Industry Committee on July 25th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Lemire, you now have the floor for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Minister, we know that Rogers has a $26 billion financial commitment to acquire Shaw and that Rogers has invested little in its network over the past four or five years. You obviously mention the importance of improving the resiliency of the networks so that they are reliable, affordable and resilient.

Does the presence of a fourth player, particularly in the cell phone market, make sense here?

In my opinion, this is obvious. It's also competition that makes people and companies more responsible and that they will invest more in the robustness of their network.

Do you see a link?

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

First of all, thank you for your question, Mr. Lemire.

As I've said all along, competition is part of resilience. It's certainly something I have in mind.

I can tell you that I also saw a communication over the weekend from the president of Rogers about additional investments to improve network resiliency.

As I was saying earlier to our colleagues, we have to remember that it is a company's fault. We need to understand what happened to it, learn from it, and make sure that everyone is more resilient across the country.

As I said earlier, we really need to raise the bar. It's about seeing what others are doing, what wasn't done at Rogers, and what we need to learn from this incident.

With respect to the proposed merger that was submitted, I have said from the outset that I would not allow the transfer of all of Shaw's licences to Rogers. I have also said that what has happened in the last few days will obviously be on my mind and, I imagine, on the minds of other regulatory bodies when a proposal comes before my department that I will have to make a decision on.

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

Thank you.

Have you ever inspected Rogers' facilities and questioned them about the outage relief model?

Do you conduct audits?

Are there ways in which the government can look at the telecom network and its robustness?

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

I was saying earlier that Bill C‑26 will give the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry greater powers.

This will allow for something important, and experts will testify to this. This will amend Canada's Telecommunications Act by adding security as an objective. This is not currently part of the objectives.

So this is a step that has already been taken, and it was taken long before what we've experienced over the past few days. This will give the additional powers to the minister so that he can require telecommunications companies to be more robust and resilient in their networks.

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

So I understand that this hasn't been done in the past.

Thank you.

I'm done, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lemire.

Mr. Masse, you now have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks again, Minister.

Are you going to wait for the Competition Bureau report before taking action on the Rogers-Shaw merger? I'm wondering what the hold up is in terms of a decision from yourself.

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

For the benefit of those who are watching, I've been very clear from the get-go that I will now allow the wholesale transfer of licenses from Shaw to Rogers.

To your question, when I have an actual proposal on my desk for a decision, we'll take a decision at that time.

Now, as you know, the matter is in front of the court. The competition Bureau has raised a number of issues that we're following carefully. Until I have something that is formally submitted to my department.... I've expressed a number of times what matters to me, which is affordability and competition in the market. I'll keep repeating that so that everyone understands that.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

To be fair, you are correct that this was an individual company error, but to my point, this is an essential service that needs greater regulatory respect and powers for whomever sits in that seat. I still think that is valid. One of my first industry committee meetings dealt with Michael Sabia, who represented Bell at that time as CEO and who didn't want to provide the same pay for women via pay equity. I remember how we had a fight to get deferral accounts back. Over a billion dollars was taken from Canadians. Bell didn't want to provide that. It ended up going to the court system. It goes on and on, with the Competition Bureau already noting unscrupulous practices.

Why can't we look at an essential service like this and then bring in a bill of rights for Canadians? I implore you to at least investigate that to see whether that's a potential approach. I understand that the security provision elements are improvements, but they still don't take the consumer and businesses that are affected. Even the people with ArriveCan couldn't get into the country properly because of it. It's that serious.

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

MP Masse, you know me. I'm one who always co-operates with colleagues on both sides of the aisle. As I said, the immediate action I took within hours were first steps. I did not exclude anything. I'm happy to listen to this committee and its recommendations.

I think one thing we can work on together is the new CRTC policy direction. Some have called it “historic” in changing the nature of what matters to this government and, I would say, to Canadians largely, that it is competition and affordability.

I have been very tough on the telecom companies because this was warranted. Like I said, they listened to me when I demanded.... No one was suggesting otherwise. They said, “Minister, we will do exactly what you want within the timeline.”

To your point of whether there could be additional steps taken in terms of what powers would be needed in addition to Bill C-26, I would be happy to look at what this committee can recommend, and I certainly will look at that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Minister.

