Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all our witnesses for coming and sharing your expertise with our committee today.
I'd like to start by addressing something I heard today and something that has come up recently. First of all, to the CRTC, Mr. Amos has expressed frustration with the choice of starting with many of those rural and remote northern communities. Considering that many of them have very little, if no, coverage, because of market failure or cost, I can see why you'd want to start there. People who live that far away are Canadians too, and deserve to have the benefit of those kinds of programs. We should always be mindful of putting those who have the least first.
The government has announced a clawback of 3,500 MHz spectrum currently owned by, among others, Xplornet, which we heard from on Tuesday. When I asked about the impacts, they said they would be significant. I know the government has made some slight alterations to their plan, but it's still a major clawback.
I think it's somewhat absurd to study rural connectivity and not address the fact that a government decision may have cut off the Internet connections of thousands of rural customers. I'm prepared to move a motion to study this, but I'm also aware of the lack of time to do so, with the end of session fast approaching.
I think we must engage with the fact that we're talking about ways to increase rural connectivity, but the government is reducing it. In my opinion, we should at least make reference to the decision, and its impacts, in the report, or find out from the affected companies how many people will be affected by this policy choice.
I want to ensure the witnesses who made time for the committee have a chance to answer questions, so I'm going to end there. I hope the Liberal members who are clearly concerned about rural connectivity are willing to address the fact that the government may have just put a hatchet to it.
To the CRTC, I'm hoping you'll further indulge me for a quick second. A colleague has a constituent paying an extra $2.95 administration fee on their bill. They were told by their local provider that it's a mandated CRTC charge that only applies to a specific geographic area. If you can't answer this, could you please get me in touch with someone in your organization, so we can talk about the issue?