Evidence of meeting #75 for Public Accounts in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was projects.
A video is available from Parliament.
1:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Since the government's order issuing a direction to the commission for a renewed approach to telecommunications policy, including improved measurement practices, what changes has the commission implemented to address that?
1:05 p.m.
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Thank you very much for the question, Chair.
In February, as I said, the government issued a policy direction for a renewed approach to telecommunications policy. You will see, if you look at that direction—which is relatively short; its about 1,400 words or the length of a short essay—there are references to affordability and competition over two dozen times. It was very clear to us that, through our decisions, we need to focus on enhancing competition and promoting affordability.
Immediately, we looked at renewing our approach to Internet competition. We know the current framework that we have is not working. We know small providers have been dying off. They have had “for sale” signs over the past couple of years, so we know it's happened. We've renewed our approach and we launched a proceeding. There's more to come on that.
At the same time, on cellphone services, as you've seen with respect to MVNOs, mobile virtual network operators, we have mandated that the smaller competitors have access to the larger providers' infrastructure to be able to compete and offer cellphone services across the country. They have seven years to build their own infrastructure, which is that balance in the investment and the competition.
Immediately, we took action. We reduced rates, as my colleague said, by 10% immediately on some wholesale rates. There's been a lot of action, and there's more to come very soon.
1:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Thank you very much. I might come back to you, but that sounded like a good answer. I'm going to check as I ask the industry department a question.
What progress can you report since the updates to the licensing and fee framework for earth stations and space stations in Canada were implemented in 2022?
October 5th, 2023 / 1:05 p.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Spectrum and Telecommunications Sector, Department of Industry
I think they came into force in April 2023.
We're going to work with industry, but this is following a proper consultation with industry. Industry had its chance to opine. Overall, we reduced the fees and they just came into force. We will be following up with industry to see what the impact has been on their operations.
1:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Would you be able to provide any kind of short-term updates on that for the committee to consider?
1:05 p.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Spectrum and Telecommunications Sector, Department of Industry
It came into force on October—four days ago—and the other ones came into force in April.
1:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
If there are any for April, we would be pleased to receive them, and I'll leave it at that.
Thank you all very much.
Members, I appreciate your time here today. We went slightly over the limit, but this is an important issue for members. It's important to hear from officials.
Thank you.
With that, I will adjourn the meeting.