Industry committee  I completely disagree with that. I think it is all the more reason for the CRTC to continue to regulate where there isn't competition. Where there is no cable company, there will not be competition for some time to come. In the absence of competition, the regulator is there to stay, and we have always accepted that that should be the case.

Industry committee  That is correct, between 20% and 30%.

Industry committee  We're watching those customers walk out the door because we don't have a competitive offer. Shaw's the only one putting their best offer on the table. Our price, every aspect of what we do, is completely regulated. So where is the vigorous competition that's trying to allow the customer to choose from two great offers?

Industry committee  I'm not personally aware of the difficulties in your riding with respect to our quality of service. Obviously our operations in the Telus Quebec territory face different challenges from those in other parts of our operating territory, where there is denser population. We do take quality of service very seriously.

Industry committee  We don't want them to leave us. We recognize that we have to keep them happy or they will leave us. It's not that we want them to leave. We want them to stay. We want to satisfy them and delight them with the full suite of services and products that we offer. All I'm saying is that if we don't do so, they have the ability to leave in a competitive market, and they will do so if we don't keep them happy.

Industry committee  We believe we are an adaptable organization that does take quality of service very seriously at both the retail and wholesale levels, because of course our competitors do depend on us for infrastructure, and the current test of deregulation requires us to actually meet certain levels of quality of service to our competitors before we can actually be deregulated.

Industry committee  I can tell you that Calgary, Edmonton, and the Lower Mainland represent about two-thirds of our customers. Those are three of the ten communities that the minister identified as a priority. If you recall, the order in council talked about the top ten communities across Canada for deregulation.

Industry committee  It changes every time Shaw enters a new market. I would say that by the end of 2007 Shaw will be serving between 70% and 80% of our customers. I can verify that for you, but it's their decision to enter that determines where we can be deregulated.

Industry committee  I don't have that at my fingertips. I can tell you that generally speaking, the OECD reported that local telephone prices in Canada are among the lowest of all OECD countries. So there's no question that Canadians do very well on a comparative basis. I don't have the urban–rural pricing in the U.S. at my fingertips, but I can provide it to you.

Industry committee  Good afternoon.

Industry committee  We have—

Industry committee  No, no, but on that—

Industry committee  Thank you. The only thing I was going to say in response to you was that I think we support the TPR report as a whole. We support the implementation of its recommendations, and as I've already said, I don't believe the minister's order, which was about forbearance, which was explicitly not part of TPR, is taking the report out of context.

Industry committee  Not exactly, because at the end of the day you have to be able to demonstrate that control in fact is not exercised by non-Canadians. So if non-Canadians have less than the voting control but own most of the non-voting, then you tread into the ground of whether or not control in fact is in the hands of non-Canadians.

Industry committee  As I said earlier, we have an obligation to serve everywhere. So every time there's a new house built, we have an obligation to provide a line to that house as part of our regulatory obligations. As I said, it's an interesting obligation, given that in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia 10% of those homes don't actually take service, even though we have a line into them.