[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Thursday, November 28, 1996
.1158 
[English]
The Chairman: Welcome, everybody. I'd like to call the meeting to order. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the natural resources committee is continuing its study on rural development.
First of all, let me express on behalf of the committee my apologies to the witnesses. Unfortunately there were some votes in the House this morning and some procedural work that kept us away from our 11 a.m. start. So I appreciate the fact that you are here with us. We will have members joining us as they can get back here.
We have witnesses from Industry Canada today on a variety of topics. In respect of tourism we have Francine Boivin. For telecommunications infrastructure, we have Richard Simpson. LenSt. Aubin is on business and regulatory analysis. Wayne Tosh is here on the community access program.
I've named four people, but there are five people back there.
Mr. Wayne Tosh (Director, Community Access Program, Science Promotion and Academic Affairs, Industry Canada): This is Michel Carrière, who is on community access with me.
The Chairman: Very good.
What we'd like you to do is to make some brief introductory comments about your specific areas, and then we'll turn it over to committee members for questions. So whoever wishes may begin.
Ms Francine Boivin (Vice-President, Industry Competitiveness, Industry Canada): My presentation will be made in French and I will talk about three topics.
[Translation]
First of all, I will talk about the tourism industry to give you a bit of information about our sector, and then I will discuss the Canadian Tourism Commission and the Commission's role re rural development.
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First of all, the tourism industry and its contribution to the Canadian economy: it is estimated that in 1995, tourism spending in Canada amounted to $41.8 billion, a $2.8 billion or 7.1 per cent increase in 1995 over 1994. By comparison, the Canadian economy in total, as measured by GDP, rose by 4 per cent in 1995 over 1994.
The $11 billion foreign exchange earnings generated by international visitors resulted in tourism ranking fourth among export industries, behind motor vehicles, automotive parts and businesses. The Travel Account deficit nearly hit $4 billion in 1994, dropping to $3.03 billion in 1995, a 23.7 per cent reduction.
In 1995, direct employment attributable to tourism amounted to the equivalent of 488,500 person-years, representing an increase of more than 8,000 person-years and an increase of 2 per cent. One can appreciate this growth even more when one considers that, in general, the Canadian business sector had no employment growth for this period.
The total number of persons employed in tourism-related industries, not direct jobs, is approximately 1.3 million. This number is projected to grow to just under 1.9 million persons by the year 2005. Tourism-related industries have an exceptionally young workforce - 33 per cent of the workers are between 15 and 21, compared to only 17 per cent in this age group for Canada as a whole. This sums up the contribution that the tourism industry makes to the Canadian economy.
I will now turn to the Canadian Tourism Commission. The Commission has a Board of Directors that is appointed by the government and is vested with the authority to plan and manage programs to generate and promote tourism in Canada. The staff of the Commission, which is composed of approximately 60 people, supports the Board in its efforts and assists the Board in promoting Canada as a tourist destination. The Commission also provides appropriate information to the tourism industry to assist it in making the strategic decisions required for its development.
The Commission provides primarily two types of programs to the Canadian tourism industry. First of all, it provides marketing programs, which account for most of our budget and which help the industry by developing and maintaining data on markets of opportunity, advertising, public relations, promotional projects, media relations and travel trade development as well as co-operative and buy-in initiatives. Secondly, the Commission provides industry competitiveness programs which are more or less support activities, including industry assessments, studies, program development services, how-to seminars and the development and maintenance of data on industry activity and revenues.
It must be pointed out that the Commission does not do any lobbying, it does not have any programs based on very specific criteria, and it does not have a capital assets program. A central focus for the Commission's staff is to integrate the co-operative efforts of partners to expand tourism in Canada and to build alliances and produce a harmonious, national effort.
In establishing the CTC, Mr. Chrétien challenged the industry to match the government's financial commitment of $50 million within three years of its creation.
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The first year, the industry contributed approximately $40 million in co-funded programming. In 1996-97, it appears that the challenge will be met and that the industry will have contributed at least $50 million to match the government contribution.
Should you have any questions about the way that the Commission operates, I would be happy to go back to this topic later on. I will now talk about the role of the Commission in rural development.
The CTC is a working relationship between tourism industry businesses and associations, provincial and territorial governments and the Government of Canada. It is mandated to develop a national program to market Canada as a desirable tourist destination for Canadians and foreigners, and to provide timely and accurate information on the tourism industry to assist their decision-making.
As such, it does not earmark funding for the use of specific Canadian regions, provinces or territories. The Commission coordinates the efforts of numerous players in the tourism sector, including hotel owners, tour operators, people who run tourist attractions, airline carriers, local and provincial associations and government agencies.
The CTC continuously seeks to create new partnering opportunities for its marketing, research and industry enhancement activities.
While the CTC provides a national service and does not target specifically rural segments of its clientele, it works closely with an extensive number of partners offering non-urban products, especially in its marketing activities.
The CTC has an Internet website which, in addition to providing general information on CTC's activities, its publications, etc., as well as access to its documentation centre, establishes hypertext links with other websites dealing with Canadian travel or tourism.
This remote access to information is accessible to both urban and rural businesses. Earlier I was talking to my colleague sitting to my right, whom you will be hearing as well, about the possibility of co-operating in order to speed up the access of rural communities to our website.
At the CTC, we have an Aboriginal Tourism Committee working on the development and marketing of aboriginal tourism products, the majority of which, as you know, are located in rural areas.
We are also working with Canada's adventure travel and eco-tourism industry as its products are in high demand.
I would also point out, although this is not mentioned in the brief that we submitted to you, that agro-tourism appears to be a product that is being developed, particularly in certain provinces. Manitoba, in particular, stated that they were very interested in developing this product.
