Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Internet access has been an issue for my community for a number of years. I was the mayor of Newmarket for 12 years. The business community's concern was that there wasn't the subscriber density that would justify Rogers or Bell upgrading their infrastructure, so effectively they were splitting the copper. As a result of that, our municipality established an ISP, and the regional municipality established a broadband backbone infrastructure, which increased the competition.
We look at roads, water and waste water as being utilities. When are we going to start to consider that broadband actually is a utility? As well, to what extent has the CRTC provided funding to municipalities so that they can fund municipal service corporations, effectively taking the profit motive out, and consider those as utilities?
I'll address that first to the CRTC, and I'd like to get the Competition Bureau's perspective as well.