Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak to Bill C-17 as it enters its final stage in this House.
On the whole, I believe the bill makes some positive changes within the telecommunications industry, both within Canada and internationally.
I appreciate that within the industry committee specific changes were made to the legislation which allowed for some key improvements that were badly needed.
Before I speak to the specifics of the legislation, I believe it would be wise to paint the context within which this legislation fits. By doing this we will be better able to understand its significance.
It is no longer news to say we are in the information age or the information revolution. Alvin Toffler, in his book “The Third Wave”, 15 years ago foresaw the forces thrusting us into the information age. I would suggest that we have only just entered it.
The advances in information technologies, both in computing and telecommunications, will continue to reshape our work, our social structures and generally our lives for some years to come.
Today we have just begun to experience the impacts of the information age. We are still developing new coping and information processing norms.
Some examples are that we no longer telephone a place to reach a person. Increasingly we simply call the person and connect directly with him or her. This can happen anywhere in North America. In fact, it can happen in most places in the world.
Voice and data mailboxes have removed time dependency on conversation. Magazines have gone from 10 national magazines to hundreds, if not thousands, on news, sports and specialty issues. Television has gone from a two to five channel universe to a 200 to 500 channel universe.
The numbers of those accessing the Internet is growing exponentially. With new information comes new ideas and in turn new data information packages result. Globally we are overwhelmed with information inputs.
I heard some years back that an engineer who graduates today from a four-year undergraduate program will be required to complete his degree effectively three more times in a 30 year career just to stay current.
I also remember a statistic of some years back that if you took all the information in the world today and assembled it, 20 years from today it would amount to 3% of the total.
The opportunities in this information age and information explosion are as significant as the social pressures it produces. The information age is transforming our world. Truly, it is a global phenomenon.
The ability to move information around the globe at the speed of light is improving daily. The digitization of voice, data and raw broadcast information, combined with fibre, wireless and satellite transmission technologies, multiplexing and compression techniques are making government policy shaped in the monopolistic earlier days of telephony and broadcast increasingly obsolete.
Government protectionist policies which attempt to stop or contain information at the border are becoming increasingly ineffective. Attempts by governments such as ours to continue to separate telecommunications information from broadcast information will become increasingly ludicrous.
As telecom and broadcast technologies converge through digitization, common transmission and delivery media, the ability to separate legislation for broadcast bits of data from telecommunications bits of data in transmission and delivery facilities will become unworkable.
Thankfully, Canadian technology in telecommunications and broadcast is state of the art in the world. We have the opportunity to benefit from our product expertise like few other nations in the world. A strong, proactive, Canadian pursuit of global markets is the best line of defence for Canadian sovereignty at home when compared to the old protectionist approach.
It is within these realities that we are considering the modest changes proposed by Bill C-17. The primary purpose of Bill C-17 is to allow for the gradual winding down of the monopoly positions held by Teleglobe and Telesat. This will allow others to legally carry long distance telephone traffic into and out of Canada. Conversely, as part of the World Trade Organization and the GATT agreements, it will allow Canadian companies to more fully participate in international long distance markets.
The bill simply keeps us in the game and is more of a cautious, follow the leader approach than anything demonstrating a longer term vision.
The Reform Party has long been committed to increased competition in the telecommunications industries. We support the move to an open marketplace which is not hindered by the expense and overhead of undue government interference.
In general the legislation is improved by the committee process and the amendment today moves the industry in the right direction.
Even though 69 countries representing 90% of the current international long distance market signed on to the WTO agreement, Bill C-17 still calls for new international licensing which basically is there to protect Canadian incumbents from the new international players who may choose to provide service to Canadians.
Conversely, these international entities will also place protective licensing regimes in their own countries. Therefore we do not have true global competition but rather mutually agreeable licensing regimes between countries, usually intended to protect incumbent carriers in each country. The consumer would be better served where true reciprocity and open participation existed rather than international licensing.
Technological advancements may eclipse licensing requirements and render them obsolete within a few years anyway. Even though I believe a sunset clause, which would provide an opportunity to review the licensing regime through reciprocal international agreements some time in the future, would send a stimulating signal to Canadian industry to be competitively aggressive at home and abroad, this would in turn serve to strengthen the companies and better serve the Canadian consumer in the long run.
Unfortunately the government would not consider the inclusion of a sunset clause. Thankfully though, due to the work done in the industry committee, the licensing regime is now restricted only to international long distance carriers rather than a new licensing regime for both domestic and international service providers as called for in the original legislation.
A second component of the proposed legislation applies more to the domestic market operation than to the international long distance marketplace. The change I am referring to is the new administrative oversight powers granted to the CRTC by the legislation.
Let me make it clear that the Reform Party supports the efficient operation of the marketplace and a regulatory environment that promotes competition. Thus, with the competition in the domestic long distance market and the development of competition in the local switched network market, the allowance for some measure of third party administrative function for common network interoperability makes some sense.
For example, it makes sense that a third party administration of the North American telephone numbering program rather than the incumbent telephone companies be responsible for this activity. There will likely be other administrative entities established to address other network interoperability concerns.
The CRTC is given the power to establish and oversee these entities. Clearly the refinement to the original legislation which allows for broad new sweeping powers to the CRTC has been addressed and the administrative powers are now restricted to issues of network interoperability. Without this change we could not have supported the bill.
Even with the restricted administrative powers granted to the CRTC by the legislation, we would encourage the government to do the following. First, it should hold to its stated preference for less regulation and only entertain administration functions on behalf of the industry when the industry calls for the administrative body to take on the work.
Second, consistent with section 7 of the Telecommunications Act, it should set a management structure in place which rewards efficiency and cost effectiveness for any administrative body that is established.
Third, it should ensure as per the legislation that the costs of the administrative functions are borne by the industry and not the taxpayer. This should be done on a pay for services basis by participating industry players.
The end of the Teleglobe monopoly will not only allow competition from abroad to place downward pressure on overseas callings but will enable Canadian companies to enter the huge global marketplace, which is estimated to be worth $800 billion as compared to our $18 billion domestically. The legislation will result in the end of the Teleglobe monopoly.
The bill originally called for a domestic and international licensing regime. In committee Reform pushed hard to limit the licensing regime to international telecommunications services so we would not see the reregulation of domestic services. These changes were made in committee.
We also pushed hard to limit the blank cheque powers granted to the CRTC in the original bill. The clauses in question were amended to better define the CRTC powers so they are not expanded from the current jurisdiction but can only delegate necessary functions to facilitate the interoperation of the Canadian telecommunications network.
The bill is a step in the right direction in so far as it promotes competition and partially removes outdated foreign ownership restrictions that date back to the protectionist world of old. However, more work could be done in eliminating the foreign ownership restrictions for Canadian telecommunications carriers.
While positive to an extent the bill is not far sighted in terms of where the telecommunications industry is going but is catching up to today's realities. Increased globalization will soon cause additional pressures on our domestic telecommunications policy. It is too bad Bill C-17 does not look further ahead.
Bill C-17, though imperfect, should be passed for the benefits it brings forth, which will enable the Canadian industry to better prepare for an ever changing marketplace.