I would conclude by mentioning a new product which is based on the concept of the Product Clubs Program, which is designed to encourage alliances of Canadian tourism industry businesses so that they can co-operate in pursuit of the CTC's goals, which are to bring smaller tourism industry participants together, to design an approach for developing new or improved products and to lead ultimately to more diversity, accessibility and use of tourist products.
The members can decide if they wish to work together, define their objectives and develop products which will make Canada more competitive and attractive for foreign visitors.
I will conclude at this point. I would be happy to answer any of your questions or respond to your comments. Thank you.
[English]
The Chairman: Thank you very much.
Mr. Simpson.
Mr. Richard Simpson (Executive Director, Information Highway Advisory Council, Industry Canada): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
There are some documents for the committee that will summarize some of the points I want to make in my opening remarks. Very briefly, what I will outline for you is the status of an initiative that has been under way now for a couple of years, the Information Highway Advisory Council. I will indicate its work and its continuing involvement in the area of encouraging access to the information highway, particularly in Canada's rural and remote areas.
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Briefly, the Information Highway Advisory Council is a group of 29 senior level representatives from Canada's private sector, coming from the communications industries, telecommunications, and the broadcasting and computer technology areas. It also represents Canada's artistic, creative and educational communities as well as consumer and labour groups.
The council was established in 1994 to provide policy advice to the government as part of a comprehensive planning and public consultation process leading to initiatives and policies for the development of Canada's information highway.
It's report, which is titled ``Connection, Community, Content: The Challenge of the Information Highway'', was released in September 1995. It contained something in the order of 300 recommendations for the government with respect to the development of the information highway.
One of the key areas studied by the advisory council, which was the subject of its recommendations, was access. I've pointed out in the documentation the specific recommendations the advisory council made to government with respect to access. Just to quote one of the more important observations made by the council, it said:
- Access is a critical dimension of the public policy debate on the Information Highway. Basic
access to the Highway should be as universal and relevant to Canadians as telephone and
television services are today.
For the interest of this committee, the second important recommendation as far as access is concerned was a recommendation that the regulatory body of the CRTC institute tariff policies that ensure affordable access to the information highway and its various services, particularly in rural and remote areas of Canada. It should be specifically focused on key areas such as health, education and public safety and the services associated with that should be delivered by the information highway.
Finally, the most comprehensive of the IHAC recommendations was that the federal government should develop a national universal access strategy under the leadership of Industry Canada with the cooperation of many other departments and agencies of the government and in cooperation with provincial governments. That work is under way both internally and in consultation with the provinces. A number of steps will be taken, including a public consultation paper on a national access strategy, which will be forthcoming in the next few months.
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That was the conclusion of the first phase of the advisory council's work as far as access is concerned. There was a response from the government in May 1996, which outlined a number of steps the government would be taking in all of these areas, and specifically on access. The consultation paper is one of those commitments the government reinforced in its action plan.
The advisory council is continuing its work, both generally and in the area of access. Access is one of the five areas the council has been mandated to devote its attention to over the next few months. The council itself will be following this work that is going on nationally very closely.
With that, I'll conclude my introductory remarks and perhaps I can respond to questions.
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Reed): Does that conclude the presentations?
Mr. Tosh: We haven't had the presentation on community access yet.
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Reed): Thank you, Mr. Tosh.
Mr. Len St. Aubin (Acting Director, Business and Regulatory Analysis, Industry Canada): Excuse me, Mr. Chairman. Perhaps I may just follow up on Richard's comments on the information highway.
The telecommunications infrastructure in Canada is one of the most advanced and extensive in the world. We now have a little over 98% of Canadians subscribing to telephone service; 95% of Canadians have access to cable television - about 75% actually subscribe; and about 90% of Canada's population has access to cellular services.
The telecommunications service industry in Canada has revenues of approximately $18 billion a year. Its contribution to GDP is growing more rapidly than the economy as a whole, and continues to do that. It employs more than 130,000 people.
I have left with you a presentation that covers the infrastructure and competitiveness of the industry and policy developments. What I'd like to do is just very rapidly touch on the highlights in that presentation rather than trying to go through it in detail.
In terms of rural services, advanced wireless and satellite services, which will be coming on line over the next few years, represent an important new contribution. They will be extremely useful for serving both remote and rural communities. They can deliver services, particularly satellite services - satellites can deliver services to remote areas at essentially no incremental cost. And for many of the new wireless services that we have licensed recently - personal communication services and LMCS, local multipoint communications systems - they can provide high-quality advanced services, frequently at a much lower cost than it would cost to extend the wire-line network.
In terms of the policy and regulatory agenda, since 1993, with the introduction of the new Telecommunications Act, one of the key policy objectives of the government has been an increased reliance on market forces in the provision of all telecommunications services.
Over the past few years, beginning actually before 1993, competition has been introduced in virtually all telecommunications markets. We now have competition in long-distance services, in private lines, in resale, and, most recently, in local telephone services and cable television services.
At the same time, consistent with the objectives in the Telecommunications Act, and in reference to some of the points Richard made, the government remains committed to ensuring a level of universal access to a range of telecom services at affordable rates.
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In this respect, the CRTC recently issued two decisions that are worthy of note. One of them was a decision that allows the major telephone companies, which remain subject to regulation, to provide preferential rates for health and school institutions, provided those rates are not below the incremental cost of providing a service. Those services or rates are now being negotiated.
As well, just recently the CRTC issued a decision on local service pricing options that found, to begin with, that the current rates being charged do not for the vast majority of Canadians present an affordability problem. At the same time they instituted a monitoring plan that will examine any decline in penetration rates in the light of ongoing increases in local rates.
Also consistent with the findings during the proceedings themselves, they addressed two issues, which relate specifically to affordability. One of them was the up-front costs that some Canadians have to pay in terms of getting access to local telephone service, where the commission has ordered the telephone companies to allow subscribers to pay those rates on a scheduled basis over several months. At the same time, they've directed the telephone companies to ensure that local telephone subscribers can have access to toll service blocking. So if they have difficulty controlling the use of long-distance services, they then have the technical means of preventing that and not facing bills they can't pay.
