Thanks very much, Chair. I appreciate that.
Thanks to the witnesses for sharing their time and expertise this evening.
I want to ask a question of our witnesses who are in the business of providing terrestrial broadband. Before I get there, I just want to correct the record so that we have a good record of the conversation at this committee for this important study.
One of the Conservative members brought up the Auditor General's report on rail safety and seemed to paint the report in a negative light, as if it were some sort of damning report. I need to clarify what in fact the Auditor General's report said, as follows:
Overall, Transport Canada made progress in addressing recommendations from our 2013 audit in the areas we followed up on....We found that Transport Canada improved its risk-based planning for oversight. In particular, the department significantly increased the number of its planned risk-based inspections. We also found that Transport Canada made progress in conducting more audits of railway companies’ safety management systems.
So the problems that the Auditor General was reporting on included the time range of 2013 to 2015, the time of the Harper government. The actual conclusion, I think, from the Auditor General's report was that the current government was able to achieve what the previous government was not with regard to rail safety. I thought it was important to leave an accurate record of our discussion here tonight.
We had another Conservative member of the committee who in the context of the greatest investment in community and national infrastructure in this country's history seems to find fault with the level of funding, and at the same time had actually run a federal election campaign on a promise to reduce infrastructure funding. So the internal conflict is a little hard to square. Needless to say, I think we've heard from our witnesses tonight that the level of investment we're seeing in national infrastructure is appropriate and is being very well received.
Having dispensed with those distractions, I want to bring it back to the reason we're here tonight, which is connectivity, and go back to the witnesses who are in the business of terrestrial broadband. The UBF is a national program. Our government has committed to working in every province and territory to support projects that ensure that every Canadian has the access to the digital opportunities they need and deserve in this era. I think it's evident with the recent announcements with the Government of British Columbia and Rogers in addressing the connectivity gaps along the Highway of Tears, for example, and with the recent agreement between the Government of Quebec that committed $800 million to fund the acceleration of broadband projects to connect every Quebecker by the end of 2022. Going further, last Thursday we announced almost $11 million in combined funding with the Tlicho government to bring high-speed Internet to rural residents in the North Slave region.
Where I'm going with this is that I wonder if any of the broadband witnesses could discuss whether—and if so, why—it's so crucial that these investments in broadband be seen as shared responsibilities that must include partnerships with the private sector as well as the federal government, provinces, territories and municipalities. My question is about the importance of that kind of collaboration and why that's important.