Yes, as long as they can stay alive. That's the key thing.
I want to move now to Minister Monsef, please.
With regard to broadband, I know you've recognized that they've been waiting for decades, and for decades I've been raising the fact that we have abused our spectrum auction. We've actually taken in $22 billion in spectrum auctions and passed on some of the highest consumer costs to Canadians. On top of that, we've also taken that money and not put it back into rolling out a plan across Canada.
We have a spectrum auction now that's delayed. Can you tell us why it's delayed and why we're not using the spectrum auction to facilitate more broadband rollout right now?
Again, both Liberal and Conservative governments have benefited by over $22 billion. We have limited competition and I would argue.... Maxime Bernier came to this committee and said that he had a plan for Canada. That didn't work out too well.
When can we see the spectrum auction actually used to facilitate penetration and affordability? If we build systems that people can't afford, we're actually further disadvantaging people. That is a significant disadvantage to rural, remote and lower-income Canadians, who can't compete for school and can't compete for business. They're also left behind in the social realm, because they can't get on and use the type of infrastructure that's necessary.
Lastly, it's a responsibility for the government as we get rid of bricks and mortar and put stuff online. We saw through the immigration policies how it hurt people, because they couldn't do it quickly enough.