So those are two important decisions that came out fairly recently.
At the same time, the commission is right now going through a series of proceedings that will change significantly the way telecommunications is regulated in Canada. There is a series of proceedings that just ended to establish the framework for competition in local telephone service. The commission has also just concluded a series of proceedings on the introduction of a price cap regulation that will, again, significantly change the way telecommunications is regulated for those local services of the telephone companies that remain either a monopoly or essentially utility services. We expect those decisions to come out by mid-1997.
For its part, the government, as I mentioned earlier, has recently licensed new wireless services, personal communications services and local multipoint communications services. On August 6 we issued a convergence policy that confirms the government's commitment to competition as well as its continued support for Canadian content and the interconnection and inter-operability of all network facilities in the information highway. In addition, it provides the policy framework for competition between telephone companies and cable companies in their respective core markets.
That's a rapid overview of where we are in telecommunications policy. I would invite your questions.
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Reed): Thank you, Mr. St. Aubin. Mr. Tosh.
Mr. Tosh: Community access... We're putting some of those policies into action and we're making things happen in rural communities. I have some overheads I'd like to share with you, which will give you some examples as well.
The idea behind community access is to create new opportunities for economic and social development in rural communities by getting these rural communities connected to the Internet and trained on how to use it for economic and social advantage.
Incidentally, there is a copy of this presentation for anybody who is interested.
Let us take a quick look back. We initially started with a target of 1,000 communities by 1998. In the first competition that took place last year, the results were overwhelming. As a result, in February the government accelerated the program to a new target of 1,500. Currently 380 communities have contracts with us, and it is happening right across the country.
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The approval process is two-tiered. Provincial committees made up of rural experts in each of the provinces review and rank all the applications submitted. I need to stress that this is a competitive process. It's a community effort, a community project. It is not perceived as another government program, but as the government providing some seed money to get this community project started and going.
The second level of approval is a national committee made up of national representatives such as the Telephone Pioneers, the Economic Developers Association of Canada, the Tourism Industry Association of Canada, the Rotary Club and different groups that speak for the country, who then take the recommendations from the provincial committees and allocate resources across the country to it.
Last year 770 applications were received. Out of those, 400 were recommended by the provincial committees. Initially 271 were approved, and then some additional resources were found near the end of the fiscal year and we were able to get another 95 communities up and going.
The second competition has just ended, and I can share some of the statistics with you. We've received 600 applications for the second round, which represent over 1,000 communities. In that second round we've had a 60% increase in applications from Quebec, and we've had 90 first nations communities apply as well.
The majority of the sites of the 271 and the 95 are currently up and going. There are still some that are struggling with connectivity problems. I apologize for the small print here, but basically this is a quote from one of our communities saying how important they feel the community access program is and the impact it's having.
This past summer we were able to use some funding from HRD to put in place a summer student program, so we had summer students working at each of the sites across the country. This really had an impact not only on the committees but on the communities. There was a lot of synergy, as you can appreciate.
Our young people brought a dynamic to this that really got things going in the communities, and we've heard a number of good reports. Some of them have been so pleased that they're continuing to do it. The Ontario provincial government is continuing to put students, at its cost, into CAP sites to help make this happen.
We've put in place a framework for cooperation with an organization called CCWEAC, the Career Co-op Work Education Association of Canada. It represents 236,000 young people across the country who are in grade 12 and involved in a work experience. A lot of these young people will be going to CAP sites and gaining their work experience at the sites.
.1230
They will be helping the sites with administration, marketing, home page creation and all of those things, and at the same time they will be gaining the experience needed to give them future employability skills. We're pretty excited about that.
Each of the communities has an opportunity to show itself through a virtual portrait. Of the 380, I think 250 have a web site up now. These communities are pretty excited about seeing themselves on the web. They're proud of that and everything that's involved with the community. Again, this is something that is owned by them.
Part of the reason the community access program has worked is that the ownership is with the community, but as well, it's the champions we have out there working with us in the network, whether they be on the national committee or on the provincial committees. You have key people in communities who are excited about what this can do for them, so there are a number of groups out there that work well with us. You can see the representation on the committees - provincial and national education, culture, health, libraries, NGOs - and that diversity really provides a catalyst.
I apologize for the spelling mistake on the one slide there, but in Yarmouth, things have been happening since the CAP site went in. One ship-building company was able to generate sales from Europe and Australia because of a home page that was created through the site.
I just heard of another one this weekend. Up in Antigonish there's a couple who breed Norwegian horses and also have a bed and breakfast, and they do not have a computer. Somebody from the CAP site there brought them in and showed them the possibilities. They helped them create a web page, and wouldn't you know it, they've now sold some horses internationally. Not only that, they've had numerous inquiries about people wanting to come to their bed and breakfast to see their horses. As of last week they were buying a computer, because they had to get plugged in to the information age. This is the kind of thing that's happening. We're getting out there at the grassroots level.
The next one is another example of how we use students in Port Saunders. Students, with their dynamic, are a very important part of the sites. They bring that synergy. They also have been involved in some job-starting with respect to digitizing some material that is culturally relevant to Canada. In the next couple of slides I'll show you an example of one of those that happened.
The next slide we have is the home page of Brome-Missisquoi in Quebec. The next slide will give you an example of the reach that is happening in this one particular area. What you have here is 11 communities working together on this one application. While the hub is in Dunham, you have Sutton, Bromont, Lac Brome, Farnham, Cowansville, Bedford, Masonville, and Eastman all part of this. It's really not just one now. They've had to get together and work as a group to make things happen.
The next slide is an example from Steinbach, Manitoba. They consider themselves to be the automobile city. They're very proud of that home page. I understand if you want to buy an automobile, that's a good place to go.
