NRGO Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES AND GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DES RESSOURCES NATURELLES ET DES OPÉRATIONS GOUVERNEMENTALES

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, March 4, 1999

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[Translation]

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Benoît Serré (Timiskaming—Cochrane, Lib.)): Welcome to the Standing Committee on Natural Resources and Government Operations. Since your Chair speaks English 90% of the time, I will allow myself to speak to you in French this morning.

Pursuant to our agenda, we will consider rural telecommunications. We are very pleased to welcome our witnesses to our hearings.

We will study a motion put forth by the Reform Party at the end of our meeting, probably in camera.

[English]

Mr. Rob Anders (Calgary West, Ref.): Mr. Chairman, I'd at least like to be able to introduce my motion, and if it's the will of the committee that we discuss the motion at the end, I'd like to at least have the chance to be able to enter it now.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Benoît Serré): The motion has already been put forward and distributed to all of the members of the committee. It's customary to deal with the matter at hand in the committee, and then deal with any motion at the end of the meeting. This is the process we've always followed. We excuse our witness, and then we deal with any motion.

[Translation]

It is my pleasure to welcome this morning the representative of the Canadian Radio Television and Telecommunications Commission, Mr. David Colville. As is our practice, we will ask our witnesses to speak for several minutes, after which committee members will ask questions.

Welcome, Mr. Colville. You have the floor.

Mr. David Colville (Vice-President, Telecommunications, Canadian Radio Television and Telecommunications Commission): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

I would like to formally introduce myself for the record. My name is David Colville, and I'm the vice-chairman, telecommunications, for the CRTC. With me today are Scott Hutton and Leon Mevil, from our telecommunications group, and Denis Carmel, from our communications group.

Good morning, everyone. I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss this important issue.

At the outset, let me say that while there are some service problems in some parts of rural Canada, I think we have much to be proud of in this country. We have the highest penetration of telephone service in the world, at 98.8%, and I think all the telephone companies, the federal and provincial governments, and their respective regulators have taken great strides over the past years to achieve this end.

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The commission recognizes the importance of a quality telephone service for all Canadians, wherever they are located, and we are working hard to get the telephone companies that serve remote and rural areas to improve their service. Before I get into the details about our efforts in that regard, however, I would like to put our actions in context for you.

Over the course of the past few years, the CRTC has been taking steps to move the Canadian telephone system from a century-old monopoly to a competitive marketplace. We've opened up competition in the domestic long-distance and international telephone markets. This has given consumers better prices, more choices, and improved service—in fact, I think I just saw in the Globe and Mail an article indicating that Canada's telecommunications rates are lower than those in the United States now. We've also allowed competition in the pay telephone market, and we put the conditions in place that are opening up the local telephone market to competition.

[Translation]

From a strategic point of view, these measures in the field of telecommunications basically aim to promote access to communication services for all Canadians, to promote choice and diversity of high-quality communication services and to foster a strong, competitive and socially responsible communication industry.

To meet these objectives in a global market, we have chosen to be guided by the free hand of the market rather than by a regulated monopoly in order to ensure fair and durable competitiveness, and to provide Canadian consumers with access to the best possible services. However, on a parallel track, we continually strive to guarantee that all Canadians have access to a universal telephone service, in as much as that is possible.

[English]

I believe it is important to note that the CRTC has been concerned with providing universal service to Canadians since we started regulating telephone service in the 1970s, before there was a specific policy statement to this effect in the Telecommunications Act, and while we have been moving towards a more competitive market since then, we have always acted wherever we could to maintain the system so as to ensure universal service. For instance, in 1985 we denied an application for competition in long-distance service because we felt the subsidy to support local service was not adequate.

As well, we recognize that as we move toward a more competitive market, rates are moving and will move closer to costs, but we have steadfastly maintained a concern over affordability and universal service. When we opened up competition in long distance in 1992, one of the main elements of this decision was a subsidy or contribution scheme to support the continued availability of telephone service to rural areas.

[Translation]

I would say, however, that competition has been slow to enter many rural areas and markets in Canada, including in Quebec and Ontario. There is less choice for people living in these areas, but we are currently working on this problem.

Almost all Canadian phone companies have gotten rid of party lines, except for Norouestel, BC Tel and independent phone companies in Ontario and Quebec. The CRTC has approved a plan for improvement put forth by Bell, by which ratepayers with party lines would see their service updated by the year 2000. We're also working in tandem with independent phone companies to find solutions to the same kind of problems.

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As for independent telecommunications enterprises, we are currently studying various issues concerning service provision, mainly in Quebec and Ontario, including: rate rebalancing, a reduction in contribution demands which will encourage competition in long-distance services in those areas, and service-provision issues like long-distance rates, single line services and regional services.

