Industry Committee on March 6th, 2023

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

It would level the playing field when it comes to information as to the kinds of Internet services companies are selling to consumers. For example, we've talked about how right now there are “up to” speeds. As big corporations, they can send a bunch of noise out there. They, at some point in time, can offer 10 by 50 sometimes, whenever it works for them and whenever their infrastructure will allow it.

Meanwhile, a smaller Internet service provider might be eight by 40. That might be all someone needs, and that's all they can really offer. They can't signal that out to the consumer and tell the consumer that this is all they need. It's pretty much an uphill battle to say that the consumer doesn't need all that service. It might have the same price, but someone doesn't need that much service. That's a pretty poor sales position.

This would actually take away a lot of the noise that the big players are sending out right now, so that the consumer could actually look at the real data instead of the theoretical data and decide what they actually need.

You were talking about trust and building that. In my opening remarks, I kind of alluded to other countries. Australia is probably the global leader when it comes to connectivity and Internet regulations and legislation. They implemented original legislation and regulations in 2017, updated them in 2019 and then did an assessment of the results of the changes and of making things more transparent, much like what we want to do here with Bill C-288. Overall, the report concluded that increased transparency resulted in Internet service providers offering better-quality services in addition to better consumer understanding of expected service performance.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

I think that's my point. Performance is really important.

To your earlier point, you could have a company advertising maximum speeds of up to 50 megabytes while they might be performing at only 12 megabytes.

What I'm getting to also is that in government we're looking at performance as well. If the government's goals are 50 megabytes per second download and 10 upload, yet some of these companies are hitting only 12 and eight, does that perhaps change how the government views these companies, how we look at regulations and how we look at competition to ensure that we have as many players as we can competing to provide the best speeds and service to customers?

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

The key to competition is being transparent about what service you offer. If you're offering a bunch of smoke and mirrors, how can the consumer even know how to make...? What market signal are you sending? Yes, we have the best. We can do anything. We can sell up to those levels.

I think this bill actually enshrines in legislation the clear mandate that Canadians expect better from their industry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you.

Mr. Dong, you have five minutes. Go ahead.

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

Thank you very much, Chair.

First of all, I want to thank the member for bringing forward this bill and for his persistent advocacy for more transparency of service providers and in fighting for the rights of consumers.

My first question is whether you are familiar with the CRTC project called “Measuring Broadband Canada”. If so, what do you think of it?

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

What do I think of it?

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

Yes. Do you have any thoughts on it? Is it effective? Does it serve the purpose?

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

It's not very good. It doesn't satisfy the purpose at all for this.

If you talk about the CRTC report, it's funny. The headlines, when you first look at first flush at this thing, are that there are no problems here or issues, that we're all good and that everybody is getting the service they want. If you look deeper into what they sampled, there were just over 2,000 people who were actually sampled. This only applied to fixed-line Internet service, so this would be a person who has fibre to their house or fixed wire, not wireless. That was the other little thing: Rural Canada has many, many times more, as far as being wireless goes.

The biggest thing in the study and the biggest major flaw in it was that it was only done in large urban centres. Ironically enough, it was right in the fine print—“located in major Canadian metropolitan areas”—so it has nothing to do even with suburbia. This report is not very good, in my opinion.

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

I get the point that it's not as inclusive as it could be. That probably makes a point for the second part of your bill, which is calling for a more public hearing.

I represent an urban area, if you will. As you know, a lot of areas, big urban centres like Toronto, are undergoing a lot of growth. When the population doubles or sometimes even triples—I can think of the downtown district—the requirement for bandwidth sometimes doesn't get reflected or the feedback to the service provider isn't quick enough.

I remember having a conversation with a technician on the street. I asked how one would know whether the bandwidth was sufficient or not, given the growth of the population. He said, “We don't. We just depend on consumers to call back and tell us about disruptions and their dissatisfaction with the service. Then we come back and run a test.”

Maybe your bill will help to better inform consumers on what kind of service they're getting. Do you have any comments on that?

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

It would absolutely help out the consumer by giving them accurate information on not only what kind of service they are buying, factual information, but the whole process around the hearing procedure and the CRTC actually performing that right across Canada.

I was looking back. It's hard to say. I don't think Canadians have ever been offered this kind of ability or opportunity to talk to industry. Obviously the CRTC hasn't had this kind of initiative either.

In the U.S., for example, it is quite interesting that they are far ahead of us. They've implemented many of the conditions that Bill C-288 would do as well. Actually, they just had a major announcement out of the FCC that they are moving to more of a nutrition label sort of way—and this is kind of it right here—to explain to consumers, but there is lots of.... The FCC gets it in the U.S., and I would really be happy if the CRTC would wrap its arms around this legislation, as they did in the U.S., and go with it, because I think consumers would win and Canada would win.

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

You just answered my next question, so I'll move on.

In your view, how will the transparency come about in practice? Are we talking about real-time updates on perhaps their websites or monthly updates on disruptions or whatnot? After consulting with the industry, what do you think that real-world feedback will look like?

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

They will come up with the set of criteria Canadians need to make an informed decision on what kind of Internet service they are buying. That is the biggest win for everybody: more transparency, and what their options are versus what they actually need.

The outcomes of those hearings can be very positive if the CRTC and the industry decide to go down that path, but at least it will be legislated. We know what the expectations are. It's very clear in the bill, and that's why it needs to be passed in legislation instead of a policy directive.

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

In the development of your private member's bill, I'm sure the industry engaged with you as well to provide their feedback. What is their feedback? What's their attitude towards your private member's bill?

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

It depends. If they're a smaller player, they're actually quite in favour of this—finally, someone is talking about these misleading statements about “up to”.

When you talk to the bigger players, it's a mixed bag. They're going to look at it.... As you know, any time you're in industry and you're the controlling part of it, would you look positively at change, at being more accountable? I don't know how they take it. They can take it any way they please, but I think Canadians expect them to be more accountable and more transparent in what kind of service they're providing.

Like I said, as I've mentioned before, in numerous conversations that I've had, at times people don't believe me that this is actually legal in Canada.

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

All right. What—

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much, Mr. Dong.

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

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much as well, Mr. Mazier.

We now go to Mr. Lemire for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In light of the circumstances, I have just one question for you, Mr. Mazier. It's about the comparative work you did to see what other countries were doing.

Did you model your bill after legislation passed in Australia, the U.K. or countries in the European Union, for instance?

I'd especially like to know how those laws were received. How successful have bills like yours been in other countries?

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

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.

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

I had to ask, since you, of course, had an answer.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Clearly.

Thank you, Mr. Lemire.

We now go to Mr. Masse for two and a half minutes.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I have just a quick question with regard to the frustration that consumers have. I don't know what's worse: understanding a car warranty, a life insurance policy or our Internet broadband service and phone service.

The process that is being proposed now is still going to have some more public components and involvement. Is that not correct? I just want to clarify that to ensure again that this is actually opening the door for more opportunities to understand the situation.

That's my last question. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Yes. This bill would, definitely. There's a public hearings component of it that is basically refereed by the CRTC. It handles that, but it goes out to do public hearings where it consults with the public, NGOs and anybody who wants to comment on it, as well as industry.

This is where you get into these technicalities. We could have written a bill that was very technical, and it wouldn't have done much good, because there are aspects of our connectivity in this country that as legislators we don't understand. It's not really our job, quite frankly, to understand the inner workings of it, but it is our job to make good legislation for Canadians. I think Bill C-288 and the steps that come through it would definitely provide better service for Canadians at the end of the day, and more transparent service, so that all can benefit.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Masse.

Go ahead, Mr. Généreux.