Industry Committee on May 7th, 2020

[Steve Arnold]

That $8,500 per resident was essentially the same project that SWIFT is doing now. The majority of it was fibre optic along the river. You build up areas and then there's a series of towers serviced by fibre optic cable to go to the rural areas around it. It was the whole municipality.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Okay, right on. I wasn't too sure because there's a town here in Saskatchewan which, for $1,700 per resident, was able to get fibre to the home, but it was right within the community. That's why I was wondering.

[Steve Arnold]

If we could get it for $1,700, I'd have to sign them up right now.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Yes, I bet you would. That's not too bad of a price, especially for fibre.

You mentioned earlier that you can only get half a megabit to one megabit of download right now. What is the advertised rate of speed that you have in your community?

[Steve Arnold]

Through cable, it's around 50 megabits, and through the airwaves it's around seven megabits. That's what they're advertising. And with seven megabits, you may as well put two cans and a string together.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Yes. One of the biggest issues I've been finding across the country is that a lot of the companies are using low signal quality for their mapping and not high quality. I think this is a direct result of that.

One of the proposals that we have in the proposal document that we just put out is about accurate reporting, transparency with Canadians, and accountability. Earlier, we heard Ms. Tribe talk about 41% of rural Canadians having access to 50 and 10 megabits per second. I spent 10 years working in telecommunications prior to being elected, and I do not recall very many communities, if any, that actually had access to 50 and 10.

Is 50 and 10 available to every resident in your area, or is it only in the actual community where you are?

[Steve Arnold]

For us, it's just in the Corunna area, the largest centre. That's where you get the 50 and 10 megabits per second. Some of the more rural areas and the smaller areas of the community can't get anything because it's all about line of sight. The kids go down to the library and sit outside the library to try to get online there in the middle of winter.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Yes. That gets to the whole equality of opportunity that we need to have for our rural areas. I think one of the barriers to getting investment into these rural communities is that a lot of companies are waiting for 5G, rather than investing in fibre to the home or fibre to all these communities. Are you finding that's potentially the case as you've been working through this?

[Steve Arnold]

They'll never come out and admit to that. We haven't had that much discussion around the 5G itself.

I think a lot of it is just because the market is so small that people just aren't interested in the small areas, with so many miles and so many acres to move stuff. I think that's the hardest part for most providers, and I don't blame them. They have to be able to make some money too.

I'll leave it at that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much.

The next round of questions goes to MP Jowhari.

You have five minutes.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses.

Ms. Tribe, you highlighted three short-term, let's say, steps that would help us with the emergency situation we are dealing with. On the third item, you talked about detailing a plan that would expedite getting us way ahead of 2030. In follow-up questions, you talked about coming up with a national strategy. You constantly referred to the government, and I would assume you're talking about the Government of Canada, the federal government, as the key driver of this through subsidies, through funding for infrastructure.

Where are the other players, from your point of view, playing in this puzzle? We still have provinces. We still have regions. We still have municipalities. We have IS providers, larger ones and smaller ones. We have some of the infrastructure that is already in place. We also have the residents.

How do you think these players, these stakeholders, play into this national strategy and the national rollout that you're talking about?

[Laura Tribe]

Yes, I am referring to the national government in terms of who I think needs to put forward a national plan. There is definitely a role for the provinces, for municipalities, for the territories and for local communities to play in determining what that looks like for them. However, I think the idea that it can be driven from the local level, without knowing they have the backing of the federal government, isn't going to get those projects very far. So I think the federal government putting forward a plan that says, “We are committed to this, and now we're going to come and meet with you at the provincial level, at the territorial level, at the regional level to figure out what the plan is that suits you and how we can best support you and work with you,” is really how to get that done.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Let me share with you the experience I've had, at least over the last six years, as the federal government introduced a lot of infrastructure programs. Where we run into a bottleneck is when those infrastructure programs come to the provincial level or the municipal level. A lot of, let's say, positioning had to take place to make sure they were prioritized.

Despite the fact that the Government of Canada, at least in the case of my riding, identified infrastructure investment as a top priority, when it came to the province and when it came to the region there was that friction, or there was misalignment, I would call it, and timing that didn't allow us to roll out that infrastructure in a timely manner.

Yes, we can drive it, but we need partners at the table to develop this and agree on it, rather than us saying, “These are the pieces,” and then, “Province, this is your piece to go.” What are your thoughts on that?

[Laura Tribe]

You will all know better than I do how difficult it is to get multi-layered government projects aligned, particularly with elections, when governments can change in different cycles at different times. There are different interests that come in. However, for starters, this is an issue where there is a lot of alignment at all levels of government. People need connectivity, and I think you can start there.

Then, if the government is firm in its commitments, and the provinces, the municipalities, the regions know that you're going to be there in one year, two years or three years to follow up and to continue on this—this isn't just a press release, it's not just an announcement, but it's actually a plan that's going to be followed through on—I think you're going to be amazed to see they're willing to sit at the table knowing that suddenly you're going to help them get their communities online.