[English]

In parallel with the review of these topics, the commission has also been examining the challenge of providing high-quality, affordable telephone service to high-cost areas. In January 1999 the commission heard final oral arguments on this issue. These oral arguments were the culmination of an extensive public examination the CRTC launched in December 1977 to look at the problems facing these areas. We heard from a wide range of participants over the course of these hearings.

We were all grappling with the same challenge. As Canada has moved from a monopoly situation to a competitive marketplace, the rates for telephone service are moving much closer to the actual cost of providing the service. This has meant, and likely will mean, rate increases in the rural and remote areas of the country. Yet we must still find ways of achieving the aim of the Telecommunications Act to make reliable and affordable telephone service of high quality accessible to Canadians in all regions of Canada, and ultimately to bring the benefits of competition to all Canadians.

We are now in the process of reviewing the material we have gathered on the high costs and we expect to release a decision in July 1999. In fact, we had been discussing this very issue this morning, and I left the meeting where we were discussing these issues to come to do this presentation today.

So that's a quick overview of what the commission has been doing to deal with the challenge of making access to high-quality telephone service and the Internet available to all Canadians.

I thank you for your time and I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have. I appreciate I haven't gone into much detail here, but I'd be happy to entertain any questions you may have with respect to some of the details, and if I or the staff who are here can't answer some of the questions, we'd certainly entertain getting the answers for you.

[Translation]

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Benoît Serré): Thank you very much, Mr. Colville.

As you've noticed, our chairman is absent this morning, but I've been told he is on his way despite the storm, which is making things difficult. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate those who are here for making it despite of the storm.

I will chair the meeting for a little while, but since I am so involved in the field of telecommunications, I will ask, with your permission, one of my colleagues to take over the chairmanship so that I can participate in the debate and ask the hundred or so questions which I have. I have already met with Mr. Carmel, and he is familiar with my point of view.

We will proceed as is our custom and give each opposition member 10 minutes, followed by 10 minutes for the other side, after which we will begin another round.

[English]

Who wants to start on the Reform side? John?

Mr. John Duncan (Vancouver Island North, Ref.): Thanks. The three of us here are from jurisdictions where telephone service is not a problem, so that makes it a little bit difficult to talk in a local context. We know there are questions, particularly from northern Ontario.

I do have an interest in the Arctic and I've been in jurisdictions up there. I know there's still, understandably, some problems with the telephone service up there and of course they're rural and remote in the ultimate context. I wonder if you could give us a thumbnail sketch of where we are in progress with telephone service in the eastern Arctic, in the western Arctic, and possibly what the current circumstance is in the Yukon.

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Mr. David Colville: Thank you for the question.

From our perspective that is one of the main problem areas we have in Canada. I think there are problems in some parts of Bell territory and a few of the independent telephone companies, largely in Ontario, but if there is a major problem in Canada in terms of service provision, it is the north. We were looking at the whole issue in fact of competition for long-distance telephone service in the territories served by NorthwesTel a little over a year ago, and certainly the consumers there want more competition to lower their prices. The problem is of course that the long-distance service there has been subsidizing the provision of local service in the north, which is extremely high cost, as you can appreciate. So we've been struggling with how to achieve the aim of providing lower long-distance service to those people in dealing with the northern problem.

I think that's going to be largely the focus of this high-cost proceeding that we're in right now, in trying to find solutions to that particular problem.

As part of the exercise we went through in looking at this whole notion of the high cost problem in Canada and how we get high-quality service and continue to improve service to those areas—because we don't just want to get basic telephone service there, we want people in rural areas to get the benefits of competition and things like access to the Internet—we did go to a number of communities in the north. In fact, last summer I went to Iqaluit on Baffin Island, and there are about, as you may know, 1,100 homes in Iqaluit and about 90 businesses, so about 1,200 potential lines, if you will, both residence and business. I was struck by the fact that the local Internet service provider there has 925 accounts. So it's probably one of the highest Internet penetrations in North America, if you think about it, and that's certainly one population centre that's relatively easily served. But of course there's a lot of area of the north that's extremely difficult to service.

So that is a problem, and it's certainly one of the areas we're going to be looking at in terms of how we provide the funds. It would appear that NorthwesTel and the consumers there may not be able to afford the rates that would generate the revenue to improve service there.

Mr. John Duncan: I've just run into a circumstance that I never thought I would run into in Canada. I bought into a new package offered by Bell in Ontario. It's called Simply One. This will call forward to my cellular telephone, but it'll only do that in the province of Ontario and the province of Quebec, and once I get outside of those two provinces my portable phone refuses to work. Is this something we can look forward to more and more, that as we open up competition our phone service will tend to be regionalized?

