Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand and discuss a couple of the amendments in this debate that really are of concern to us as Progressive Conservatives. I will speak later at length on the bill but I want to address the two amendments in particular that we are concerned about. The first one was addressed by the previous speaker. We share the same concerns about power given to the CRTC and other regulatory bodies and also to the governor in council.
Our concern about the first amendment we were to deal with was the proposed licensing for all carriers. The committee heard many witnesses who argued that this was an additional and unnecessary burden placed on the national industry which was already functioning well without it. Again, more burden, more paperwork, and it contradicts the whole purpose of the bill which is to privatize, commercialize and decentralize.
We will now move on to the second amendment about the governor in council which in the original bill was allowed to prescribe changes in any area as it relates to the provision of telecommunication services—