Industry committee  Thank you for your questions. I will answer in English to be clearer. We have a spectrum and network-sharing agreement with Telus that is an important pillar of our proposal to acquire the current Freedom Mobile business, formerly our business. In that context, we've entered a spectrum- and network-sharing agreement with Telus.

Industry committee  I am sorry. I misunderstood. No. There is no funding of any kind from Telus to Globalive. That is not part of our proposal, and it was not part of our funded, all-cash offer to Rogers for Freedom Mobile.

Industry committee  I'm sorry. Could you repeat the translation, please? I didn't catch that.

Industry committee  There are a couple of things there. We did not sign the NDA because the NDA would, in fact, have prevented us from appearing before you today. We signed an NDA that protected all of Rogers' confidential information, but we took out the components of it that would have prevented us from speaking to government about our proposal, prevented us from talking to capital partners or advisers, and given Rogers veto over them so they could shut our bid down before we even got it out.

Industry committee  I'll go in reverse order. The results disclosed and the performance of Freedom, I think, are very clear. Shaw is a public company, and Freedom has gone completely sideways as Shaw has stopped competing. The metrics are clear around that. The Shaw Mobile business that's part of a bundle offering, in which the subscribers are being heavily subsidized by home Internet, cable and home phone service, are also clear, so yes, Freedom has bled a lot of its subscribers in that fashion.

Industry committee  Videotron and Rogers have entered wholesale agreements whereby, to Mr. Klass's points earlier, Rogers ultimately has control. It's ultimately Rogers' network. We're talking about shared ownership of a network into which we've contributed spectrum that we own and contributed to radio networks that we own on a shared basis with Telus.

Industry committee  We're at a really critical moment. The only thing standing between this anti-competitive merger and Canadians is the minister. The minister has all the latitude he needs to just say no to the merger. As I said earlier, there's nothing anti-Videotron about that. Canadians deserve a fair, open and transparent process to ensure that we have a competitive framework, to ensure we have the right owners of Freedom, to ensure that when they're asking questions about what Canadians can see looking forward in terms of a competitive market, they can have the confidence that it's there.

Industry committee  I did not say that the remedy was anti-competitive. What I said was the merger is anti-competitive, and it must be stopped. Then what we are recommending is that the government oversee a fair, open and transparent process to determine who is the right acquirer of Freedom for the benefit of Canadians and to ensure the best outcome for Canadians.

Industry committee  Very much so. In addition to the upfront purchase price that we offered for Freedom Mobile, we of course would look to participate in upcoming auctions and invest in network. I mentioned rural and indigenous communities and broadly that we need to have affordable, accessible wireless networks for all Canadians.

Industry committee  No, it was quite the opposite. We were pursuing Rogers and had made our interest known, and Rogers did not want to entertain our offer. This committee may hear from Rogers shortly that it could not entertain our offer because we did not enter an NDA with them. This is untrue. Rogers proposed an NDA to us that was tantamount to shutting down our proposal and bid before it even started.

Industry committee  They're totally different propositions. We are jointly investing in a shared network. We would first be acquiring spectrum—should we be successful in winning the government's process to acquire Freedom—and contributing it to a shared network with Telus, then contributing spectrum and network on an ongoing basis into that sharing agreement, so—

Industry committee  From our perspective, the process was secretive and closed-door. We were not included in it. Our offer in the end was $900 million higher than the offer Rogers accepted. That's simply because we have a track record of actually competing. When a company like Rogers is able to select who its competitor is, of course its job—from the ownership's and leadership's perspective—is to select the weakest possible competitor it can that will get approved by government.

Industry committee  Yes. My understanding is their offer was even higher than ours.

Industry committee  That's our understanding.

Industry committee  We don't know the specifics right now, but certainly it would seem that during the Competition Tribunal proceedings, they were very clear about how favourable the rates were. It's pretty clear that Videotron is going to need those preferred rates to be able to compete outside of its core cable footprint.