Mr. David Colville: No, quite the contrary, I think we're going to see more of the phone service nationalized. You've probably noted that even in your end of the country, where B.C. Tel and Telus have merged and are proposing to offer competition right across the country. And Bell has now established this company to begin to offer competition across the country as well. I think we'll also see the wireless and mobility companies competing more on a national basis. That is a particular new service offering of Bell.

I think the whole issue of offering number portability in a seamless service, if you will, linking wire-line and wireless service, will become more popular across the country. So that's an example of a service that's starting in one territory but that, I think we'll see, will expand nationally.

Mr. John Duncan: Finally, changing gears again, I had talked to you before the meeting started about local cable services also regulated by the CRTC. I think I'll be able to come to some resolution in discussions with you, but my concern is that over the years—I'm in my sixth year here—I've had occasions to write to the CRTC about what I thought were things that somewhat discriminated against community-owned cable television issues., I guess you could say there's a dissatisfaction from my standpoint with the process, because you never get a response and you never find out, unless you go back to source—source being the community television people, who don't always know what's going on with the CRTC either.

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I never really get direct communication back from CRTC as to how the issue was resolved or not resolved. I guess I'm issuing a bit of a complaint about the process. With our being members of Parliament, and you being a semi-independent organization, there's often a reluctance on our part to pursue these issues. There's also reluctance because it would take too much time, or whatever. I'm just wondering if there's something you could do on that front as well.

Mr. David Colville: I don't think there's a problem respecting our independence, if members of Parliament have questions or particular concerns about issues in their territory. We frequently get letters or calls, for example, about the status of this issue, or about the particular concern you raised with me before the session regarding moneys going into community programming in an area, and so on. If there are questions or concerns that we can clarify with a simple answer to a question, I'm happy to do it, and I apologize if we haven't been able to get more satisfactory answers to you in the past.

Mr. John Duncan: I've never received a response to a piece of correspondence to CRTC.

Mr. David Colville: As I say, I apologize—

Mr. John Duncan: I feared that my input was viewed as simply input.

Mr. David Colville: Yes. From my point of view, it certainly wasn't because you were a member of Parliament, that's for sure.

Mr. John Duncan: Okay. Thanks.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Benoit Serré): Thank you, John.

We'll move on to Larry.

Mr. Larry McCormick (Hastings—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, Lib.): Thanks very much, Mr. Chair, and thanks, Mr. Colville and gentlemen, for being here.

There are so many questions and so much concern for rural Canada that we all share. Of course I'm wearing a rural hat. I live in the riding in eastern Ontario between Kingston and Belleville, and Kingston's largest subdivision is in my riding. Yet my riding has the most miles of road—and I'm old-fashioned, so it's miles—of any riding in all of Canada, officially. There are much larger ridings, but we have the most miles of road.

I remember sitting in Peterborough. It's a good thing Ben Serré wasn't there, or he might have taken a larger piece off this banker than we did last year when our government task force did the hearings on the bank mergers. We were speaking up, standing up for rural Canadians. I'm not always against bankers, and they know that. But this gentleman said, “Well, you know, your farmers are amongst the greatest number of users of the Internet and these kinds of communications to do business.” That may be so in some areas, and I know Ben later will talk about his, one of the best farming areas in Canada, in the clay belt. I'll leave that to him.

But here we are, a lot of people in this country know where the first capital of Canada was. It happened to be Kingston, Ontario, for a short period of time. A few minutes outside the city of Kingston, perhaps 30 minutes—it would always take me 30, of course, following the speed limits—there were, until three months ago, 52 homes in a small area that had no telephone service. They had no service because you can't use cellular phones there. Now, Ma Bell, since that time, has provided telephone service, I believe. If I get an extra day I'll check it out.

In another area in my riding, not remote, there are 49 people in a relatively small area who would like to have telephone service, and no one has telephone service. We run into this all the time. It took a subdivision of Lindsay—that's near Peterborough, Ontario—more than a year to get any telephones hooked up.

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Now, our government and you seem to pay so much attention to remote areas. I'm happy we do and I want us to. But meanwhile rural Canada is getting left behind continually. We're going to move ahead, and we're going to invest and make a difference, and you are doing a good job. But without your commitment and desire to level this playing field, there is no way we're ever going to have enough.... It's going to take severe desire to make a difference. We're going to have to use major money. In this day of rapid technology and learning, where knowledge is the power and skills that our people need in rural Canada, our youth are going to be left so far behind that I think we have to have you move in a major way on this, Mr. Chair.

