.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Could you please answer quickly, Mr. Béland.

[Dennis Béland]

Very few consumers who call us use the term “net neutrality”.

We did receive complaints from our customers, but that was when Music Unlimited was pulled. As you know, we did not challenge the CRTC's decision, but we had to manage the situation by offering other advantages to our customers. I think that all this went over relatively well.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Malcolmson, the floor is yours.

[Rob Malcolmson]

We haven't received specific net neutrality complaints, with one exception, and it's an exception I mentioned earlier, the Bell Mobile TV offering.

Some of the Internet activists, as Ms. Dinsmore calls them, complained to the CRTC, and ultimately the CRTC ruled against us. That required us to begin to charge data for that service to consumers, which made it less attractive to consumers, which we thought was unfortunate. That's probably the best example of a net neutrality complaint.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Woodhead, would you like to answer?

[Ted Woodhead]

We don't throttle. We don't do deep packet inspection. We do none of that stuff. The broad answer is no. I think Chris Seidl from the CRTC said in his comments that they'd received 19 complaints. This is an issue without a country.

I'll just go right there. In 2005, 13 years ago, during a prolonged labour disruption—and I think Mr. Erskine-Smith referred to it—we blocked a website called Voices for Change. We simultaneously sought an injunction from the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench. An injunction was issued 48 hours later, and the content was taken down.

That particular incident is trotted out by Internet activists as the poster child for the end of the world and the Internet as we know it. If you believe that this is the end of the world and the Internet as we know it, Godspeed. I think it is what it is.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

Thank you, Ms. Fortier.

Next up is Mr. Masse.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I have a question on decisions about legality and non-legality. We had a single-event sports betting bill that failed here in Parliament, and one of the challenges we faced was the fact that you could do this online so quickly and easily. You could bet right here. If it's against the law in Canada, how are those sites not being prohibited by your provision services? Why is it that right now Draft Kings and other types of betting services that have single-event sports betting have not changed in Canada? Ironically, we'll have changes in laws on smoking marijuana, but you still can't bet on a single-event sports game, while you can still do it online through offshore betting and accounts that don't pay Canadian taxes. Some of them are related to organized crime, and they're posting on your sites right now.

I'd like an answer from all of you as to why those sites aren't taken down, especially the ones that are connected to organized crime or money laundering.

[Rob Malcolmson]

I'll start, but without commenting on the particular sites that you mentioned.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

No, those are examples of something else.

[Rob Malcolmson]

All of us, as ISPs, as I said earlier, are content agnostic, so the content that travels over our network is not censored, monitored, or controlled by us. We're simply delivering the connectivity from point A to point B. Obviously, if there were a regulatory order or a court order requiring us to do something about that type of traffic, we would certainly abide by it, but really our role is to provide connectivity.

[Pam Dinsmore]

I'll just add that you may or may not be aware that in Quebec there is a law yet to be declared in force that would require ISPs in Quebec to block gambling sites that are not Espacejeux sites, Espacejeux being the provincial gambling organization. They have a challenge to that from the CWTA, the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association, on the premise that the jurisdiction lies with the commission to require an ISP to block something, as we've heard today, versus the Quebec government. That's not to even mention how difficult it might be for those of us who operate national networks to isolate only one portion of our network, which isn't configured provincially, to block only in that province.

That is an example of a province taking some action, but it's now an issue that is in the courts for jurisdictional purposes and reasons.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

Thank you, Mr. Masse.

It doesn't look as if we have any further questions or comments, so I want to thank you, Ms. Dinsmore, Mr. Béland, Mr. Malcolmson, Mr. Woodhead, and Mr. Guerriere, for your time today.

We'll just briefly suspend and then go into committee business in camera.

Thank you.

[Proceedings continue in camera]