The next slide is an example of what some of our young people have been doing in a digitization project. They've taken hard copy and digitized it, gaining the skills needed to use that in a possible business in the future. And at the same time they're making information available to Canadians that wouldn't otherwise be available for us to use to share our culture with each other.
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The last slide is where we're heading. The provinces have been very interested in what is happening with CAP, and we have put in place an MOU with New Brunswick and P.E.I., a joint model in which we together will roll out CAP sites which will be the delivery points for government services. We're pretty excited about that possibility. We are having discussions with the other provinces to use a similar model as we go across the country.
We're working with other federal government departments as well. EnerCan have a project called GeoExpress, which is a maps project that a lot of our rural communities are interested in. They are developing this so somebody who is hunting or trapping or whatever will be able to go on to their CAP site and get map information that relates to them in their community. That's happening.
Let me share just a couple of other examples, in closing. I was just in Alberta yesterday, and we have a small location in the library at the school in Barrhead. They were just informing me that they are going to become a weather station for the cable TV program in Edmonton. The CAP site will be reporting weather conditions through cable. They're really excited about that.
Another small group, Breton, a town of 500 people in rural Alberta - this is just picking up on what Len said about satellite and wireless communication - have taken advantage of an arrangement we have with Stentor whereby the telcos are providing us with free Ku band width for our schools and libraries for a two-year period. The technology for acquiring that is these direct-PC satellite dishes, these eighteen-inch dishes. What happens is you have to go out by telephone line, but you come back by satellite.
This little town of 500 people has come up with an innovative way that can take that satellite feed that comes into one computer and spread it out for their whole lab. They were telling me they had 40 kids the other day, all getting Internet, all going out from one telephone line and all in the lab getting information. They were talking about being able to go with a hopper - I don't understand all the technology - so another community within 10 kilometres, another network, can share with them.
In Peerless Lake in northern Alberta, 400 miles north of Edmonton, they don't have running water, but they are connected to the Internet. Their young people are talking with other countries and sharing cultural experiences.
This is definitely grass roots. The ownership is with the communities. It's being very well received. Jobs at the local level are being created slowly as it happens. So we're pretty excited about it all.
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Reed): Mr. Tosh, I thank you. I thank all the presenters here.
If you think you have trouble with the technology, join the club. It's all happening faster than I can absorb it.
Mr. Canuel.
[Translation]
Mr. Canuel (Matapédia - Matane): You have provided us with many examples and I think that is very good. Internet is a great thing except that, in rural regions, certain basic needs have yet to be met.
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I would like Internet to be available there, but when people have nothing to eat, Internet is a little bit over their heads. Perhaps 10 per cent of the people in rural areas could use this service, but as for all the others, I don't think that this will happen tomorrow.
It has been said that the $11 billion in foreign exchange earnings - Ms Boivin stated this - that have come from international visitors resulted in tourism ranking fourth among export industries, and I'm pleased by this, but I do have some questions about the rural regions.
On page 4, in the English version, under the heading ``CTC's Role in Rural Development'', it is stated that:
- As such, it does not earmark funding for the use of specific Canadian regions or provinces
territories.
- I have a few questions about this matter.
A Commission such as yours should give some thought to this. Why has tourism been declining in our region over the past five years?
You also said that basic access to the highway should be universal and adequate for all Canadians, just like our current access to the telephone and television. And yet, in the rural and semi-urban world, Radio-Canada in Matane has been cutting back staff for years. The same is happening in Rimouski and in Sept-Îles.
You have said that, in theory, everything is going well, but in reality, this is not what is happening in the rural areas. I do not know what you can do in concrete terms, but there is a dire need to promote what we call tourism. Radio-Canada had a role to play in this. The broadcasting company showed the beauties of the Gaspé region on Saturday. This was great.
I spoke with the director of Radio-Canada in Matane, Mr. Pelletier. He told me that they would do as much as they could with what they have. I understand him very well and I congratulate him, because he is a wonderful man, but he cannot do more because he is faced with cutbacks.
I completely agree with you, but how can you turn your words into action so that they don't just remain empty words? I don't want big words. The rural areas of Matane, Amqui, Carleton and Sainte-Anne-des-Monts will not be satisfied with being told what they have to do to get their share of the tourist pie.
Ms Boivin: I will describe how the CTC is organized so that you will get a better grasp of how things are done now.
The CTC is not just a federal department as used to be the case in the past. It's almost an agency now. It is composed of people from the private sector, and from the federal, provincial and territorial public sectors. The people sitting on its Board of Directors come primarily from the private sector. Seventeen out of the 26 members on the board of directors, including the chairman, come from the private sector.
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All of our eight committees are chaired by people from the private sector and six of them focus primarily on marketing. Our budget of $50 million, which has more than doubled now through contributions from the provinces and the private sector, is earmarked primarily for marketing and promotional activities. The non-federal contribution comes from the private sector, the provinces, etc.
Mr. Canuel: But marketing is primarily for the big cities.
Ms Boivin: No. I will use the example that you used with respect to your region. In the region of Matane, Amqui, etc., your tourism association, the Association touristique du Bas-Saint-Laurent, can, with Tourisme Québec and private sector partners, namely hotel owners, carriers, travel agents, wholesalers from the region or from outside the region, occasionally, prepare and organize all kinds of activities in partnership with us.
This is what our committees do. For example, if Matane decided to promote an activity during the summer season, which is easier to do in this region, or in a less popular season, it could get together with other towns in the region or with other types of partners, partners which are sometimes very uncommon, to present a project to us and say: ``We would be interested in broadening our market in the rest of Canada, in the United States, in Europe or in Asia-Pacific''. We cover all of these regions.
Mr. Canuel: And you would not invest any money...
Ms Boivin: Yes, we may invest if you invest as well.
