Thank you for your question. I am very pleased to have received your support for deregulation of local telephone service. Canadian consumers are already benefiting from that deregulation. Why? Because we have done away with regulations relating to winback offers.
In a capitalist, free-enterprise system, businesses operating in all industry sectors must have the right to offer their products and promote those products. These regulations prevented some telephone industry players, when they lost a client, from making a counteroffer. They had to wait several months. Those regulations were contrary to the interests of consumers, because when someone decided to leave a company, that same company could not make him a better offer. As a result, the consumer ended up paying a little more.
Since our reforms were introduced last April, those regulations are no longer on the books. I can assure you that in the major urban centres, when a Canadian consumer decides to stop dealing with a former monopoly in order to give his business to another industry player, he is offered benefits that he would not have received otherwise. Ultimately, the consumer is free to stay with the former monopoly or deal with a competitor. There is competition in the urban centres, which has a direct impact on prices and on the product offer. When a company is able to make a counteroffer, that counteroffer is not necessarily based on price; it may have more to do with the quality of its various services.
So, there is an immediate impact on consumers. To my knowledge, several large companies have asked that local services be deregulated in the major urban centres. I can tell you with absolute certainty that at least one urban centre's market in Canada will be deregulated before the end of the year. In the coming months, we will gradually see that deregulation occurring in the major urban centres. Before the end of this year, we should be seeing the benefits of increased competition in the urban centres.