Industry Committee on July 15th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Good afternoon, colleagues. It's a pleasure to see you virtually again. It's 1:01, so I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 30 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry and Technology.

Pursuant to Standing Order 106(4), this meeting was requested by four members of the committee to discuss their request to undertake a study of the Rogers service outage.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of Thursday, June 23, 2022.

Members in the room—although I don't see any—are familiar with the health rules and should act accordingly.

Good afternoon to the members participating via Zoom.

I see Mr. Dong's hand is up.

Go ahead, Mr. Dong. You have the floor.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Chair, I want to thank you for calling this special meeting to address something that is, quite honestly, frustrating to a lot of Canadians. I definitely hear it from my community. I want to say to my good colleagues that I hope you're having a great summer, despite the fact that we had this service outage. It's really good to see everybody over Zoom.

The outage is causing a lot of concerns and I think the public is owed some answers. This is not the first time it's happened, so as a committee, we owe the public a reporting on the plan going forward and the accountability attached to this service outage. I have a motion. I move:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108 (2), the committee undertake a study on the recent service outages and disruptions experienced by Rogers Communications Inc. beginning on Friday, July 8, 2022; further, that the committee review 1) the causes of these widespread disruptions 2) the impacts service outages had on Canadian families, consumers, and businesses including, but not limited to, the health care, law enforcement, and financial sectors, 3) best practices to prevent and mitigate similar widespread outages in the future and 4) given reports about Rogers customers not being properly notified, best practices to ensure that impacted Canadians are updated about service outages in a timely and transparent manner going forward, and that the Committee invite as witnesses representatives from Rogers Communications Inc., the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, and that the Committee devote two meetings to this study before July 30, 2022 and report its findings to the House.

That is the motion for my honourable colleagues' consideration. I hope you can support it and we can get on with our work on the study as soon as possible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, MP Dong.

MP Kram, the floor is yours.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Mr. Chair, I would like to add to the motion that the industry minister, the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, also be invited to appear before the committee and be included in the motion in addition to the Rogers executives and representatives from the CRTC.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, MP Kram.

If I understand correctly, your amendment would be, “the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission and the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry Canada, and that the committee...”.

I think that's the part you're looking for, MP Kram. Thank you very much.

We're just adding the minister. That's the amendment proposed by Mr. Kram.

Is it accepted for the motion that was submitted by Mr. Dong?

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Mr. Chair, I have one more quick question.

I didn't hear. Was the motion for two meetings or for at least two meetings?

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

I didn't hear anything in what Mr. Dong said. We've had a lot of exchanges on this, so I'm kind of surprised that....

Mr. Dong, is there something you'd like to add to the text of the motion?

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Yes. To clarify, my motion reads “that the Committee devote two meetings to this study before July 30”. It's two meetings. I didn't put “at least two meetings”.

I'm happy to hear what other members have to say with regard to inviting Minister Champagne to this study.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

I get from what you're saying, Mr. Dong, that you agree with the proposed amendment.

Thank you.

I see Mr. Champoux, Mr. Boulerice and Mr. Erskine-Smith.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In light of how the outage affected public safety and emergency services, there seems to be agreement among members on inviting the public safety minister, Mr. Mendicino.

Adding that to the motion would be entirely appropriate.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Champoux.

That means we have another motion. It's a bit unfortunate, I must say, since we already had a text everyone agreed on.

We'll now go to Mr. Boulerice.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think everyone agrees on the urgent need for this study and the fact that we need to do it as soon as possible. That's the case for me as well.

My fellow NDP member, Brian Masse, was among those who made the request.

I think two meetings is a good idea.

The Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry needs to be there.

I'm also in favour of Mr. Champoux's idea to invite the Minister of Public Safety given all the public safety issues that arose. It's a serious problem when you can't call 911 to request an ambulance for someone who is having a heart attack, whether it's a loved one or a stranger in the park. That's a national security issue, in my book.

What's more, we can't just rule out the possibility of cyber-attacks from hostile countries, now or in the future. We have to have a system that is robust.

It's important that we leave no stone unturned and ask all the right questions. We need to be able to do that, so I think we should invite the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry as well as the Minister of Public Safety.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Before we go any further and so things don't get out of hand, I'm going to read what I understand to be the motion at this point, taking into account the Bloc Québécois and NDP amendments to also invite the public safety minister and to hold at least two meetings.

The motion would cover those points and read as follows: “That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee undertake a study on the recent service outages and disruptions experienced by Rogers Communications Inc. beginning on Friday, July 8, 2022; further, that the committee review 1) the causes of these disruptions, 2) the impacts service outages had on Canadian families, consumers and businesses, 3) best practices to prevent and mitigate outages in the future, and 4) given reports about Rogers customers not being properly notified, best practices to ensure that impacted Canadians are updated about service outages in a timely and transparent manner going forward; that the committee invite as witnesses representatives from Rogers and the CRTC, the Honourable François‑Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, and the Honourable Marco Mendicino, Minister of Public Safety; and that the committee devote at least two meetings to this study before July 30, 2022 and report its findings to the House.”

I think that covers the amendments agreed upon by the parties, including inviting the public safety minister and holding at least two meetings by July 30.