Mr. Canuel: On a 50-50 basis?
Ms Boivin: However, more and more often we see the federal government investing less than all of the other partners. It could be 50-50. However, it's not as costly as you may think. At the CTC, we have experts and there are experts at Tourisme Québec, who may sometimes help us with a particular region. These experts know how to assist you with respect to the product you want to develop. They know where your potential markets are, what you indeed need to do in order to make your project a worthwhile investment.
We would never suggest that a region that doesn't have a great deal of money conduct a major televised advertizing campaign in the United States. That would be too costly for you and it wouldn't yield very good results. However, if you specialize in adventure tourism or in such and such a sector, we may tell you about the magazines or campaigns which we have prepared and which may be of use to you. We may tell you about how to go about paying for an ad, which sometimes costs $4 000 or less, depending on what type of media is used to penetrate these markets.
If need be, we may also tell you that your product is not competitive, that it is not organized as a package deal or that it doesn't lend itself to working with partners, that you're going to have some type of problem.
The tourism industry is extremely competitive. We find it very difficult to penetrate and keep the European and American markets because everyone else is working very hard as well. There is a good reason why the government decided to create this Commission two years ago. Our budget has grown from $15 million to $50 million and we have changed our approach considerably, we have done just about a 180-degree turn, because we realized that we were losing ground. We have regained a bit of this ground, but we still have a lot more work to do.
Communities such as Matane, Amqui and others that you mentioned are welcome if they want to develop things and work together. If they remain isolated - one village or one hotel owner - they will certainly not be in any position to penetrate a market. It's impossible. No country has managed to do this. We can help. Although our resources are limited, we have many experts. As I was saying, the Commission has a staff of 60 people at the most, but we work in partnership with others who have considerable expertise, expertise which extends even beyond Canada. We have a very good network.
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Mr. Canuel: You have not talked about communications, about of Radio-Canada etc. Perhaps this does not concern you directly, but you said that we have to give the same means to everyone. I feel that Radio-Canada has a role to play in this.
Ms Boivin: I do not know how to respond to your comment on Radio-Canada. Perhaps you should specify what you think we could do with Radio-Canada.
Mr. Canuel: I don't know. If you want to ensure that everyone has the same means of communication - and Radio-Canada is a means of communication - and you're constantly cutting back on staff and information - it's very important in the region. It was an excellent means.
Ms Boivin: I understand. Obviously, I cannot answer the question with respect to the cutbacks at Radio-Canada or elsewhere. As far as we are concerned, Radio-Canada is one media amongst others, that we occasionally use to promote certain tourism products.
Mr. Canuel: But in our area, it is more important than other products. That's what I meant.
Ms Boivin: I understand. As regards the cuts, you will appreciate that I'm not able to answer.
Mr. Canuel: I understand. Thank you.
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Reed): Mr. Serré.
Mr. Serré (Timiskaming - French River): First, I would like to congratulate you on your excellent presentation, even though I missed a small part of it at the beginning. I think that the Community Access Program is fantastic.
I had the privilege of having five projects accepted in my riding. When you consider that less than 500 projects are divided among approximately 300 ridings, you can see that the average for my riding is excellent. I am very pleased about that and I would like to thank you, although this does not resolve all the communication problems in the riding.
I was looking at the statistics you have on page 9 of your presentation. You say that 98.6% of homes have telephone service. In my riding, the percentage is about 85%. There are parts of my riding which do not have access either to cellular or to wire-line telephone service. Where there are wire-line telephones, they are community and not private lines, and are therefore not accessible to fax machines, Internet, etc.
Again this morning, I received a fax from a couple. This is a typical case which I should mention. The people concerned are from the city and have come to settle in the North because they wanted the lifestyle that can be found in a rural environment. They bought a property and built a house with the intention of operating a business at home. This is a growing trend now. We're talking about small businesses which begin in private homes and are managed at home.
They built the house and then made a request for the telephone service. They realized that the only telephone service they could have was a community line, and consequently they could not link it up to a fax machine, Internet, etc. Their business was based on communications. They were very angry and very disappointed because they had invested money in this. They probably should have looked into this before going any further, but coming from the city, they took it for granted that such services were available everywhere in Canada.
I would like to ask Mr. Tosh a question. I would like to focus on the rural dimension, because this issue is part of the terms of reference of this committee. It is very important for the rural economy to have access to the information network, but how can we encourage people to connect to Internet when they don't even have a telephone?
What is there that Industry Canada should and could do to ``force'' companies such as Bell...? I know that in the case of Bell, the CRTC approved its rural development plan, but there are many other companies. In my riding, for example, three quarters of the companies come under Northern Telephone. They have not made anything public regarding their action plan to improve services. I am told that perhaps in the year 2005, the people living in these areas will be able to have a private line. So what is there that Industry Canada should and could do to force those companies to provide us with access to such services?
[English]
Mr. Tosh: That's a good question. Len can maybe speak about telecommunications policy at the higher level, but I can talk about what CAP has done at the grassroots level.
With these Internet sites we are bringing in people who are being trained, and all of a sudden there is a demand for services because these people have experienced the Internet and the possibilities for economic and other gain. As this training takes place, pressure is put on the private sector to do something about it. In the case of Picton, when we went in there with the site there wasn't any private service at all. As a result of the training that took place, numerous Internet service providers came in to meet that need and found the solution.
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At the local level, they find very innovative ways of getting connected. In one place in Alberta that I heard about yesterday, they made arrangements for two call-forwards so they wouldn't be in a long-distance calling situation. They had to buy more telephone lines to cut down their telecommunications costs. Each situation is different, but that's a little bit of what CAP is doing at the local level. And the telcos are taking notice. As part of our MOU with them NBTel is providing free access to all CAP communities for the next two years. That wouldn't have happened had CAP not moved in that direction. Telcos in other provinces are making similar arrangements to the extent they can under the control of the CRTC.
