Industry Committee on Nov. 30th, 2017

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

The motion reads as follows:

That the Committee review the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (BIA), the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act and the Investment Canada Act (ICA); and that the Committee invite relevant stakeholders to appear before the end of 2017 in order to provide the members with information about the impact on pensioners of companies involved in bankruptcy proceedings such as Sears Canada and U.S. Steel.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

I just want to be clear on which motion you're moving forward.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I think we should have a discussion on the motion. I'd like to continue with the discussion we have going on today with the witnesses we have. We have ministers coming in.

I think it's a motion worth discussing as opposed to voting on. I think we need more time to discuss it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Okay.

Go ahead, Terry.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

I move to adjourn debate right now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

We have a motion to adjourn debate. That is non-debatable.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Can we have that as a recorded vote?

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Absolutely.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 5; nays 3)

We're going to go back to our questions.

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Do I still have time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

You have two minutes.

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

All right.

My question is in line with what I said before. When we're talking about Internet access, wireless, and all that, the CRTC has a new proposal for being sure that everybody will have a lot of data, more than they have, and the minimum Internet access. What do you think about their new proposal on that?

[Ray Orb]

You're referring to the download speed, the megabits per second?

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

It's the download speed. Yes, you're right.

[Ray Orb]

We're in favour of that. We believe that all Canadians should have a minimum amount of download capacity as well as a minimum of upload capacity. We believe it's a step in the right direction. We believe they need to spread out that coverage throughout the rural and remote areas of the country first before it's enhanced any further. We need to have that basic coverage. The reason is that many people need this to operate their businesses. Whether they are farmers or other kinds of business people in the rural area, they need to have the basic capacity, so we're in favour of it.

We're pleased with the funding. Funding is never enough, obviously, but as time goes on, there's more funding being made available. We're happy with that direction.

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Stewart, you have seven minutes.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Great.

Thank you very much for your presentations today. This issue is important to me because I grew up in a remote area of Nova Scotia that still has very little access to broadband. It's often intermittent, so I understand the challenges faced by folks in rural and remote communities when it comes to Internet access.

To both of you, in terms of coverage, can you give us some examples of the extent of the problem we're facing here? Perhaps you can give us some examples of communities and the levels of access, which range probably from 0% coverage to 50%. Can you give us some sense of the range of the problem we're facing?

[Ray Orb]

Yes, we can. I would say that the problems with coverage are even more exaggerated in northern Canada, so I'll let Sara answer first, if you don't mind, and then I'll answer as well.

[Sara Brown]

Thanks very much.

It's not so much a percentage as it is.... We do have coverage in most communities. We don't have the same rural base in most communities, but the speeds are so slow that it makes it almost impossible to participate using Internet for health, education, and those sorts of things, but our remoteness makes it even more important to have it. You can't drive up the road to access the service that you don't have in your own community. It's absolutely critical to participating in and enjoying a lifestyle that most Canadians have.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Do you have any specific numbers you could give us on how slow things are, such as the worst and mid-range scenarios?

[Sara Brown]

Do you remember dial-up?

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Yes.

[Sara Brown]

That's what we're looking at.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

People are still using dial-up?

[Sara Brown]

No. There are some on dial-up, but even when you're not on dial-up, you're still looking at significantly slow speeds. You can't stream. Often video conferencing is a real challenge. The delays with the satellite links just complicate that.