Industry Committee on July 25th, 2022

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

How does your department intend to assess the robustness of the plan proposed by telecom service providers to improve the resilience of telecommunications networks?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

We will work with the experts. I would add that I did not ask, but rather imposed on the companies the three measures mentioned, that is, to establish by a formal contract mutual assistance, emergency roaming and the communication protocol with the government and citizens. My team and I imposed these requirements and I said, few hours after the system was restored, that immediate and urgent action was needed to ensure the resilience of the system.

You will agree that this is a first step and that is why the committee's work is important. We want to get to the bottom of this, and when we have the findings as to why there was a code error in a normal update procedure, how this could have happened, and what the fault was, we will need to establish a redundancy in the system. That's what we're going to tackle.

In fact, I intend to do more. In addition, Bill C‑26 will give us additional cybersecurity authorities, and I intend to use them wisely to ensure greater resilience.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

What has been the reaction of Rogers' competing executives to your request, and more importantly, isn't there a risk of levelling the investment playing field?

One of the messages I can see in the situation is that from the point of view of these companies, it's not worth investing more because if the system crashes, the other companies will come to the rescue.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

With all due respect, Mr. Lemire, I don't think that was the attitude of the companies. In fact, their executives were listening. You'll understand that, at the time, my voice represented the voice of tens of millions of Canadians. So when you speak on behalf of millions of Canadians, people listen. I spoke very clearly and directly. There was no ambiguity in my message when I demanded these three measures. I gave them 60 days. There are 45 left, and I expect those companies to live up to their commitment. There will be other steps that will be taken.

I think it's more of a race to the top, in that we want to make sure that all companies are more resilient, because clearly the fault lies with one company. It must be accountable for its actions. That surely sends a clear message to everyone. We will have more resiliency in our systems in Canada, somewhat along the lines of what was announced in the United States on July 6.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much.

Go ahead, Mr. Masse. You have six minutes.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Minister, for being here.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

It's good to see you.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

It's good to see you as well.

One thing that's concerning about this is that the strategy you employed probably commands the respect you deserve from the legislation—which is almost none. I say this because the legislation that we have to kind of put in some oversight is different from other communities and other countries.

A good example is Australia. They control their actual system, and the actual industry competes amongst the system.

Obviously this is an essential service. COVID proved that our connections are essential in terms of our operations.

What is the government going to do to restore this as an essential service and put some legislative teeth behind this issue? It's similar to a public utility. If not, then we have to rely upon any minister being buddy-buddy with a bunch of CEOs, who are also getting a lot of handouts from the public at any point in time, for accountability.

I don't find that is enough. What legislative measures are you going to take to actually have more command and respect from the industry, regardless of who is in the CEO seat and who is in the minister's seat?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

With respect, MP Masse, this is not about, in a sense, the minister talking with the CEO. This is demanding. I wish you would have been on that call because you would have seen this was no time for challenging the Minister of Industry. I was talking on behalf of millions of Canadians.

Let me say three things we've done on the legislative side that will add to what we've been doing. The first thing you will recall very vividly. We decided in May to provide more resiliency in our our intention to exclude ZTE and Huawei from our 4G and 5G network. We introduced Bill C-26 on June 14, which will do two things.

With respect sir, let me just say—

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Those won't affect.... That's public safety.

I only have limited time.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

With Bill C-26, you're right. That will promote cybersecurity, but it will do one important thing, with respect, sir. It will amend the Telecommunications Act to add security as an objective, which will give additional power to the minister if he needs to direct the company. We also have the new CRTC policy direction.

