Mr. Speaker, I am glad that my colleague raised this issue. I had the opportunity in my comments but I had so many other things to say that I never got to it.
The situation he talks about with the Manitoba telephone system is one of the most despicable things the Conservative government in Manitoba did. We had a viable telephone operation that was beneficial to the whole province and people in my riding.
I have a very remote riding. Some 27 communities do not have all weather road access. A number of communities had a few phones and most often they were pay phones. MTS came in and that is where the pay telephone story comes into play.
The school and the nursing station got a phone and one other phone went in. These were not pay phones. The only pay phone in town was pulled out because there were now three other phones that everybody could run and use. That is the type of approach taken when profit is the only motive.
One of the partners in that process is now the hon. member for Portage—Lisgar. There was an open sale of MTS. The people of Manitoba ousted the Conservative government directly as a result of the sale of MTS because they were not happy about it.
It increased the cost of phone service on an ongoing basis. The cost of a phone has been increasing. The service is far less than it ever was. We had by far the best phone system in the world. Now there are problems after problems. MTS does not put any money back into the service. It is willing to sell it at whatever the rates and does not put the money back in. It is definitely a big issue.