Information & Ethics committee  Under our regulations, the traffic management practices adopted by ISPs have to be transparent. They have to publish information about these practices on their website and in various consumer publications. On our own website, we provide information about net neutrality, as well as information about the complaints process.

Information & Ethics committee  The number of complaints is decreasing every year. I think providers will want to offer competitive services that are of the best quality possible. They do not want there to be any control of content or traffic. Increasing competition might in fact lead to a reduction in complaints in the future.

Information & Ethics committee  Absolutely. That is another reason we decided that all communities in Canada must have access to quality service. We decided that universal service for all Canadians, a landline and a wireless network, is a necessity in all homes and in the streets, for safety reasons and all other reasons.

Information & Ethics committee  You could talk to some providers about their practices, their service concept, and the impact of the changes made in other countries. That would be another topic to delve into.

Information & Ethics committee  Are you referring to net neutrality?

Information & Ethics committee  You could talk to organizations such as the Intellectual Property Advisory Committee, or IPAC. I believe you have already talked to certain experts in the field, including Mr. Geist.

Information & Ethics committee  We obviously want to have competition sufficient to protect the interests of users and to have affordable and innovative services. Our approach has been to base it on facilities-based competition. That's where you do have the two main providers in most markets, not in the rural areas, and enabling wholesale access, as I mentioned earlier, is another way to get other providers to use those networks.

Information & Ethics committee  We came up with our basic telecom service decision back in December 2016, when we set the universal service objective. We did indicate that it really is a shared responsibility to bring that level of service to all Canadians. All levels of government, as well as the industry itself, should do whatever they can to offer that.

Information & Ethics committee  I think it's definitely worth looking at. As I mentioned, from our perspective we've had the flexibility and the powers that are needed to introduce that. All of our decisions have been unanimous, and I've been involved in all of them over the years. We've based them on the record we've developed and on very detailed discussion in these cases, so I would be cautious in terms of putting anything hard into the legislation that might not fit with the flexibility you might want going forward.

Information & Ethics committee  I probably shouldn't comment. Obviously, it's an issue for Trade, Global Affairs, Industry Canada, and others that may be involved in those discussions. Clearly, there are cross-impacts if there are different rules in different jurisdictions. That should be looked at, but I'm not one to comment on that.

Information & Ethics committee  We're certainly a voice in that discussion. I don't see us being focused as a regulator. Our objectives are in the Telecommunications Act and really trying to facilitate that deployment in different regions. The people who are in those regions and understand those regions in detail can make much better decisions on what's needed, how to expand that, and where the money can be put forward.

Public Accounts committee  We do have interim tariffs in place for the resale of the fibre, so it's available. We don't have the final rates in place, but we're working on those now, and those will be coming out in a few months. It is in Ontario and Quebec right now, and we're working to extend that across the country.

Industry committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We appreciate this opportunity to contribute to your committee's study of M-208. This study addresses important areas within the scope of Canada's telecommunications regulators, being Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada as a spectrum regulator, and the CRTC.

Industry committee  Absolutely. We defined the first call for applications for the territories plus satellite-dependent communities—in other words, the north, where we felt the need was the greatest. That's the start of the commission's approach. We did announce that we will be having a call in the fall for the rest of Canada, including all regions of Canada and all project types—be it transport, access or mobile—following the first call.

Industry committee  We do run all our proceedings through an open public process where everybody has a voice—it's very transparent—to get that decision out and get the best solution out there from everybody involved. That obviously does take some time. We had a few processes to get to where we are now.