Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague for his speech. The lesson to be learned from this parable is that we have a good Samaritan for connectivity in the House. I want to salute the hon. member for Compton—Stanstead and announce that my party will also support Bill C-268, even if it is the member for Compton—Stanstead's bill. It goes to show that anything is possible. I am kidding, of course, there is nothing else to say. In all seriousness, this bill is important. I want to officially congratulate the hon. member for bringing it before the House. I think it could really make a difference. I congratulate and thank her.
This is not a revolutionary idea. We want to bring signal to places where there is currently nothing but a total void. The bill's objective is to modernize the way spectrum is managed, because things currently work as if the BlackBerry was the absolute peak of technological advancement. The bill would force the government to dust off its policy every five years. Five years is a long time in a world where phones become obsolete before we can even finish reading the box.
There is also this almost subversive idea of asking the CRTC to verify whether companies are telling the truth when they claim to cover a region. I know, the word “verify” sounds radical, as in “really verify”. Apparently, on paper, Canada is covered just about everywhere, except where there are people, roads, or an accident on a stormy night.
We are also asking the Minister of Industry to produce a report within 18 months. In Canada, when we are not quite sure what to do, we write a report. Here, at least, there is a deadline, which, in the world of public policy, is already something of an adrenaline rush.
Bill C‑268 also provides for an extensive consultation process, as should be the case for any good report. They will talk to everyone, including telecommunications giants and elected officials in rural municipalities, in other words, those who know very well what it is like to have no signal. They will talk to public safety agencies, academics, the CRTC and, obviously, any other stakeholder as needed. Loosely translated, it means that anyone who is breathing and has an opinion on the topic has a good chance of ending up on the list. On paper, it is beautiful. It gives the impression of a big, inclusive circle where everyone has their say. In real life, it sometimes looks like a family dinner where everyone talks at once, except that no one really has the power to cut the cake when it is time for dessert.
That said, the topics to be discussed are by no means trivial. One of them is competition, a Canadian fantasy that is often talked about but that remains mysteriously absent from monthly phone bills. Another topic is the deployment requirement, in other words, forcing companies to do what they are supposed to do, but do not always do. The topics also include the issue of unused licenses, those bits of spectrum lying dormant somewhere, probably in a virtual drawer, hoping they might have a use someday.
The report will have to contain concrete information, not just impressions, but results. Connectivity assessments will be done, some related to public safety, because when things go wrong, a phone is not a luxury, but a lifeline. Data will be gathered on actual coverage, not the kind of data shown on PowerPoint slides. Ideally, proposals will be submitted to fix a system that quite frankly is falling apart at the seams. In short, consultations will be held, information will be compiled and analyzed, and then action must follow. Cell signal is not going to wait around for the next report before deciding to disappear or finally become available. The crux of the problem is simple: Companies can buy pieces of the spectrum—which is a public good, after all—and decide not to use them, but rather to keep them on a shelf like an old toaster that was bought on sale and never used.
Bill C-268 is essentially saying, politely but firmly, that the government needs to either develop the network or let someone else do it. Meanwhile, we keep hearing that 99.5% of Canadians have access to LTE, the generation preceding 5G. That sounds pretty impressive, except for the fact that it still leaves about 200,000 people in a sort of digital void. Two hundred thousand people is not exactly a small village. We are talking about an entire region staring at their phones the way people used to watch the sky for snow, hoping something would fall.
Even when coverage exists in theory, making a call on a rural road is often practically impossible. If someone has an accident in February, it is not just the ditch that is deep, but also the network. The bill seeks to bring some order to all that. The bill aims to force the CRTC to ensure that coverage maps are not just fiction. It seeks to compel the government to revisit a policy framework that dates back to 2007, nearly 20 years, to a time when the word “streaming” still meant watching water flow.
The fact is that spectrum is a rare resource—invisible, but rare, much like the government's willingness to listen. When two signals overlap, it creates noise. When no one uses it, it creates emptiness. In both cases, it helps no one.
The current framework leaves a lot in the hands of the market by letting companies decide, which is fine as long as nothing goes wrong. In more rural areas, however, the market's motivation is about on par with that of a teenager on a Saturday morning: it exists on a theoretical level.
The Bloc Québécois has a simple reminder: If spectrum is a public asset, then it should serve the public, not only in profitable areas, not only in large urban centres, but everyone, including those who live at the far end of the road.
It is true, Bill C-268 is not going to solve everything. There will still be reports, consultations and committees—the usual trio. There may also be a bit of stalling, because, let us face it, the CRTC sometimes moves at the speed of an old 56-kilobit-per-second modem that goes beep, beep, beep. At least this bill is heading in the right direction, a direction where access to the network is not a luxury, but a basic necessity; where calling for help does not depend on one's postal code, as my colleague pointed out in her speech; and where people finally stop pretending the whole country is covered just because it looks good in a PowerPoint. This bill does not reinvent the wheel, but at least it tries to get it rolling.
Again, I want to congratulate and thank the member for Compton—Stanstead for her important bill.