Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to everybody. It sounds like there is definitely an effort here to row in one direction in terms of helping Canadians, which I like to see. I can't see how this motion wouldn't get unanimous consent to pass, because I think you've all explained that you care about Canadians.
I want to bring it back to the core of what we're trying to do with this motion—to bring emergency meetings to the industry committee to help Canadians have more affordable cellphone bills—as brought forth by my colleague MP Perkins. I will let him talk further about what that looks like to, sort of, find the ground on which we can all move forward with this.
I want to point out that Minister Champagne on Tuesday urged carriers to “seriously consider customers over profits at this time”, when the announcement was that Bell and Rogers cellphone prices were going to increase. He went on to say, “While prices for some wireless plans have declined by more than 22 per cent over the past year, the planned price increases to certain month-to-month plans that have recently been announced go against the spirit we've set, at a time when Canadians are struggling to make ends meet”. He went on to say, “I am prepared to use any other tools at my disposal to fight for Canadian consumers.” That's what this committee is. It is the tool to fight for Canadian consumers. It is an urgency, as I stated before, in a cost of living crisis.
Under the motion that has been put forward, I also want to reiterate that, given the fact that the Liberal government approved the decision to make Canada's telecommunications market smaller and less competitive, the Minister of Industry must answer for this latest price increase—which he said. He is quoted here as saying that he will use any “tools” necessary.
There is an urgency to this. This goes against.... Again, there's the same quote about “reasonable” time. I just think that focusing on that, and on the motion and what we're trying to do, this has an urgency to it.
I wanted to also just put on the record, as I spoke about earlier, that some folks wrote in to me. Jen McCarroll pays $300 for two cellphones. These are outrageous numbers. Navine pays $500 for four of them. Cathy pays $250 for two lines. Chiu pays just over $200 a month for three lines. McCarroll's is really important. She pays three cellphone bills so that her grandchildren can call home at any time.
This is really interesting. This gentleman wrote in and said that in Mexico it's 200 pesos, or approximately $16 Canadian, for 31 days unlimited phoning to Canada, U.S. and Mexico. He has unlimited text, unlimited social media and 5.75 gigabytes of data.
Obviously, there's an urgency to this. This impacts everyone, as acknowledged across party lines. Let's come to an agreement here and get this motion passed as soon as possible.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.