Thank you for the question.
Yes. Australia, as was mentioned before, is probably the industry's world leader when it comes to regulations and not so much forcing telecoms to be transparent but actually setting up a process whereby consumers—and everybody—benefit from it. It's very consumer focused.
In Australia they have this whole process. They introduced these regulations in 2017 and 2019, and then they actually reviewed them. I did read from the report earlier. I think I read this out before, but according to the ACCC report on the effectiveness of the policy, the changes have promoted more competitive and efficient markets for the supply of broadband services, even five years after the changes and all of that. Therefore, changes like those Bill C-288 would implement would be very positive. That's in Australia.
In the U.S., they've actually done some work and very quickly. What happened there is that they passed legislation. Their regulator down there, the FCC—the CRTC up here—grabbed a hold of it, and they've had two hearings with it, two round table sessions. They're progressing very quickly.
Here are just some of the statements out of the commission. They've gone to a nutrition label type of way: “Broadband nutrition labels are designed to make it simpler for consumers to know what they are getting, hold providers to their promises, and benefit from greater competition—which means better service and prices for everyone.” That was from the chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.
This statement is on the affordability: “I fully expect that this transparency will increase competition and hopefully result in lower prices for consumers.” That's from FCC commissioner Geoffrey Starks. Those kinds of statements are coming from a regulator.
I can't imagine the CRTC holding up a piece of legislation and saying, “This is what this legislation will do”, when in fact Bill C-288 could result in the same thing. I would be very pleased to see that kind of stuff come out of it.
This is the potential that Bill C-288 has. Other countries have recognized that. It's time for the Canadian government to step up and for us as MPs to pass this bill so we can get to work on that.