Industry committee  Ms. Chair, may I answer?

Industry committee  It's been said before that the fourth operator, which is Freedom Mobile, will disappear because the cartel or oligopoly that Canadians used to face will basically be rebuilt.

Industry committee  I tried to address this in my comments. Clearly, to enter a market, the fourth player had to be even more combative. Our involvement in the first auction in 2008 was very expensive. It cost us around $500 million. We therefore had to amortize this amount over the largest possible number of customers, particularly as we were also required to build the network.

Industry committee  I don't believe that we' re asking the government or the state to invest in a fourth player. We believe the government can maintain competition by ensuring that the required conditions are in place for a fourth player to operate. That's how systematic everyday competition would be created.

Industry committee  As early as 2008, we had approached a number of operators to give us a national presence. It didn't work, for all kinds of reasons. First of all, at the time, we didn't have the financial capacity. Additionally, the presence of a group called Globalive had caused the auction price to rise extremely quickly.

Industry committee  Madam Chair, is the question for Mr. Thomson or for both of us? Would you like to start, Jay? Do you have anything to say on this question?

Industry committee  I support and agree with what Jay's saying. I'd like to also say that from an ISED perspective, it would also be important to make sure that the spectrum is well distributed, because it is a public asset, so that all operators will be in a position to provide a service of great quality.

Industry committee  We share some of our towers with other operators, including Rogers. In fact we have an agreement with Rogers, which we call Teamnet, just as Bell and Telus have an agreement together, which they call Bellus. We're going to continue with this arrangement. I presume that Shaw has a roaming agreement, and we hope that such an agreement will be one of the conditions for acquiring Shaw.

Industry committee  Mr. Généreux, we're talking about the acquisition of Shaw by Rogers here. As you probably know, Rogers is already an operator and is one of the Big 3, which is not the case for us. That's rather obvious to me.

Industry committee  Thank you for your question. I think, however, that there's a significant difference. Even when we're talking about parasites, it's a matter of regulated rates. Back then, when the time was right for Videotron to enter the wireless telephony market, we had negotiated an agreement with Rogers, among others, to facilitate matters afterwards.

Industry committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Pierre Karl Péladeau, and I am the President and Chief Executive Officer of Quebecor. With me is my colleague Jean-François Pruneau, President and Chief Executive Officer of Videotron. The federal government, after acknowledging that there was no real competition in wireless and that Canada was among the industrialized countries with the highest prices for wireless services, diligently pursued a disciplined policy as of 2007, designed to enable a fourth wireless player to emerge and do business on a lasting basis; it was to have a sound foundation and its own facilities in all regions of the country.

Canadian Heritage committee  Mr. Skolnik Made an interesting point when he said that Disney was capable of regulating content in North America.

Canadian Heritage committee  My opinion may look contradictory, but those who wanted regulation would be better off if it were reduced. Indeed, this new form of regulation might well speed up the disappearance of some players because we will never be able to compete with the streaming companies. The bottom line is that it's a question of money.

Canadian Heritage committee  It's true that previously, we could do it in a regulated environment, like cable, where a licence was required. It's no longer possible to do that today.

Canadian Heritage committee  Well, I understand that the lawmaker is supposed to regulate. The issue here is, again, not something against American companies that are providing and streaming content to the Canadian public, but about making sure the Canadian broadcasters, and all of the stakeholders of the industry, will be able to continue to compete in a brand new world, in a world where you do not need a licence anymore to broadcast, which is what is taking place.