Perhaps other committee members will have more to add, but I would simply like to remind Mr. Carrie that on October 24 last, the committee passed the following motion:
[...] the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology recommends that the government impose a moratorium on implementing instructions respecting telecommunications policies recommended to the CRTC to allow the Committee to hear more witnesses in order to make a more thorough study and subsequently present a report to the House on the impact of the deregulation, no later that March 1, 2007 [...];
Following the adoption of the motion by the committee on October 24, the Minister took it upon himself to disregard the recommendation and implemented the regulations anyway. This is the first issue that I'd like to question the Minister about.
Secondly, in early January -- I don't know if you heard about it -- some consumer representatives and Internet services suppliers held a press conference to denounce the Minister's decision respecting local telephone services as neither relevant nor acceptable. Among others, Cogeco, a major cable broadcaster, stated that this was not a wise decision. The large companies agree with this assessment, but no public consultations were held. I'd like to see some public consultations because the report in question was produced by experts. I'm not calling into question their expertise, but the fact remains that there are public policy considerations here that warrant further study by the committee. That was the rationale for this motion.
As for groups that could potentially testify, these are groups that have already appeared before the committee. Others could possibly give us a different perspective on the issue of deregulation.
For now, I hope that answers the question.