Thank you, Madam Chair.
Good morning, hon. members.
My name is Pierre Karl Péladeau, and I'm the president and chief executive officer of Quebecor Media. Accompanying me today is Jean-François Pruneau, who is the president and chief executive officer of Vidéotron.
I'd like to thank you for inviting us to present our point of view.
Over the years, Quebecor and its 10,000 employees have demonstrated their firm and sustained commitment to Quebec's economic prosperity and the development of our regions. We have been doing so for decades and, obviously, we wish to continue along the same path. We have demonstrated this by the billions of dollars invested in our telecommunications networks. They have been able to meet the reliability and robustness required to power consumption, which, as you know, has been greatly strained by the increased needs related to teleworking, entertainment and the many online activities due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a sad time for Canada and all other countries.
At a time when we are in the midst of a debate over the use of networks by wired and wireless Internet resellers, who are contributing zero investment, we need to recognize the vital contribution of network builders to the Canadian economy. Our ongoing investments are proof that the current facilities-based competition approach to regulation is the right one. To cut it up, as some would have it, would be detrimental to Canada's investment and to Canada's continued economic development and productivity.
We will always be proponents of competition, as long as it is fair, as long as it is equitable, and as long as it is beneficial to all stakeholders in an industry. The same is true of Vidéotron's experience in wireless service. It was able to break the cartel of the three incumbent operators, and allowed Quebec consumers to benefit from the lowest prices in Canada.
In this regard, we would like to remind you that the Competition Bureau presented an unequivocal finding in November 2019: in regions where regional competitors with their own wireless networks and facilities, such as Vidéotron, have achieved a market share exceeding 5.5%, and prices are 35% to 40% lower than in the rest of Canada. This finding was recently corroborated in the report published on January 29 by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada on the evolution of wireless service prices, which shows that Quebec is the only province in the country to have reached, for almost all targeted packages, the 25% price reduction target set by the federal government for the end of 2019.
This tour de force was made possible by Vidéotron's customer experience and the performance of its network, both of which have won numerous industry awards.
Unlike resellers and their parasitic behaviour, which, I must insist once again, make a zero contribution to the investment, Vidéotron has invested more than $1.5 billion in the construction and evolution of a network, as well as $1.2 billion for the acquisition of mobile frequencies, thereby enriching the Canadian treasury. We wish to continue our investments so that even more Quebeckers, particularly in the regions, can have access to high-speed Internet service at a fair price.
Unfortunately, we are facing opposition from Bell Canada, which is deliberately blocking access to the support infrastructure—the famous poles—that it owns because of the monopolistic legacy of the past. We aren't the only ones to say so, since Rogers, Cogeco, the Fédération québécoise des municipalités, Maskicom as well as several other regional county municipalities, or RCMs, and so on, have also denounced Bell's actions.
The impact of its anti-competitive behaviour is particularly serious. If the federal government doesn't take the necessary steps to bring Bell back into line, the ambitious goals of the new universal broadband fund to connect 98% of Canadians to high-speed Internet by 2026 and the entire population by 2030, will remain unattainable, and the digital divide between our rural and urban citizens will persist.
It's important to emphasize that this anti-competitive behaviour, constantly and frequently denounced, isn't limited to access to the support infrastructure of this national company, far from it. Indeed, whether by turning a blind eye to satellite television piracy in the 2000s or by refusing TVA Sports equivalent treatment to RDS in its cable television packages or, even more recently, by blocking Vidéotron's entry into Abitibi-Témiscamingue by any means possible, Bell's all-out anti-competitive behaviour is rooted in its business practices and stems from a monopolistic attitude.
Madam Chair, I understand my time is up.
We are, of course, ready to answer questions from committee members.
Thank you for your attention.