Certainly. I am going to ask you to be patient and answer in English, given that this is a very technical subject.
The important decision of how to allocate AWS spectrum was made by me, with the advice of the department, following an extensive process of deliberation and consultation.
I received legal advice shortly after I became the minister that it would be prudent to consult extensively with the players in the industry. Further to that advice, I met with the individual CEOs of six or seven, as I recall, different players in the telecommunications industry. I afforded each of them an equal amount of time to explain their perspective. I was a new minister and I wanted to make sure I understood where they were coming from. I also read everything I could about the industry, and I spent an enormous amount of time with the department getting further details.
I came to the conclusion, not at any single point in time but gradually, that we needed to ensure through the AWS auction that Canadians received the benefit of their AWS spectrum, because it is a public good that is owned by the citizens of Canada, and that what was in their interest was lower prices, more choice, and better service. I strongly formed the view that the way to achieve that was with a set-aside that is reasonably modest in terms of the overall amount of spectrum that is publicly deployed on a commercial basis but that nonetheless would achieve the objective of more competition and thereby lower prices, more choice, and better service.
I note that virtually all the auctions, whether you speak of Canada or our industrial competitors, the United States, England, and so on, have had some mechanism to achieve new entry. A set-aside is one such mechanism. It's not the only mechanism. There are other public policy steps that different governments have taken. I won't bore you with the details, but they have all been targeted to achieve the same thing, which is new entry.
I would say in closing that the very first auctions in Canada were actually targeted to do exactly that, and in fact all the incumbents in the telecommunications industry in Canada currently hold spectrum that they acquired by way of set-aside.