Mr. Chair, I'm astounded to hear the offer by the parliamentary secretary to give on the one hand and take with the other. In the same comment, he went after the NDP and others because of particular ideological bent.
Mr. Chair, I think we have to look at what is in the best interest of Canadians, and there is no better place to look at it than here in the House of Commons and in this legislative committee, which is tasked with the responsibility to make sure that legislation is effective.
I see two concerns. One, importantly, is that there may be a violation of the Telecommunications Act; therefore, the minister has tried indirectly to do what he cannot do directly by order in council. My view is that this will be rendered ultra vires. There are concerns for consumers about the win-back programs. Unless you quit one of the major ILECs, you're going to wind up not getting much of a benefit here. We have examples of what's happened south of the border.
Mr. Chair, and to Mr. Carrie, the parliamentary secretary, if the minister was faithful to the recommendations of the Telecommunications Policy Review Panel, there would be no question here. But the fact that we have not spent more than two hours on this.... I dragged the government and some of the members here, kicking and screaming, to get just one day to give a glimpse of the problem. It's not about CRTC bashing. This is not about suggesting Liberals are right, NDP are wrong, Conservatives are right or wrong. This is about making sure that we get it right for Canadians.
Mr. Chair, I think it's clear that if in a few weeks we can do as good a work, as assiduous a work, as we did on manufacturing, we can come up with a consensus. Maybe the minister's views will be clarified. I'm not going to impugn his ideological perspective, because I think the minister believes that what he is doing is probably the correct approach. But from my 14 years of being here in the House of Commons and the 10 years before that, I know that one way in which you cannot proceed with bringing people on board, certainly in a minority government setting, is by using the kind of backhanded executive tactics that suggest, in my view, that not a lot of insight or study has been done on this.
I think it's incumbent on us, regardless of where we stand on this, regardless of the defences that we have to make.... I'm coming at this from an objective perspective. I'm concerned with this from the point of view of consumers, but also, more importantly, that it's going to stop dead in its tracks the competitive process that we've seen.
I agree, Mr. Carrie, as you've said many times, the TPR recommendations are solid, and I don't think we should deviate from them one iota. But given that several, and I've listed four for you already in just that context, have been avoided, and most importantly the one about understanding the bloody market that we're dealing with, in my view, Mr. Chairman, we have to have this vote. We have to have this study to satisfy ourselves that we are not passing legislation that is a dereliction of our responsibility.