Thank you, Minister.
I wanted to point something out to you from page 2-14 of the TPRP panel report. Under “Consistent Application of Policy” there is a recommendation that Mr. Intven, whom you cited a little earlier, was party to:
Canada’s telecommunications policy objectives should be implemented in a coherent and consistent manner by all such departments and agencies. These policy objectives should therefore apply not only to the CRTC in the performance of its duties under the Telecommunications Act, but also to the Minister of Industry in the implementation of telecommunications policies and programs.
Minister, we're very concerned that you've cherry-picked half of the recommendations from what was an excellent report. We agree with you on the objectives. We believe it's the right direction to take. But we believe that the way you've gone about it is absolutely wrong. It's wrong because you've taken out some of the important safeguards that were recommended by this blue ribbon panel. I'll cite a few of them.
The removal of something that is extremely critical was the establishment of an understanding of significant market shares as they exist today. No OECD country has ever proceeded with deregulation before having that kind of an analysis. You, sir, have done that.
Second, there is a recommendation here for a telecom competition tribunal, a quasi-hybrid between the Competition Bureau and the expertise of the CRTC. That has been thrown away in favour of something you refer to as a competitor presence test, which isn't even understood by the Competition Bureau. It probably is, but that low threshold almost guarantees that if I open up an apple shack and decide to call it “Dan's Telecom”, chances are it's going to constitute, in your view, some kind of competition.
The other one that's missing is CRTC's expertise and of course the concern about no consumer ombudsman.
Minister, I'm looking at many of the recommendations here, and they make sense. They must be done as the commission, as the panellists, have suggested: in a holistic way, in a comprehensive way. You cannot possibly state, as you have done now, that what you have proposed is faithful to what has been suggested by this blue ribbon panel, which both sides of this table agree with.