Evidence of meeting #45 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.
February 19th, 2007 / 4:40 p.m.
Conservative
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
It's a simple question. Has your department conducted a study on that?
Richard Dicerni Deputy Minister, Department of Industry
We've benefited from a lot of the work—
NDP
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
I'm asking whether or not there has been a study upon the three pillars that they're talking about and their effects upon those markets.
Has there been a study done on whether that reduces consumers' costs? It's a simple question.
Deputy Minister, Department of Industry
I was going to say that we have benefited from the work that was done for the TPR panel, which conducted a number of hearings and conducted a number of surveys.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Mr. Chair, I'm asking if the department did a study on a simple question.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Mr. Dicerni, has the department conducted a study on this issue?
Mr. Minister?
Conservative
Maxime Bernier Conservative Beauce, QC
I will answer this question.
In doing this reform, the most important thing for us was to put the consumer first, and that's what we did. It's very simple. If you look at all the other—
NDP
NDP
Conservative
Maxime Bernier Conservative Beauce, QC
We didn't need any specific study to tell us that deregulation will be good for customers. Across the globe, in the U.K., in Hong Kong, and in all other jurisdictions, when they did deregulation in local phone services—
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Mr. Minister, I was simply asking the question about whether or not you did a study in the Canadian market about your proposal of deregulation.
Conservative
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Subsequent to that, all I was simply going to ask about, Mr. Minister, was the $29 million that you used in your earlier example about a benefit. You were talking about a 1% reduction in cost to consumers in those. Where did those figures come from? If you have a $50 cable bill, that's a 50¢ reduction per month, so I wanted to know where you got those figures from.
Conservative
Maxime Bernier Conservative Beauce, QC
It's simple mathematics. If you have a 1% decrease in local phone service costs, at the end that will be about $29 million a year. It's information that is provided in different briefings I received from the policy panel or...I don't remember in detail where I received this information from, but it was in my briefing notes.
I don't know, Richard, if you....
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
I'm just trying to clarify if this is a guesstimate based upon that. I understand that work has been done in the past, but I wanted to know specifically. I'm not trying to be hostile here, but to be quite frank, these are simple questions about whether you did an economic model or study upon your proposal. I think it's a fair question for consumers.
You claim to champion consumers. At the same time, if you don't believe they're being overcharged right now, then they're not going to necessarily benefit from competition.
Conservative
Maxime Bernier Conservative Beauce, QC
I didn't say that. What I'm saying is that the customer will benefit from bundled services provided to them. In that, maybe they will have different prices and maybe they will have better services. At the end, it's the market that will decide and the customer who will decide.
What I'm saying is that we have competition right now, and it's time to deregulate. At the end, it will benefit the consumers because they're going to have better services and probably good prices. That's been the experience in other jurisdictions, and I think it's a good experience that we can bring here.