I would like to thank Mr. McTeague for his concern as far as the recommendations of the expert committee are concerned. I would like to state clearly that the minister isn't ignoring all of the other recommendations, but there are certain recommendations that could be moved ahead quite quickly.
It's quite clear that the expert panel said we should move toward a deregulatory situation here in Canada. I do wonder how the opposition would define “far too fast”. I have friends in the IT industry, and when they make a decision for a product or something they have to move forward to, they make a decision and they have to have it to market within six months. It has to be done and it has to be done now.
We've been studying this for two years. For this study by the expert panel, it was a year before they had it done. One of the colleagues said that in the process we did not hear from the people. No, what we didn't hear from was you, the opposition.
In June 2006, when it was tabled, there were 40 days of gazetting. We heard from all kinds of Canadians, and the minister has listened to Canadians. But we didn't hear from you in the opposition. On December 15, there were 30 days. We heard from all kinds of Canadians, but we didn't hear anything, not a peep, from you. All we hear is that there's no real complaint about the content, it's just taking too long, or we're moving too fast.
One of my colleagues mentioned a Polaris study. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't that the gentleman we actually had here who compared Mr. Bernier to Mao Zedong? This gentleman obviously is not a neutral party. When we look at who is going to benefit with the deregulatory condition, we're listening to consumers, we're listening to industry. All the industries seem to want us to move toward a deregulatory situation here in Canada, but the question was about timing and when we should move this forward.
We are listening to consumers. Like I said, the Ipsos-Reid poll showed that 70% of consumers are positive with this movement forward.
Again, Mr. Chair, I'd like to clarify. What exactly are they asking? Who of any credibility has approached them wanting this to occur? Who has approached them wanting to delay this even further, until March? What are we going to do? Do we delay it another year? Another two years? What exactly are they asking us?
Can I make one more comment about the rural communities?