As to what's happening in the bigger picture, maybe I'll let Len respond to that.
[Translation]
Mr. St. Aubin: You mentioned the possibility of forcing telephone companies to extend their systems within certain regions. First, it is a fact that over 98% of Canadians have access to telephone services; as a result of circumstances, the percentage is certainly lower in certain isolated areas.
For a number of years in Canada, rates have been lower in rural regions than in urban areas, despite the fact that the cost of providing the service is higher in isolated rural communities.
Recently, the CRTC approved an application by Bell Canada to increase rates in isolated rural communities and in most other parts of its service area. At the same time Bell Canada undertook to extend and enhance the quality of the service in the majority of the communities concerned.
The result is that, in several cases, the municipalities and community administrations affected nevertheless supported the request made by Bell Canada.
In your case, the telephone company is not Bell Canada, if I understand correctly.
Mr. Serré: It's Northern Telephone.
Mr. St. Aubin: It's Northern Telephone. So it operates essentially in the Far North?
Mr. Serré: In Northeastern Ontario.
Mr. St. Aubin: Northeastern Ontario.
Mr. Serré: The Kirkland Lake region, up to Timmins.
Mr. St. Aubin: Yes. In those areas there is a very high cost involved in providing the service, and the environment is increasingly competitive. At the beginning there will be an incentive to provide the service to newcomers, in those cases where the telephone company doesn't provide it.
Specifically in the case of satellite or wireless technology, we project that with competition and the emergence of new technology, over the next few years it will be possible to provide services to individuals who decide to live in isolated areas.
When we talk about forcing telephone companies to provide a service, it must be understood that if you force a company to provide a service in an isolated area or, in some cases, to an individual, you have to determine who is going to pay for that service.
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If the subscriber is not ready to pay the cost, and in some cases the cost of extending the wire can be very high, should the majority of subscribers be expected to pay so as to ensure that absolutely all Canadians can be provided with such a service?
Mr. Serré: Here you are really hitting the core of the problem for rural Canada. Do people in rural areas really have the same rights as people in major cities, that is the right to CBC, to a telephone service, to telecommunications, etc? As a society, we have an obligation to provide certain services such as community television and the Information Network to all Canadians.
I know that you are not in the government and we are the people who are going to decide, but I am trying to influence the minister. Would the government or Industry Canada not have a role to play in the regard? This may not, perhaps, be the right approach? Perhaps some sort of incentive or tax points should be offered. But I'm convinced that the government should take whatever means necessary to ensure that all Canadians have access to these services. A new infrastructure plan could be developed focusing on telecommunications in rural Canada.
Mr. St. Aubin: The federal government has launched an infrastructure program. Could this approach be used? I don't know. It will be up to the government and politicians to decide on this. I said that with new satellite and wireless technology, access to rural regions is far less difficult, because the costs involved in offering such services are lower.
That won't happen tomorrow, but Industry Canada is working hard with the private sector to facilitate the development of new technology, and enable new entrants and new technology to provide such services as quickly as possible. This is at least a strategy for dealing with this issue.
Mr. Serré: In how many years will this new technology be available? In five years, ten years?
Mr. St. Aubin: That depends on the technology. There are many variables, but we recently issued licences to new companies providing LMCS services and also wireless personal communication services. As regards satellites, we will probably have to wait two, three or even perhaps five years, before the advanced services to which we referred become commercially available.
[English]
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Reed): Mr. Mitchell.
Mr. Mitchell (Parry Sound - Muskoka): I have a couple of questions on the tourism issue.
How much is the annual budget of the Canadian Tourism Commission?
Ms Boivin: The budget that is from the government is $50 million. But we have more than that, because, as I explained, we have money that is now coming from provinces and territories and from the private sector. So it will be more than $100 million this year.
Mr. Mitchell: I understand that, but the government's contribution is $50 million.
Ms Boivin: The government is putting in $50 million.
Mr. Mitchell: And there's a portion of this that goes to administration, a portion of it that goes to research and development, and a portion of it that goes to partnerships with the private sector, primarily for marketing.
Ms Boivin: Yes, most of it will go to marketing.
Mr. Mitchell: Do we have a list of the companies that we, as a federal government, have partnered with through the Canadian Tourism Commission?
Ms Boivin: Sure. Those are not only companies, though.
Mr. Mitchell: Entities.
Ms Boivin: Yes. It could be provincial governments, territories, or cities.
Mr. Mitchell: How long would the list be?
Ms Boivin: Probably very long, I'm not -
Mr. Mitchell: More than 100 entities this year?
Ms Boivin: I wouldn't dare to give you an exact number. I'm quite new with the commission; it's only my fifth month. But I could give you this information later on if it's important to you. However, it's certainly a very big list.
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Mr. Mitchell: The reason it's important is... What I would like to see in this committee's work is how many of those entities are primarily operating in rural Canada. The Canadian Tourism Commission, for the most part - and it does a reasonable job - partners with large players. It partners with provincial governments. It partners with large tourism associations. It partners with Air Canada, with CP Hotels, and with those types of entities. Those types of entities tend to operate in urban Canada - and that's fine; it's getting money into tourism. But I think the question for this committee is whether the Canadian Tourism Commission is forming partnerships with players that primarily do their business in rural parts of Canada. From the testimony we've heard in Amos, as an example, and in other parts of this country, the indication has been that's not the case; the Canadian Tourism Commission is not forming partnerships at a small enough level, a level that has the kind of impact we would like to see in rural Canada. That's where those questions are coming from.
Ms Boivin: I certainly don't agree with you. We don't partner only with big companies. It's true that at the beginning of the commission the impression was that we had only big partners, and I think we had to begin with them. You cannot have something important going on in tourism at the international level without big companies such as Air Canada, Canadian, CP, Interwest. Those partners are major. But we also have as members of our board people such as Ida Albo, who is the owner of the Fort Garry Hotel. That's certainly not a very big enterprise, not like Air Canada and others like that. A lot of them are also on our committees.
