Industry Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2024

[Tony Staffieri]

Healthy competition comes with healthy investment, and healthy investment means that the participant is willing to take risks. That's what we do here at Rogers. We invest our capital and our shareholder money. We borrow so that we can invest in connectivity. That's the premise and that's been a cornerstone of having the best networks in the world. In Canada—

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Operating profits of 50% before taxes, on the cable side, are a pretty healthy profit margin, so I would say that this is a very profitable business on airwaves spectrum—which is a Canadian asset owned by Canadian taxpayers that you're allowed to rent. When the CRTC orders more competition and you lobby against it, that's obviously in your business interest but not in the interests of consumers, because having more competitors means lower prices.

I will ask you again, why are you lobbying against the CRTC decision to allow for more competitors on the fibre optic network?

[Tony Staffieri]

As I said, we encourage competition on the back of capital at risk and investment. You referred to spectrum. We invest more in spectrum than any other telecom operator in this country. We bid on that—

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

You have a rule at Rogers to bid on all spectrum, even if you don't need it, in order to block the competitors, don't you? I've had former executives tell me that, at Rogers, your policy is to bid and buy it all, and block it from other people. Is that not the case?

[Tony Staffieri]

We're very careful in what we invest in, and we invest in what we need to have the best networks. In respect to auctions—

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Why don't you use it all?

[Tony Staffieri]

We actively deploy all the spectrum we purchase. It's in our interest to do that to create the best customer environment when it comes to wireless networks.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Just to conclude, Mr. Chair, I requested for Rogers—and I think I have the committee's agreement—to table with this committee the preliminary document that it signed with Blackstone on the backhaul.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Perkins.

Go ahead, MP Sorbara.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the representatives from the different telecom companies.

First, on the Rogers side, since your acquisition of Shaw, can you describe the pricing that you've been offering to your customers? Has the pricing increased or decreased following your acquisition of Shaw?

[Tony Staffieri]

At a high level, I can tell you, and I'm proud to tell you, that as a result of increased competition in the west, prices have come down, particularly on bundled products. For the Shaw Mobile customers, we committed to freezing those prices and they continue to be at the same prices in the marketplace today.

Bret, maybe you can talk about some of the competitive pricing dynamics in the west.

[Bret Leech]

We operate, as you said, Tony, in a very competitive environment. Since coming together with Shaw, if I were to note the government's own statistics from Statistics Canada, we have seen a decrease in prices for our customers.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

I'm subbing in for a colleague.

We live in a country where oligopolies exist, especially in the protected markets in which the telecom companies operate.

If I can use the analogy.... Look at the grocery sector. For a long time, a lot of the grocery participants said these leases for where you could set up shop didn't exist. All of a sudden, we brought in legislation—I think it was Bill C-56—and now you have entities saying, “Jeez, these leases may have existed to prevent competitors from entering the grocery market.” Now we have a voluntary code of conduct in the grocery sector, which I hope becomes a legal code of conduct, because there is too much corporate concentration.

Please forgive me if I don't.... The other analogy is that you folks are like the Energizer bunny because you're like the gift that keeps on giving, in a very negative sense, to your customers. Regrettably, we have to say this. Canadians are frustrated when they see their bills increasing. I understand it in some sectors. We have seen reductions in certain services, like wireless and so forth. Have the reductions happened quickly enough? I would say no. Do we have a protected market? I would say yes. I can probably glean over all your financial statements, your P and L and your cash flow statements and see the billions of dollars in share repurchases, dividend stock buybacks and so forth.

Frankly, I love competition and I love wealth creation, but I hate crony capitalism and I hate crony concentration in markets. This is independent of political allegiance or alignment. We really need to look at this in this country and where we're going. Canadians work hard for the money they make and they want to see the value for it. We're here to represent our residents and Canadians. We're not here to represent anyone else's interests. We're here to promote competition and get rid of the crony...especially competition within competitive markets.

Today, I found out that one of your entities is selling your assets to one of the PE shops out of New York City. I'm going to look at that when I finish up here and read more about it. It creates some worries.

On the wireless side, how competitive or uncompetitive is our market versus other jurisdictions? When you travel abroad, it seems much cheaper there than it is here at home.

I'll go to Bell first, and then to Rogers.