When those conversations are taking place, there's absolutely an expectation that those communities are participating in the conversation. They are helping to drive what services they're looking for or what the set-up is they're looking for. That's in cities and towns, as well as first nations communities. That consultation process is something the federal government is well positioned to facilitate in those smaller circles.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

I think I have about 10 seconds, so I'll yield that to the chair.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much.

Our next round of questions goes to MP Rempel Garner.

You have five minutes.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yesterday, as some of my colleagues mentioned, as the Conservative Party, we put out a document that outlined about 14 different recommendations for the government to use in considering how to address the issue of rural broadband access. One of the things we talked about was the fact that oftentimes we see companies advertise the best possible speed in the utopian environment, and what often happens is that a consumer will get an average speed that's far lower than that.

My question is for Ms. Tribe.

Would it be fair to say that many Canadians do not receive the speeds that they think they're paying for? Do you think that requiring companies to advertise the average speed in their regions is a good idea?

[Laura Tribe]

Yes, one of the biggest concerns that we hear, particularly during the pandemic, is that people are looking.... I think, as Mr. Kaplan-Myrth referred to earlier, people are upping their speeds or upping their needs, but they're not necessarily seeing that result in the final product they're getting at home. That is one of the concerns we're hearing. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, we've seen that a third of Canadians have reported that their speeds have gone down since the pandemic without changing their package they're receiving.

There are huge disparities. We've seen that it has been more prevalent in rural areas where the service has been a bit more tenuous to start, and as that reliance becomes more heavy, those services are dramatically reduced. One of the recommendations the CRTC put forward in 2016, when it declared the Internet a basic service, was that there needed to be minimum service guarantees, and that was how the metrics should be put forward for the services that people are receiving and what they're paying for as opposed to what they might be able to receive.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thanks.

The Auditor General, when they reviewed the connect to innovate program, found that the program didn't require applicants to demonstrate that their projects would not be feasible without public funding, which is concerning to me, because there's really then no requirement for people who would receive these funds to focus on harder-to-reach or lower demand areas. Do you think that could be a requirement for any new public funding for rural broadband ?

[Laura Tribe]

Yes, absolutely, I think that public funding being required is a huge piece. I can only speak for OpenMedia's community, but I think that's why we've seen a lot of frustration when government funding consistently goes to companies like Bell that are using rural Canada as a pawn.

In August when they were upset with the decision, they said they were no longer going to connect 200,000 homes as planned, and now that the pandemic is out, they're promising to reconnect 135,000 homes that they had originally withdrawn. If that flexibility is there and that funding is there, and it's really just a matter of prioritization, that's on them. This is really us asking the government to say, “Make it happen for those who can't do it otherwise.”

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I was going to leave this question—it's a little spicier—for last, and I'll word it carefully, but look, the status quo was maintained for a long period of time, and I think we've all experienced the influence of those who would like to maintain the status quo.

Do you think the lobbying practices and ownership of other assets by certain companies in the space that we're talking about are a part of the reason we don't have universal, affordable access to Internet in Canada? Carefully worded, what would you suggest for legislators and media who are writing in the space? How should we navigate this? If we're managing to access and we want a free market and we want people to be making money, but we also want access, how do we break this logjam?

[Laura Tribe]

I am not an expert on the Lobbying Act or the practices there, so I can't speak to lobbyists themselves, but I think, as a public interest advocate who is working really hard to get the voices of our community to all of you, to people in positions of power, it is amazing to watch the tantrums, the bullying and the fits that we watch the incumbents throw when they don't get their way. The amount of power that they wield when it comes to our media companies, our Internet service providers is really unparalleled. Those tantrums really do go a long way, I think, to influencing government, and I think the greatest way to influence that is to reduce the power they have overall.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you so much.

Our next round of questions goes to MP Lambropoulos.

You have five minutes.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Hello everyone.

I'd like to thank all of the witnesses for being here with us this evening. I was actually just logged off because my Internet was faulty. Luckily, I got back on just in time.

Obviously, we live in a time when we completely depend on the Internet more than ever. Every single Canadian should have access to the Internet. I'm happy we're having this conversation today.

My first question is for TekSavvy.

You were answering that you were having some difficulties pre-coronavirus and needed the government's help with regard to keeping the company going. I was wondering if you had an increase in demand after the virus hit and once people were forced to work from home.

We'll start with that question.

[Andy Kaplan-Myrth]

We were actually already seeing dramatic increases in how much capacity we needed to carry our customers' traffic late in 2019, before the pandemic. It was already getting expensive. That's partly a factor of a lot of new streaming services coming online all at the same time. We also lowered prices. People increased their speeds. There were a number of factors. We were working really hard to add capacity to our network as fast as we could.

With the pandemic, yes, we definitely saw an increase in the amount of traffic on our networks, and not just during the day, but overall, and at peak times, which is really the limiting factor for us. The way we provision our networks is by buying the amount of capacity we need at peak time.

We saw huge increases in the amount of capacity that we needed. We immediately placed a lot of orders to add capacity to our networks. That's a process that takes time for us. It's a service that we buy from the incumbents.

It was helped somewhat when YouTube, and Netflix, I believe it was, reduced the quality of their streams. That saved a lot of bandwidth and we had some relief from that.

But, yes, we saw very large increases in the amount of traffic generated on the networks.