Mr. Mitchell: But I'm not concerned whether you have rural representation on your committees. I'm glad you do.
Ms Boivin: But they're also partners.
Mr. Mitchell: I'm interested in where the money is going. We could debate that back and forth, but it's very simple. If it's public knowledge, I would ask you to table with the committee those companies you have in fact partnered with. If you're allowed to indicate the money we've spent - I don't know whether you're allowed to get that kind of detail - if you could table it, then we could see clearly how much of that money has in fact flowed into rural Canada and how much is flowing into urban Canada. If in fact it is flowing into rural Canada, that's going to be great. I'm not prejudging it. I'm saying the people we've talked to are saying to us it's not happening.
For instance, I can talk to my own riding. I don't have any Canadian Tourism Commission partners I'm aware of in my riding, with one exception, which happens to be CP Hotels, because they operate a facility in my riding, and I'm very glad they are partnered. With that exception, at what I call the bottom end of the tourism... And 52% of the jobs in my riding are tourism related, so it's an important issue.
If it's happening, that's good. Then we have to get the word out to people and let them know how to do it, because we're certainly getting that. If it isn't happening, then we have to figure out how to make it happen. But we won't prejudge it, and your point is well taken, not to prejudge it. Let's just see what the facts are. I would ask you...
And could we make a note, Mr. Chairman, that we are making a specific request to the witness to table that?
If you're unable to do it, for whatever reason, please let us know.
Ms Boivin: Yes, I think we will be able. I don't see why it would be impossible to do it.
I recognize reaching small and medium enterprises is certainly a challenge for an organization like ours, because we're not established in the regions. We're only sixty and we're in Ottawa. But happily most of our partners and members of the board and all that are from all regions of Canada, so they could help. We're trying to have new ways of doing things, a new approach that will help SMEs, small and medium enterprises, to get to us. They have to know us first. They're certainly welcome.
But as I've explained earlier, it's quite difficult. Even if the owner of a hotel, for example, or a bed and breakfast, would like to partner with us, it's difficult for him or her to do it alone. They have to partner first in a region, because then they will have the critical mass that will allow them to think international and think about investing.
It's not only a matter of buying an ad or a 30-second radio spot. It's also very often a matter of trying to establish a very strong relationship with the travel trade, to go to Germany, for example, if this market is a good one for their product or their kinds of products, if there are many, and then trying to convince a tour operator that this package is the right one, and then going to Rendez-vous Canada or other trade shows like that and meeting with a lot of travel agents and tour operators to convince them, and combining that with buying ads and participating in a campaign and all that.
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It's a lot of investment in time, more than money - much more than money. So they have to group together, and we have a hard time convincing them to do that.
If you already have so many people who are involved in tourism in your region, maybe you can help in convincing them to partner together and to develop new products and packages that could be attractive for our markets. Then we certainly could help them in a better way and more easily.
Mr. Mitchell: I don't disagree with you.
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Reed): Mrs. Cowling.
Mrs. Cowling (Dauphin - Swan River): Thank you very much.
I come from a small community of about 900 people. We've made most of our livelihood from a farm base. I say that because I would like to paint a picture for you. What you have presented today I think is very good news for rural and remote communities. However, there is a factor that drives me back to a question my colleague Mr. Serré raised.
As we've travelled from one end of this country to the other and hit very remote areas of this country, we have found we have many people who are very unskilled and do not have the knowledge base to pick up on the information highway. I say that because my husband, who is an educator by profession, is now taking a course to get our own operation onto the information highway. He himself, an educator, is having some problems with the way the packages are being delivered. I think if we're going to deliver a package to a number of people in very remote areas, a package that is effective and that will help those people move ahead and develop their own skills and be part of having equal access to this information highway... I'm concerned about that, because we can be a deliverer of technology, but we also have to be a recipient and help those people along.
I want your comments on that.
Mr. Tosh: To me technology is secondary. It's the people in the community who count. A very important part of the application - and this is a competitive process, and only the best applications go forward - is the training the community is going to provide to get people such as your husband to come into the site.
They've done some very innovative ways. Some of the students this past summer went and... Because you're talking about a paradigm shift here - like that couple in Antigonish I referred to, who hadn't even turned on a computer. What some students did is they went out with a survey and said to small businesses and different people in these communities, what are the five most important things to you? They got a list and then they went back and started going through the web and bookmarked five or six things that would be of interest to that individual. Then they arranged an appointment for him to come in and they sat down with him at the site and got him over the hump of turning it on and accessing and showed him these four or five things. In a lot of cases it hit a hot button. That was what it took to get them in the door.
So the communities have this responsibility for training, and the training is a very important part of the application. That is why the site is going to be there: so we can do exactly what you're talking about. But really it's the community that drives it.
We can give them tools to help. We're providing tools electronically. I refer to one as the Chebucto Suite. Others are how to - how to market your community; how to market your site in the community; how to advertise; how to make a presentation to the local chamber of commerce of why the site is important to them; how to get connected technically...and if you have problems, here's where to go for solutions. We're learning as we go here, too, to provide the tools to help facilitate that, but at the same time not to take the ownership away from the community, which has the responsibility to do it.
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Mrs. Cowling: I will follow up, Mr. Chairman, because this is a unique situation for rural Canadians. One of the things we have heard from a number of witnesses is that a lot of rural Canadians who live in very remote areas of this country start from a disadvantaged point. Just the whole competition factor...they cannot compete, for instance, with larger urban centres. They don't have the technology. A lot of them don't have the skills base to do that.
My next question is this. One of the things we have heard is perhaps there should be at some point within the Government of Canada someone designated to take a look at an overview of those rural remote areas of this country and help facilitate those people through that process. In your work, do you think there is a need for that?