Go ahead, Mr. Deltell. You have five minutes.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, Mr. Minister. Thank you for your presentation.

You reported on the actions you took beginning on July 8 and in the hours that followed. You were in Tokyo, you came back and made those calls.

The problem is that a similar situation had already occurred—not as serious as the one we experienced this year, though—involving the same player, Rogers. On April 19, 2021, in southern Ontario, hundreds of thousands of people were affected by a Rogers outage. From coast to coast, from British Columbia to Nova Scotia, the impact was major. Each Canadian citizen who was affected by this situation unfortunately had to relive the same situation 15 months later.

What has your government done, as of April 19, 2021, to prevent another unfortunate situation like this one from occurring?

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

Thank you for your question, Mr. Deltell.

First, as you said, this was a different kind of outage. I made it very clear to millions of Canadians, as well as to the head of Rogers, that this was absolutely unacceptable.

I would answer your question by saying that we have done three things to make our telecommunications systems more resilient. The first was to affirm our intention to exclude Huawei and ZTE from 4G and 5G networks in Canada.

The second thing was to introduce Bill C‑26, as you know. I mentioned earlier that this will provide increased authority for cybersecurity, but also, and I think this is important for the committee, it will give the Minister of Industry additional powers. As we know, security is not currently one of the objectives of the Telecommunications Act.

The third thing, and I'll stop here, concerns the new CRTC directive on resilience.

So these steps had already been taken, and we are certainly going to continue to do more, as I said at the outset.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

The least we can say is that these three steps have changed absolutely nothing. Thousands of Canadians have suffered a second time in just 15 months because of your government's negligence in acting properly to stir up the Rogers cage of this world.

Today, you are very proud to say that you have been very directive, that you have spoken directly to the executives, that you gave them orders.

Why didn't you do that 15 months ago when the problem first occurred?

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

With all due respect, Mr. Deltell, if there was negligence, you should be asking that question of the head of Rogers, because the negligence is on the Rogers side. Everyone agrees that—

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

You're the one bragging—

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

Hold on. I'm not bragging, I'm representing Canadians. It's very different.

When I spoke to the company heads, I expressed the frustration of 12 million Canadians, the frustration of hundreds of thousands of small‑ and medium‑sized businesses, and the frustration of people who work in emergency departments. That's my role.

If you want to talk about the breach, fault, negligence, you will do so with the president of Rogers when he appears before you. He will have to explain to everyone why this breach at Rogers happened. That is where the fault lies.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

When the April 19, 2021 outage occurred, why weren't you as proactive as you were this year?

I realize that more people were affected this time, but are you going to tell those who went through this twice that it wasn't as important the first time because fewer people were affected?

I realize that you're flexing your muscles today to show how proactive you were in 2022. The rub, however, is that the same thing happened 15 months before the 2022 outage—with less serious consequences, I admit—and the root of the problem is exactly the same.

Why didn't your government take the proactive action you are claiming to take now when the same thing happened 15 months ago?

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

As you pointed out, Mr. Deltell, the outage wasn't on the same scale.

Obviously, every outage has to be looked into.

I hope you will be asking that question of the president of Rogers, because that is where the fault lies.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Trust me, I will.

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

I'm counting on you. I know you, and you're an experienced parliamentarian.

What we have to do now is focus on solutions. That applies to you as well, because that's what Canadians expect from this committee, from all of us.

My position is this: something unacceptable occurred, Rogers failed to honour its service commitment, but now we need to look for solutions. You're right in saying that I took strong action, and I will continue to.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

In 2021, WIND Mobile founder Anthony Lacavera flagged the problems that occurred 15 months ago. That was in 2021.

He said that, had the government acted to improve co‑operation among the service providers—so what you called for after the second outage—all of this could have been avoided.

Why didn't you act in 2021?

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Please keep your answer brief, Mr. Champagne.

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

Mr. Deltell, look at what the U.S. did on July 6.

We are doing more than what the Americans did on July 6. We have taken three measures, and we have identified the problem. We have demanded that the providers take swift concrete action, and we'll be doing more.

I urge you, as a member of the committee, to ask those questions of the person who should be held to account, the president of Rogers.

On our end, we are going to work with you to make sure we build a more resilient system for Canadians.