—and look back and see how that developed.
Mr. Chair, I'd like to use the rest of my time to move my motion:
That the Standing Committee on Industry, science and technology undertake a study of recent wireless plan price increases by Canadian wireless carriers and their impact on the affordability of life for consumers and report its findings to the House by April 30, 2014.
I know this is something that the government has expressed interest in. Certainly our goal in putting forth this motion is that as New Democrats we believe Canadians deserve access to the most reliable networks and the highest speeds possible at affordable prices. Canadians deserve clear and consistent action to improve competition in the market and bring down prices for our consumers. That's certainly our goal on this side.
It seems to us that the government has not handled this file well. They've spent in the area of $9 million on ads to fight Canadian companies when that money, energy, and time would have been better directed to actually improving services and costs for consumers. Our view is that the new entrants have been left by this government to wither on the vine and the government has signed off on further concentration in the industry, leaving consumers with fewer choices at higher prices.
We think this study would be welcomed by the industry and consumers. But I do want to say that there has been some confusion that stems from media reporting of this motion. The media was alleging—and I certainly wasn't, with this motion—that this motion spoke to an allegation of collusion in the industry, which was not at all the point of this motion.
There's been some debate on this and a retraction of recent media reports on the issue, but—