One other thing that came to this committee was a rural secretariat or a rural minister or someone who could help lead these people through it.
Mr. Tosh: It's a difficult problem making that move. There is no one set answer. I know in one particular case an elderly gentleman wouldn't come in the door. His granddaughter had to get him in the door. But he was very interested in fly-fishing. He saw one making flies. Somebody showed him what was on the Internet about that, and that's all it took. Then it was a non-issue.
In these rural communities there's a strategy you could probably apply. You go to the person who is the most cynical and win him over. If you can win that person, then he's going to spread the word to the rest of the group. That's probably a strategy some will be applying.
I'll give you an example. I heard yesterday some of our students in one rural community in Alberta went and visited 200 businesses, trying to convince them to get involved. Initially our success was very low.
It's a big job. The facilities are there. It's going to take various ways. I do know we have a lot of innovative people out there, wrestling with the same thing. As we get solutions that seem to work, we hope to be able to share them with the other communities as possibilities.
Mrs. Cowling: Mr. Chairman, I'm going to come back to it, because I still don't think the witness understands where I'm coming from. To compare Alberta with areas we have actually travelled through I don't think is quite fair. It's comparing apples and oranges. We cannot compare Alberta with Hopedale or Goose Bay, Labrador. Those are the kinds of people I'm talking about. Those are the kinds of people this committee is concerned about.
I have those kinds of people in my riding of Dauphin - Swan River, the northern remote areas of that riding. They are first nations people, Inuit, farmers, all those people who are tied in one way or another to the natural resource sector. It's those kinds of people we need to be able to get involved in the technology process and we need to bring forward.
That's probably a statement, but...
Mr. Simpson: Mr. Chairman, to respond to the member's point, which is a very good one, the question about whether there should be an agency or a person responsible for dealing with these issues relating to the information highway and rural or remote areas on a comprehensive basis... I don't know if I can help much in answering that specific question, but what the issue leads us towards, to my mind, anyway, is the need to have a type of comprehensive focus on these issues relating to the information highway and what I would call regional and community development somewhere within the government policy and program machinery.
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We've looked at questions of access to the technology in the communications field for a number of years. There have always been concerns about making telephone service and broadcasting service available to Canadians. Canada is internationally renowned for our success in that regard, even though there are still some steps to be taken, as the member mentioned a few minutes ago.
What is different now with the information highway is that it is so important for the overall developmental needs of communities. We often think in terms of high-tech industries located in urban areas and how this is necessary for Canada's competitiveness and so on. All that is true. But what the information highway has now necessitated is attention to the way in which access to this technology is so necessary for social and economic development everywhere in the country, including rural and remote areas. What I think we need is some focus on re-energizing Canada's rural economy, or an emphasis like that, with the information highway being a very important tool in this whole process.
It's more than looking at business issues. It's looking at access to essential services, such as health and the education services you were also referring to. It's partly the value of the Information Highway Advisory Council that it was able to take this broad look and it wasn't necessarily wedded to individual portfolios within government but was able to look across government as a whole and look across the economy as a whole and see how some of these things have to fit together and the kinds of initiatives that have to be taken.
That's perhaps the first step. Whether or not you need an agency to continue that work once you've identified that as a priority is maybe not a simple question to answer.
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Reed): Thank you very much. I think from our perspective this has been a most enlightening exchange. We've heard that, for instance, tourism is making progress, through some very innovative approaches, probably for the first time in some time, in eliminating that tourism-dollar deficit Canada historically has lived with. We've also learned the information age is really being utilized with a vengeance here, and we're most encouraged by that.
I hope you have heard from us that one of the concerns that remain with all of us is that while a statistic will show communication is available to 85% or 95% of the people, it's not necessarily a true story in rural Canada. In rural Canada, for instance in Ontario and Quebec, it is said there are 66,000 telephone subscribers who are still on party lines and therefore have no access to the Internet.
I suppose if I left you with one question, it would be this. Is the Internet useful through satellite telephone?
Mr. Tosh: Len is not here. I can only go on the experience we have with direct PC, which is one-way satellite right now. It's very fast. I was using that example of the rural community that was using it.
The technology is probably about two to three years away - I'm making a guess - where you will have a box beside your computer that will be able to fire the signal up to the satellite and back down, which will remove wire from the equation altogether. That will be the answer for rural and remote communities that don't have the wire in the ground right now.
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I know a number of companies are out there working on coming up with that technology. One is Hughes, in the States. It has the direct PC concept. I see that solution being just around the corner. Once that happens, it will be just one of many possibilities. As the competition happens, as it unfolds with the cables, as it unfolds with the telcos too... They've come up with innovative ways, because they're in the business to compete. We aren't far from getting there, in my view.
Mr. Simpson: There's tremendous promise in wireless technologies, and they can provide functionality in the future beyond simple access. But from the advisory council's first report, I think it's quite appropriate to keep the pressure on to eliminate party lines and provide individual line service as the basic route to the information highway. That's the way the advisory council, at least, looked at it.
There are provinces in Canada where individual line service is the only service that's offered, and it's offered on a universal basis. There are other parts of the country where the carriers involved have plans to close the gap gradually, to eliminate the 66,000 Ontario - and there are even larger amounts in British Columbia - and provide everyone with individual line service, no matter where they are. Then wireless technologies, such as direct PC and others, will then be combined with individual line service to provide a considerable range of options for Canadians in rural areas, and maybe one day even the equivalents to what is available in urban areas.
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Reed): On behalf of Mr. Mitchell, our eloquent chairman, who got the floor today for the first time in months, I would like to thank you all for being so enlightening and taking the time to come here. I apologize that we were held up with votes in the House today. Those things just happen. Once again, our gratitude for the time you've taken to enlighten us.
This meeting stands adjourned to the invitation of the chair.