Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My name is Andre Arbour. I'm the director general of telecommunications and Internet policy at Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. I'm joined by my colleague James Nicholson. I'm happy to speak about division 17, which involves amendments to the Telecommunications Act.
These amendments are about improving the coordination of broadband funding programs. The federal government has a number of programs that fund the expansion of broadband infrastructure in underserved areas. This includes, for instance, the universal broadband fund delivered by ISED. The CRTC, Canada's communications regulator, delivers a broadband fund as well, and that fund operates under the auspices of the Telecommunications Act.
The CRTC fund is a bit different from normal grants and contributions programs. It's funded by a levy on industry, so the CRTC imposes this levy and then directs those monies into a fund to support broadband infrastructure. The CRTC is also different overall in that it's an arm's-length tribunal that operates separately from typical line departments.
There are two key amendments today to facilitate the coordination of broadband funding. The first amendment involves appeals of CRTC decisions. CRTC telecommunications decisions have three avenues of appeal. An applicant can ask the CRTC to rehear a matter, it can file what's called a petition to the Governor in Council, or it can seek leave to appeal with the Federal Court of Appeal. These appeal avenues are intended for and better oriented to deal with broad regulatory issues.
The CRTC has a lot of regulatory business that is involved with regulating the telecommunications industry; however, when funding individual broadband projects, which could be a relatively small project, maybe a few million dollars in a particular area, that project would still be subject to the same potential avenues of appeal, even though it's a much narrower issue; therefore, there would be the risk that broadband funding would be tied up in appeal and that those projects wouldn't be able to roll out to help serve Canadians.
The second set of amendments involves information sharing and would better facilitate the sharing of confidential information between the CRTC and federal departments, as well as provincial and territorial entities involved in supporting broadband projects.
With that, I'll stop, and I'm happy to take your questions. Thank you.