We will now go to Mr. Erskine‑Smith.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Chair, I have a couple of things.

One, I think it's important that we hear from François-Philippe Champagne.

Thanks, Michael, for making sure that this was included, because I think it was an oversight.

I think we're allowing ourselves to blow this thing up unnecessarily now when we start to add witnesses who are important witnesses to talk about public safety matters. When I was on the public safety and national security committee, we had CSIS officials in to discuss cyber-attacks. That's a really important conversation, but that's not the conversation we're having here in the context of this motion.

The importance of a narrow focus here is accountability so we understand what happened and ensure that it will not happen again. Network resiliency is ultimately the responsibility of the CRTC and the industry minister, similar to the FCC in the United States, which I would say would be an important witness in this context, because it's squarely on point.

I think, Mr. Chair, if we deal with it, maybe it makes sense to bring in the public safety minister if we hear testimony that would change my mind. At the moment, I much prefer very focused—we're talking about two meetings and two meetings only—conversations with Rogers, the CRTC and the industry minister. We can have a conversation with other witnesses that would make a lot of sense, and I would say FCC officials would make a lot of sense, but I think we're starting to expand the scope of this unnecessarily if we start to add other individuals at this point who aren't narrowly focused on the task at hand: How did this happen, and how do we make sure it doesn't happen again?

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Before I go to Mr. Dong and Mr. Kram, my understanding is we have an agreement. It was agreed by all parties before this meeting to invite Minister Champagne, the CRTC and Rogers. Now we're debating whether to invite the public safety minister for these meetings.

Mr. Dong.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Chair, I want to apologize to you that it was my mistake in missing that part. As to Michael's friendly amendment, I'm happy to add inviting Minister Champagne to the motion, which is fine. At the same time, I agree very much with Nathaniel's input. I can speak for myself. I want this study to be focused on Rogers and the CRTC to make sure...because again, this is not the first time this has happened. There are lots of things that need to be clarified. We've seen the subtle changes in communications on Rogers' part over the last few days.

Again, many questions need to be answered, and I want this study to be focused on what happened on July 8.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Mr. Kram.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Mr. Chair, the way I see it, we should have some short-term goals and some long-term goals for this study. In the short term, I think it's important to have Rogers, the CRTC and Minister Champagne appear before the committee as soon as possible. I believe the motion said by the end of this month. I would also like to leave the option open for when Parliament resumes in the fall to bring in other relevant stakeholders as well. Let's focus on the short term in the short term, but not limit our options down the road.

I'm also in favour of having Minister Champagne appear. As for the public safety minister, I don't know how that got into the motion, but if there is a will among the room, I am certainly willing to go along with that. If we want to leave him until the fall, that's okay too.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much, Mr. Kram.

Mr. Champoux.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the honourable members for their comments.

Mr. Erskine‑Smith said we needed to focus on what happened on July 8. I would remind everyone that, as Mr. Boulerice pointed out a moment ago, people really suffered because the outage deprived them of access to 911 and other emergency services.

When you're talking about public safety issues that serious, I don't think we are straying from what we are trying to do by asking the Minister of Public Safety to appear and tell us what he's thinking in terms of fail-safe mechanisms and backup solutions.

Should we instead always leave public safety in the hands of other organizations and depend on the safety measures they take when it comes to 911 and other emergency services?

Personally, I'm not opposed to having that discussion at a later time, if that is the will of the committee, in order to focus on the actual outage and ways to avoid these consequences going forward.

However, the committee really needs to take an in-depth look at the collateral damage that a similar outage could have in the future. I think that's a much more serious problem.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Champoux.

No one on the committee questions that. Given the discussions that have taken place, all the parties represented at the table want to hold those meetings. Everyone wants to get to the bottom of what happened and get answers to the important questions that were raised, including about public safety.

That is why the motion, as brought before the committee, refers to at least two meetings. There is, however, the idea of remaining open to taking a deeper dive into the issue when we return in the fall. That may be what you're concerned about.

It may very well be appropriate to hear from the Minister of Public Safety, but the two meetings may be why the two parties agreed on the three witnesses proposed. I just wanted to give you a bit of context.

My understanding is that Mr. Kram's amendment to invite the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry has unanimous support. However, the matter of inviting the public safety minister, as Mr. Champoux and Mr. Boulerice are proposing, is still outstanding.

Go ahead, Mr. Boulerice.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I won't say any more about having the public safety minister appear. The committee members will decide whether we vote on that subamendment.

I do want to revisit one thing, though. I'm hearing two different things. In English, I'm hearing “two meetings”, but in French, I'm hearing “at least two meetings”.

Mr. Dong was asked earlier, and according to him, what he said was “two meetings”, not “at least two meetings”.

What's being referred to in French is “at least two meetings”. That needs to be cleared up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

According to the text I saw and what I heard, the reference is to “at least two meetings before July 30”.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Dong. The language “at least two meetings before July 30” leaves the door open to more meetings in the fall.

Is that correct?

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

I proposed in the motion to have two meetings before July 30, but I'm open to adding the words “at least”. It's up to the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

That's what I'm seeing in the text of what was circulated. It's “at least two meetings”. Is that correct?