Thank you very much.
Mr. Chairman, members of the Standing Committee, ladies and gentlemen, I am Luc Lavoie, Executive Vice-President, Quebecor Inc.
As you know, we control Vidéotron, the largest cable operator in Quebec and the third largest in Canada.
The concept of competition has been set down in Quebecor's genetic code since its creation by Pierre Péladeau more than 50 years ago. Quebecor has always operated in an extremely competitive environment, in newspapers, magazines, printing and television. It goes without saying that we support the minister when he expresses the desire to see the natural free market forces govern the telecommunications industry to a greater degree.
Competition, wherever it is established, benefits consumers, citizens, first and foremost.
We have just witnessed the implementation of a decision made by the Parliament of Canada more than 10 years ago, the decision to open the residential telephone market to competition. For the first time in history, telephone rates have dropped substantially. This is unheard of. It has taken more than 10 years for Parliament's decision to be implemented because our old monopolies, mainly the biggest of them all—obviously I mean Bell Canada—have made every effort to remain monopolies.
Bell Canada has made every effort to prevent the cable companies from providing residential telephone service. It has taken the will of one man, supported by his team—I'm talking about Charles Dalfen, the current Chair of the CRTC—for competition finally to be come a reality. That no doubt explains Bell's vicious public attacks on the CRTC. The monopoly has finally been dismantled, and Bell is having trouble recovering from it.
So I would like to take advantage of my appearance before you to pay tribute to the courage of Charles Dalfen, whose term as Chair of the CRTC is drawing to a close. He leaves Canadians a great legacy: competition in telephone services and all the benefits that result therefrom.
Ladies and gentlemen, I want to warn you against the cajoling approach the old monopolies are taking toward you and the massive lobbying campaign they are now deploying in Ottawa, both with the public service and with you, our elected representatives. The approach they're taking is nothing more than one of sophistry and distraction. Faced with a century-old monopoly, it is impossible for competition to be established if the appropriate conditions are not put in place. That is what the CRTC has done in the case of residential telephone service, and it has worked.
Sooner or later, pure free market rules will have to apply, and we accept that, but we should not precipitate matters and fall once again into the traps set by the old monopolies.
Some of our competitors have been vicious in their condemnation of the CRTC's actions in managing the transition to a competitive situation in the residential telephony sector. But for what cause?
In local telephony, competitors are finally making meaningful inroads after almost a decade of starts and failures. The CRTC has laid out conditions for deregulation that in all likelihood will be satisfied in the large urban areas of the country during the course of 2007. But Bell and TELUS cannot wait that long. They want complete deregulation now while they still hold over a 90% market share.
The CRTC has laid out a plan for local telephone competition and deregulation, and the plan is working. Companies like Vidéotron are providing consumers with new services at lower prices, and consumers are responding.
Indeed, if we are looking for ways to benefit Canadian consumers, I would suggest that we might all be looking in the wrong place. Although the policy directive before us today does not specifically address the case of mobile telephony, I will take advantage of my presence here today to suggest to you parliamentarians that you should begin to be seriously concerned with the prevailing situation in this sector in Canada.
Mobile telephony is currently concentrated in the hands of an oligopoly, and while third-generation technology is rapidly penetrating the U.S.A., as well as countries in Europe and Asia, here in Canada we are lagging farther and farther behind. Beyond just having to support outdated technologies, according to the OECD, Canada is in 29th place among the 30 member countries of the organization in terms of mobile telephone penetration, ahead only of Mexico and behind Turkey. All the while, Canadians pay 60% more than our southern neighbours for inferior mobile telephone services.
This is very worrisome in several regards, in particular because third-generation mobility is much more than telephony. It is the vehicle of the future for culture, whether it be music, film, television, or news.
This monopoly must be broken, in the shortest possible time frame. Otherwise, Canadians will find themselves treated like citizens of a developing country.
Thank you.