Evidence of meeting #15 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was spectrum.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Thank you. It's my time.
You also said tonight that it was a 15- to 20-year return on investment for rural infrastructure. I know that the government is considering building out more on that.
You talked about the government spending billions on spectrum and it not being fair. I'm curious what your cost per gigabyte is to deliver service.
Executive Vice-President and Chief Customer Officer, Telus Communications Inc.
First of all, the government isn't spending billions on spectrum. It's charging the carriers billions for spectrum, for a national asset.
Conservative
Executive Vice-President and Chief Customer Officer, Telus Communications Inc.
Per user, it's—
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Sure. On an average plan for, let's say, my plan in Calgary, what would your cost per gigabyte be?
Executive Vice-President and Chief Customer Officer, Telus Communications Inc.
I don't have the number to hand. I can get that for you.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Okay, that is a figure that a lot of us just can't find, right? When we're trying to figure out your assertions that you can't build out rural broadband—and it's not just you, it's other companies as well—if certain criteria don't happen, it's a bit of a false dichotomy for us.
I guess what I'm saying is that I think you guys are making money. We certainly see that in your dividend reports when we look at them. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. There consistently seems to be, again, this policy tension between the larger incumbents and smaller providers that are trying to provide access or rural Internet. It always seems like rural Internet is the thing that is at risk whenever there's a change in policy or a CRTC decision.
I want to go back to your comments to my colleague, Mr. Dreeshen. You characterized your CEO's comments to the CRTC as not a threat. I'm going to read as it was reported in a Global News article on February 20 of this year. Your CEO “ended the presentation with a flourish, by volunteering to submit the Telus board’s instructions for managers to start making plans for cutting spending and jobs if the CRTC chooses MVNOs over facilities-based carriers.” If I'm correct, the CRTC made that decision with regard to some potentially detrimental price activities that may have been engaged in.
Wouldn't you characterize that as a threat? How are we, as legislators, supposed to work with you in managing the access when that's the tactic and the response that's coming out of your company?
Executive Vice-President and Chief Customer Officer, Telus Communications Inc.
In fairness, I actually said “two threats don't make a pattern” because I was told we were—
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Come on, that's semantics. People who are watching this.... People are watching this.
Executive Vice-President and Chief Customer Officer, Telus Communications Inc.
Sorry, I thought I had time to answer your question. Would you like me to answer the question?
Conservative
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
People are watching this and they're looking for.... That wasn't great. Yikes.
Executive Vice-President and Chief Customer Officer, Telus Communications Inc.
I'm trying to overcome your confirmation bias. Let me address the question.
Executive Vice-President and Chief Customer Officer, Telus Communications Inc.
If [Inaudible—Editor] policy is going to change, we have to look at the economic return of that policy on our business and we have to accommodate that policy in our strategic plans.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sherry Romanado
Unfortunately, that's your time Ms. Rempel Garner.
Our next round of questions goes to MP Ehsassi.
You have five minutes.
Liberal
Ali Ehsassi Liberal Willowdale, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for appearing before our committee.
I appreciate full well that these are complex issues we're trying to address within the confines of a very short period.
I think each of you has talked about how difficult it has been to receive licences and how they can delay access in rural areas. When we're talking about licences, are we talking about licences that are issued by municipal authorities? Is that what everyone was concerned about? Can I hear from all of you on this?
Chief Legal and Regulatory Officer, Xplornet Communications Inc.
This is C.J. Prudham at Xplornet.
There are two types of licences we're talking about here. One is the spectrum licence issued by the federal government. The others are the various permits and licences required for actual deployment, whether that's on poles or erecting towers or something like that. That can be quite challenging.
President, Rogers for Business, Rogers Communications Inc.
It's exactly the same. Very much, the deployment of telecom is a very physical business. You're ripping up roads and you're attaching towers, and all of that activity takes licensing, permitting and a whole bunch of processes through not just municipal authorities but others as well. It tends to be very complicated and it tends to take a fairly long period of time. It rarely can be done as part of a programmatic approach. It's usually site by site, so it creates a lot of complication and time to deploy networks, and to go back to my earlier comments, it adds cost to what is frankly a pretty repeated and standard effort in telecom.
Liberal
Ali Ehsassi Liberal Willowdale, ON
Thank you.
I take it everyone would agree that a lot of it is municipal.
As everyone knows, there is a huge variation in rural access across our country. Some regions are doing much better than others. Each of you has also touched on the role of provinces. How critical is it that provinces also be committed to assisting? I'm not quite sure whether that would take the form of resource allocation or whether it would be how the provinces can assist in this endeavour.
Could each of you talk about those regions in the country that are doing better than others? How critical was the commitment by a province?
Chief Legal and Regulatory Officer, Xplornet Communications Inc.
Again, I'm happy to jump in here, particularly because, as I said, we've announced a number of ones in eastern Canada in working with the provinces.
It makes a big difference when you have both the federal and the provincial governments aligned, and even more so if you happen to have the local municipalities aligned, because you can have circumstances where there are policies that are inconsistent and people are working on different timetables with different objectives. That is never helpful to getting a project done, getting it permitted and getting it through the system that Mr. Prevost was just referring to. It really helps to have alignment on all the goals and the timing.
Liberal
Ali Ehsassi Liberal Willowdale, ON
I have just a quick question for the representative from Cogeco. What province has actually done the best in terms of demonstrating that they care about access to remote regions?