[Mark Graham]

The market in Canada is highly competitive. It's more competitive than it is in most of our peer countries. As we talked about, since January 2020, wireless prices have fallen by 45%, while overall inflation has been 18%. That compares to wireless prices in the United States, which increased 2% over the same period, or in the United Kingdom, which increased 29% over the same period.

If you go to specific plans, you can regularly get a plan with 100 gigabytes of data on Bell for $60. In the U.S., a plan with AT&T with 75 gigabytes of data will cost you $100 Canadian. I think they're more competitive here in Canada.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

I follow the Statistics Canada releases, and I have seen the indications of prices declining. We stated that a 25% price decline would happen over a period of time. If that's happened, that's great.

I believe we have to go further. I think we have to make the contracts that Canadians sign—if these contracts should even be in existence—null or very simple. Like Mr. Masse said, a lot of Canadians don't have time to spend hours on the phone. They aren't lawyers. They don't have the graduate degrees or whatever to sit there and debate to try to get the best deal. These are very hard-working Canadians who are busy bringing their kids to hockey or soccer and are trying to pay bills and so forth.

I really hope you folks understand that, because there's very little patience left with certain corporate sectors of the economy, especially with those that are considered protected, for various reasons, against foreign competition, enjoy EBITDA margins probably in the mid-40% range for most of their businesses and generate a ton of cash flow.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Sorbara.

Ms. Rempel Garner, please go ahead.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you.

Colleagues, I don't know about you, but I've kind of heard enough here today. I actually think there's a lot of commonality that's been shared among members of this committee, which is heartening.

I'm thinking about Cathy Cooper, whose story really instigated this whole issue. I'm thinking about what kind of justice we can give her today while these men are sitting in front of us.

Colleagues, arising out of the testimony today, and given the matter at hand, I move:

That the committee report to the House its disappointment in Rogers Communications Inc. for not proactively disclosing the true costs of their products and services to consumers, and notes the detrimental impact the lack of competition in the telecommunications sector is having on Canadian consumers.

We'll make sure that we send that to the clerk right away in both official languages.

Colleagues, I've tried to put forward a motion that's devoid of partisan language and just states the facts. We've now heard almost two hours of testimony after we had to spend several hours of our own time trying to get Mr. Staffieri here. I imagine what we've heard today sounds a lot like what Rogers and Bell customers hear on the phone, when they're trying to argue about their contracts.

I appreciate the many employees who work within these companies, but if we're not expressing displeasure as parliamentarians, the leaders of these companies will continue to think that Parliament doesn't matter and won't respect our authority. It's important that our committee sends a strong signal to our colleagues that we are displeased. Hopefully, that signal of displeasure will spur these men to act, if the displeasure of their customers hasn't been able to do that in the past. I also hope that we can give some measure of closure to Ms. Cooper. What a ride this has been for her.

I hope you will support this motion, and I'm happy to take any questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you.

There is a motion on the floor. It's been circulated by the clerk in both official languages.

I now have MP Turnbull.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I generally agree with the contents of the motion. We can definitely condemn or express our displeasure with the findings of the work we've been doing.

I would, however, like to suggest an amendment, which is to take out the reporting back to the House portion of it. This committee can easily write a letter and express our point of view without having to report back to the House. That gives the Conservatives a break from their filibuster, which has been going on for 37-38 days. They have used committee reports for that partisan purpose in order to give themselves a little break and waste the time in the House. I don't think we should be giving them that opportunity.

I strongly feel that the content of what Ms. Rempel Garner has suggested is something that I can get behind, certainly, but not to report to the House. I'd humbly amend her suggested motion to delete the portion that says “report to the House”, and I would be happy to debate that further.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

You've all heard Mr. Turnbull's proposed amendment.

Are there any comments?

Go ahead, Mr. Perkins.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Just quickly, I would oppose that. I think it's a way to bury it.

This needs to be brought to the attention of the House.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Are there any more comments?

If not, I'll put it to a vote.

Is everyone clear on what we're voting on?

We are simply voting on an amendment to remove the words “report back to the House”.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Would other members want to speak to it?

Have you called the vote?

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

On your amendment, Mr. Turnbull, I have called the vote.

I didn't see any speakers.

(Amendment negatived: 6 nays; 5 yeas [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

The amendment is defeated, which takes us back to the motion originally proposed by MP Rempel Garner.

Do I have any speakers?

Go ahead, Mr. Masse.