Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm sorry to be a dog with a bone on this topic, but I think it's really important that we continue to look at cellphone bills on behalf of Canadians. We're not going to stop until we get these cellphone bills down.
We had a motion that we talked about last week, and I want to revisit it. Specifically, what we have changed in this motion to make it a little different is to ensure that we get not only Rogers and Bell to the committee but also Vidéotron. I think it's important that we get CEOs of these companies here to talk about what's happening with cellphone bills for Canadians.
Second, it's that we will have the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry here. I think it's important for him. I know from talking to him in the past that he's always talked about how he wants to come in front of Canadians and talk about lowering cellphone bills.
I'm going to go back to March 5, 2020. The then industry minister, Navdeep Bains, announced that they were going to lower cellphone bills by 25% in the next two years, by 2022. It would save families $690 a year. With the announcements we had last week by Bell—I guess it's three weeks ago now—the average cellphone bill in Canada is $106. Rogers and Bell are going to follow suit with a $9-per-month increase, which will mean those bills are going to $115.
It comes down to one thing, and that's data. That's the question we want to ask the CEOs. Canadians used three times more data in 2022 than they did in 2015. You know that when you go and look at Instagram or you're downloading Reels or you're using YouTube or Netflix, you consume more data. Cellphone bills, if you were consuming only five gigabytes a month, have gone down 25%, but Canadians consume more data, and cellphone bills are going up. These are good questions to ask on behalf of all Canadians.
I move as follows:
That, as Canadians already pay the highest cellphone bills in the world, and Rogers and Bell have indicated an increase to cellphone bills of $9 a month, the committee call for two meetings to be held by February 15, 2024, one with the CEOs of Rogers, Vidéotron and Bell and the second one with the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, to explain why prices are going up; and that this committee also condemn pricing increases and report back to the House.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.