Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
I represent Bell Aliant Regional Communications. Bell Aliant is the successor to the companies that for many years were the telephone service providers in the four Atlantic provinces. As of July this year, we also became the service provider for large territories in Ontario and Quebec. Our serving territory includes some of the most rural and remote territories in Canada—Labrador, rural Newfoundland, and areas of northern Quebec and Ontario. Bell Aliant was created to focus on regional markets. We have achieved a lot in providing state-of-the-art communications to our customers in the Atlantic region, and we intend to continue to do the same for our new territories in Ontario and Quebec.
I want to tell you why we believe the proposed direction of the CRTC is important to us, to our customers, and to all Canadians. We believe that competition brings a number of benefits to customers and that restriction of competition limits those benefits and stifles investment and innovation. In case anyone tells you that the direction is unnecessary because the current regulatory approach promotes competition, we are here to tell you that this has not been our experience. In our view, the CRTC must change its approach and welcome rather than restrict competition for the benefit of new competitors.
Let me tell you a bit about our experience. It may surprise you that our territory includes the most competitive telecommunications market in Canada. The CRTC's most recent monitoring report shows that at the end of 2005, of the 86 markets across Canada, three of the six most competitive residential service markets are in our territory in Atlantic Canada. The Halifax market was the most competitive of all, with a competitor share of just under 35%.
Now keep in mind that the markets defined by the CRTC are large and include areas where the new entrants choose not to offer service. The market share of our competitors in those areas, such as Metro Halifax, where they're actually operating, was much higher than that.
By any reasonable assessment, those markets, particularly Metro Halifax, are vigorously competitive and have been for years. Nevertheless, Aliant's application for forbearance or deregulation took two years to be processed by the CRTC. At the end of that, our application was refused because the CRTC created new rules that made it more difficult to be deregulated.
The result is that the competitor continues to grow, but customers are denied the benefits of having all players freely competing for their business. We are restricted from bundling our services and restricted in offering promotions, restrictions that our competitors do not face. This means that customers are not getting the benefits of our competitive response, benefits they would receive if the regulatory restrictions were removed and market forces were allowed to prevail. That is why we strongly support the work of the telecommunications policy review panel and the proposed direction to the CRTC.
Thank you.