Industry committee  Gee, that's a very interesting question. I guess the interesting thing is that we won't create the next RIM; the next RIM will evolve, I think. I could play off our whole idea of a digital economy and say, well, you know, the next RIM will emerge as a result of their understanding of using technology, being a global player, and working in the Canadian context, which is a very positive one.

Industry committee  Thank you. That's quite correct. As we look at the value chain, as you quite rightly identify, new people and new companies do come into the space and many of them are very innovative. Here I'm thinking of the telcos, of course, but also of the many product companies and technology companies.

Industry committee  This is certainly a subject near and dear to my heart. The way I would respond to it is, as Mr. Weigelt was saying, with consolidation of a lot of the technologies to enable the cloud and to have government, through Shared Services Canada, state that it is going to do this, as it recently announced.

Industry committee  I also think it's an excellent question, one that legislators don't just worry about but we all worry about, in terms of how many rules and how much of a framework we want in order to operate. I look at it this way, that at the end of the day, in this space that we're talking about--e-business, e-commerce, the digital economy--you have some really fundamental things.

Industry committee  I would draw your attention to the work being done by the payments task force launched by the Minister of Finance. I am not intimately aware of it, but I understand that many similar recommendations to what we have talked about will be embodied in that group. There is a broad set of potential policy issues here.

Industry committee  No. I prepared a rather elaborate statement because of the nature of the studies, so I rushed through it. But what I really wanted to do was to focus on the end, on the three areas that we think require real attention. As the other speakers have indicated, at the end of the day, it's really important that the whole economy works smoothly—and payments are a key element in the movement of money and the movement of information.

Industry committee  I think those are both very good questions. If you look back at Canada in the last ten years, we've made major investments in infrastructure, major investments in Internet accessibility. As my co-speaker Bernard Lord indicated, I believe over 90% of Canadians have access to high-speed Internet capabilities.

Industry committee  Yes, for telco industry, that's correct.

Industry committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and committee members, for asking KPMG to come here today and share some of our insights with you. Prior to the meeting I did distribute in both languages our 2011 report for Canada on mobile payments. I believe members should have that report as well. The survey that we did was global in nature.