Industry Committee on May 7th, 2020

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

Thank you.

I live in a non-rural community. I'm in an urban community, but still we get a lot of complaints. I've heard a lot of complaints because the main providers are Bell and Vidéotron and people have a problem with the fact that those are the only providers. They're not the only ones, but they're the most mainstream ones, and the ones people go for.

What's your take on that? What role do you think our government should play in changing the way things are currently?

[Andy Kaplan-Myrth]

You are describing Bell and Vidéotron as the main providers. They're the incumbents. They've been there the longest. They have all the advantages and privilege of incumbency, and they're the best known. They do own the wires, but TekSavvy probably provides service in your area and lots of other competitors probably do, too. You actually have lots of choices for providers.

It's on the same wires, and what you don't want to do in an urban area is encourage more providers to build more fibre to your home. There's already technology that goes to your home that can carry the traffic that you need. You might need to add capacity—I keep seeing your signal levels drop there—but there are already wires going to your home, so you don't need to incentivize more companies to build more wires. What the government and the CRTC need to do, and what the CRTC tried to do last year, to their credit, with setting their wholesale rates, is enable competitors to use those wires to deliver services so customers have real choices where they already have that connectivity.

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

Thank you so much.

If I have any time left, I'd like to ask Ms. Tribe a question.

You had given us three main recommendations, but you said you had a whole slew of other ones. As we're reaching the end of our time here, if you had any more that you'd like to put on the record before the end of this session, you can go ahead.

[Laura Tribe]

Thanks.

I will put more in writing to you, but I think the biggest thing that can be done today that would make a big difference to people who are on the verge of being connected or not is to remove data caps on cellphones. We know that in low-income families cellphones are often the only connectivity device they have. If they are now reliant on that, with the most oppressive data caps that we have, with the most punitive overage fees, I think that's the biggest thing we could do to bridge that gap in the short term.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you.

We'll move on to the next round of questions.

Mr. Lemire, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

In my opinion, we have a duty of fairness to all consumers. I'm thinking about the idea of a universal floor price in the country, meaning in Quebec and Canada, in both urban and rural areas. This price would be fixed by a government agency. It would be a universal fixed price for data use, and the provider would offer this price to the distributor. The goal is to ensure that the customer doesn't pay more, whether the customer is in an urban or rural area. Of course, this could give competitive advantages to small providers.

My question is for the representatives of the Canadian Communication Systems Alliance, who referred earlier to the idea of stepping up financial support for broadband services in rural areas.

Do you agree with this principle of independence between the provider and the distributor?

Also, do you agree that each distributor should have a legal obligation to maintain the same ratio of customers in urban and rural areas?

[Jay Thomson]

As an organization, we're entirely supportive of the notion of universal access and affordable access. If we can offer services at the same price in rural Canada as Canadians pay in urban Canada, that would be a fantastic accomplishment for the whole country. However, to the issue that has been at the foundation of the discussion today, that takes money. It costs a lot more to operate a service in rural Canada than it does in urban Canada.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Doesn't the government have a duty of fairness to all Quebecers and Canadians, a duty that it could fulfill by fixing the price offered by providers to distributors? In the end, we would ensure that the bill is the same for everyone.

[Jay Thomson]

If the goal is equal prices across the country, it's a laudable goal, but it can't be done without government support, substantial government support.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

However, there's a fairness issue here. You acknowledge that, don't you?

[Jay Thomson]

Yes, entirely. We entirely agree that universal access is a question of fairness and citizenship.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you.

Our next round of questions goes to MP Masse.

You have two and a half minutes.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to take a moment to thank our researchers. They did an amazing job in pulling together some good data with regard to the coverage that each province has and the private companies that are involved. That needs to be noted because we get some really good service here.

Ms. Tribe, I want to ask again about universality and the streaming and net neutrality issues we have. Has that taken a back seat right now given what has taken place in terms of connectivity? What I worry about to some degree, just as I do with privacy rights, is it becoming subservient during times of crisis to expediency, which can undermine our pillars of democracy, and also with net neutrality and streaming, advertising and other things could be affected. Do you have any comments related to that?

[Laura Tribe]

Thanks. I love to talk net neutrality.

As for where net neutrality stands in Canada right now, the CRTC has made a number of strong decisions that support net neutrality as far as content not being prioritized over other content is concerned. It is up for debate, in the review of the Telecommunications Act, what any new legislation would look like.

The biggest thing I take away from this pandemic with regard to net neutrality is that so many of the arguments we have heard from the incumbents on why certain content should be prioritized over other types of content are about traffic management needs. It's the same reason they justify low data caps, which we have seen artificially suppress usage. We've seen our major ISPs remove data caps across the board in this time of crisis, and therefore, fundamentally, we need to look at whether they are needed the rest of the time. If we can uphold net neutrality now, I think it will set a strong precedent for when things return to a more normal state, whatever that looks like. Those principles need to remain then, too.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I see the red card.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you so much. That brings us to the end of the third round and the end of our time this evening.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for their time and their patience and, of course, our IT crew, our translators, our analysts and the clerk. Thanks to all the members for their patience and their excellent questions again this evening.

Have a good evening.

This meeting is adjourned.