If you were at that meeting, you would say that I was not in a mood to listen to them. This was a directive that I issued to them. They complied immediately with what I demanded.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Why not have a telecom bill of rights? Why don't we get on with this and protect consumers, businesses and people who suffered from public safety issues altogether with a telecom bill of rights? Why not just move forward past this?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

You will recall, MP Masse, that the first thing I did, even when I was in Tokyo, was to hold them to account on behalf of Canadians. I said to them that we would take initial steps—the three things I mentioned—in a binding, legal agreement. They'll have to do mutual assistance. They will have to do emergency roaming. This is very much in line with what the U.S. did on July 6. I went beyond that to say I want to have a framework—a very clear protocol—to inform the public, their customers and the government if this happens.

The other thing I said, as you will recall, is that this is just initial steps. That's why I welcome your work, the work of the committee, to say let's go to the root cause of that. Let's look at what more we need. We all want, as Canadians, more resiliency. I've said this is unacceptable from the get-go. We'll be looking at everything we can do to improve resiliency.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I hope that if you're going to look towards the committee, you could also look towards the committee that is not fooling around with the Shaw-Rogers takeover. We've already spoken about that and are opposed to it. I don't know why we're still fooling around with that. Hopefully you'll take that seriously, as we should be moving on from that.

Right now, under the legislation, what penalty will Rogers, the CEO, staff or whoever...? Will the company pay a fine? Will anyone go to jail? Will there be any problems or repercussions? What actually protects consumers? Rogers is doing a refund to some customers. What is in the legislation that actually mandates specifics? Are those things going to happen?

From my understanding of the legislation, they're not going to happen. If I'm wrong, then let us know. If not, are you going to actually employ those things that are going to be in law—not just a minister's opinion—for the actual industry?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

It's more than an opinion. It's a directive. When I speak to them, they listen. That's the bottom line.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

They don't have to follow, though.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

They do. Trust me. When the Minister of Industry speaks to them, they do. Ask them. Ask them to testify.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

They didn't even call you.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

No, but when I demanded that they put in these measures.... That's why we're rectifying it, MP Masse. Now we're going to have that. We'll have Bill C-26. In addition to that....

We're all on the same side. I spoke on behalf of 12 million Canadians. I said that this is what we demand now. To your point, sir—let me just finish—the CRTC will be investigating and they will be asking these questions about refunds. I said publicly the first day that I expect and demand that Rogers compensate people fairly and proactively. I said that from the get-go.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

If you want to be on the same side here, instead of just the minister's opinion, which could change.... We've had former minister Bernier in that seat before and I've seen the policies not change and not be that different over the last number of years.

I'm on the side of Canadians who want—regardless of whatever minister is going to be there—accountability to the public through their own individual strength and worth as a citizen, not necessarily relying upon egos or people who are going to change seats at the CEO table. Those things are all things we can't control. What we can control is a legislative approach.

This is an essential service. It's like a public utility that strengthens the individual and collective rights of Canadians. That's the side I want to be on.

I don't want to be on the side where we have to rely upon influence, goodwill, personal relations and whether they're golfing with somebody or not. I don't want to rely on these things; I want to rely on legislation.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

You'll be able to rely on a binding formal agreement, sir, for the first three things I mentioned. This is going to be a formal binding agreement. This is not like the way you described. I demanded. There's no discussion. It's going to be done. There's no room for manoeuvring.

The second thing I would say, sir, with respect to Bill C-26—and I think you know because you're a very experienced legislator—amending the telecom act to add security to it will give additional power to the minister. It's not only that they will follow what I said, but if you support Bill C-26 with colleagues, it would add legal power to demand that. Once you add security to the objective of the telecom act, it would give broad power to the ministers to do what I did.

Now they did it. I demanded it. They're going to do it. We're going to do more and with Bill C-26, I think that you and I with colleagues will be able to better protect the public.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Masse.

We'll now move to MP Gray for five minutes.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for being here today.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Good morning.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Minister, I understand that the CRTC, as the regulator, has a mandate to “Ensure Canadians can access emergency communications services. We make sure that Canadians can access services such as 9-1-1 and are warned through a public alerting system in the event of imminent perils.”

Do you believe the CRTC is fulfilling this mandate?