Evidence of meeting #41 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was crtc.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Vice-Chair, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Honestly, no one's ever talked about it.
Independent
André Arthur Independent Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC
Everyone fixed their expense account at the same time.
Vice-Chair, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
I don't have the faintest clue; it's possible.
Independent
Vice-Chair, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
The Auditor General can audit us at any time. I have nothing more to say on this matter.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
We're out of time here, Mr. Arthur.
We'll finish with Mr. Masse.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. French, with regard to the proposal, can you explain how a market like Toronto could be rather unique? I understand you could have different sections of Toronto deregulated in different ways. Is that a correct interpretation?
Vice-Chair, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Are we talking about business or residential?
Vice-Chair, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Under the order in council the incumbent telephone company has the choice of applying in a territory as small as an exchange--an exchange is 587, 586, 585--or as large as a local interconnection region, which could be more than a million people. They have the choice under the order in council to take either a geographical territory or a technological territory, which is an exchange.
They would have to demonstrate to the commission's satisfaction that the conditions in the order in council--we're always under the hypothesis that it becomes official--had been met, which essentially are the conditions I read out earlier. There are three networks.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
So you could get around that, for example, little fiefdoms of different service and levels of competition, if you believe that would take place and literally across the street or across the--
Vice-Chair, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Well, the city of Toronto, with so much Rogers infrastructure, probably would fairly quickly become a homogenously regulated area. It will be more in the interface between the suburbs and rural areas, or in smaller towns, where there are fairly large differentials in location of business sections that might have less intense competition than the residential sections. There's no cable in business sections. There will be a Swiss cheese effect in some places.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
That would depend on growth and a series of things in terms of urban expansion as well as emerging markets.
Who would make the decision on that? I understand the minister would actually have some fairly significant powers. Is that correct?
Vice-Chair, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
No, I don't see that the minister would have any powers. His power is exhausted when the order in council comes on our table. I could be wrong, but to the best of my knowledge neither he nor the government foresee that he would actually make specific decisions on forbearance territories or applications.
Vice-Chair, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Under the current act, it would be entirely our responsibility.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
How long could that take? For example, a new subdivision comes on line; and once again, I think Swiss cheese is a good description as to what you could potentially get for an area like that. How long would that take to correct itself?
Vice-Chair, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
It depends on the terrain. The cable company wants to serve as many people as it can. Then, always assuming that the terrain is reasonably welcoming, it could be fairly quick. I live in Chelsea, and we have a 27-channel analog cable offering. There's no competition in that area, and that's 20 minutes from Parliament Hill. So those things will have to work themselves out, but they will, because it's an extremely attractive market and we're facing two sets of large, well-financed, aggressive, sophisticated brands that are well known to the public. They'll have a good, competitive battle in most of the areas where they're both present. There are areas where only one of the two is present, and those are the areas where I gave the two-answer answer.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
I want to move quickly to one other issue—that is, the deferral accounts decisions with the hundreds of millions of dollars that are going to move to go out to broadband and other types of services for rural areas. I strongly believe in a rural policy for an incentive, as well as a policy directive to expand it, but what was the logic in terms of consumer fairness to decide to dedicate that, as opposed to returning it to the consumer's pocket?
Vice-Chair, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
We would have returned something like $2 or $3 to each consumer, on one bill. We looked at that money in one place and we thought, what can we do that would make a fundamental change in the infrastructure of the country? We thought about Chibougamau, we thought about Moosonee, and we thought about isolated areas in the northern prairies and the terrible terrain in B.C. that phone companies have had to deal with. We said maybe we can devote the majority of that money to extend broadband to these areas, which would otherwise be commercially non-viable. That was the rationale. It was a fairly classic Canadian decision.
Yes, a whole lot of urban consumers who already have high speed will not get their $2.80. I guess we don't apologize for that, because we thought we were trying to extend high-speed services to communities, which would have better educational and health opportunities and all the other things we believe flow from the high-speed service to a town.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
I just want to get on the record that it was just a one-time return.
Vice-Chair, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
It was a one-month return of.... I could give you the exact amount, but it's in the amount of $2.80 or $3 a person.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Mr. Masse, thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. French, to you and your colleagues for being with us here today.
Members, we will suspend for about two minutes and ask the other witnesses to come to the table.
Mr. Crête, on a point of order.
Bloc
Paul Crête Bloc Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
I don't think that the order in which members are to speak has been respected. The Conservatives decided to give their time to Mr. Arthur. If the Conservatives skip their turn, we should move on to the next person on the list. The party should not have the power to give its time to Mr. Arthur. I think that, in the future, this situation should be recorded and rectified.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Monsieur Crête, actually, during the manufacturing study we did across the country, there were instances on the opposition side when members of one party did give their time to members of another party. I allowed it at that time. I've allowed it in the past. If the Conservative Party wished to give up their time to Monsieur Arthur, I've allowed that as well. So I've allowed it on both sides of the table, both the opposition and the government side. I've done that as a matter to try to be fair.
Seeing as we have a lot of our witnesses only for an hour, the fact of the matter is that with the rotation, Monsieur Arthur would never get to ask a question. I'm trying to balance fairness here. If the Conservatives choose to have one of their members not ask questions and give that time to Monsieur Arthur, I see it as time allotted to the Conservative Party. If they choose to donate it to Monsieur Arthur, it's their time.