Mr. David Colville: If I can comment on that, Mr. McCormick, I appreciate your comment. And when I use the term “remote”...I mean rural and remote when we talk about that sort of thing.

We did move to what's characterized as a price cap regime for pricing telephone service for all the major phone companies, beginning in 1998. In the case of Bell, when we approved that, Bell had actually applied at the same time for what they called their super service improvement program, which we approved at that time as well, and we gave them the rates to complete that program. Their objective there is to get rid of the two- and four-party service and ultimately serve most of the unserved customers in their territory. We're certainly very supportive and we're trying to encourage them to do that.

The other part of it is, as I said, the high-cost areas proceeding, which we're in the middle of now. Once these other schemes have been put in place by Bell and the other companies to try to improve the situation, our objective with this other proceeding that we have underway right now is to figure out a way to solve the rest of the problem, if you will.

Mr. Larry McCormick: No, I appreciate that, Mr. Chair. Mr. Colville, I know our government needs to give you any support we might come up with, in any way—and I do not know how this works—because there is a great demand.

As the government rural caucus chair for this country, I got an interesting challenge in a letter in the last 10 days, an invitation to attend the annual meeting of the Ontario Telephone Association, to be held in Collingwood in June. I'll sure be knocking on a few doors of some colleagues here in this room who have done so much work on this issue, with different ministries and with you. Of course, I realize the results of this study won't be out until July, but this is more than a study. Again, we have to have commitment. Whatever comes out of that won't be enough, and that's fine, but we can't turn around and spend our time just in metropolitan areas.

Mr. David Colville: I agree with you on that, and I want to make it clear that this service to high-cost areas proceeding that we're embarked on is not just a study. This is an analysis of the program, coming up with proposals to deal with and solve the problem and put in place a solution. It's not just a study. The outcome of this proceeding will be mechanisms to solve the problem.

Mr. Larry McCormick: I congratulate you for the good work you're doing and I certainly will be following it. Whatever you can do will be helpful, but we need to continue to work.

Mr. David Colville: One of the things, too, that we have to recognize is that in some respects it's a problem that will never be solved. By that I mean that I think the definition of “basic service” is changing all the time. People are going to demand more, and we're going to have to be continually vigilant to give them more. Five years ago nobody was talking about the Internet. Now one of the big issues is customers everywhere in the country getting toll-free access to the Internet so they don't have to pay long-distance charges to get access to an ISP. And I expect that as technology changes and services change, we're going to have to keep pushing the envelope to get better service.

Mr. Larry McCormick: Yes, Mr. Colville—I'll just wrap it up, Mr. Chair—it's human nature to always want more. I have people come in my office from these areas—I'm thinking of where there are more than 49 homes and no telephone service—and they say they don't want anything fancy, they want a telephone. But of course as soon as they do get a telephone, they will want more.

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It would appear to us rural Canadians that with the amount of money that's happening and changing hands every day in the six major cities, urban areas of this country, there will be no reason why you, along with the support of whoever, cannot.... We're talking about a fraction of a percentage of a cent here that would make a difference. Yes, we do have a rural country.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Chairman (Mr. Brent St. Denis (Algoma—Manitoulin, Lib.)): Thank you, Mr. McCormick.

We have next Pierre, who will be sharing his time with Jean-Guy. Pierre, please proceed.

[Translation]

Mr. Pierre de Savoye (Portneuf, BQ): Mr. Colville, I presume that you understand French relatively well. Do you need the interpretation?

[English]

Mr. David Colville: I am listening to the interpretation.

[Translation]

Mr. Pierre de Savoye: It is important that I know...

[English]

Mr. David Colville: I apologize, I am a unilingual Nova Scotian.

[Translation]

Mr. Pierre de Savoye: ...so I can give you enough time to listen to the interpretation.

I have three concerns. I will submit three problems and three recommendations to you. Here is my question. Is the CRTC able to quickly solve those three problems, and if yes, when, or is political intervention necessary to prod the CRTC into action?

The first problem is the availability of good phone lines in the country. Others have already raised this matter, and I'd like to add the following. In rural areas, interconnectivity means nothing if there is only one provider. Choosing the lowest-priced provider is meaningless if there's only one provider. Even worse, choosing a service means nothing if there is nothing to choose from. I therefore suggest you provide incentives to encourage the installation of good rural lines with the most efficient technology, be it wires, microwaves or cable.

The second problem are the higher service rates. In cities, the consumer will soon be able to choose his or her local service provider because of competition. So the system will be competition- based. Rates will therefore decrease in large cities, whereas local rural rates won't go down for individuals or businesses. Therefore, the gap between rural and urban rates will widen. The message is clear: if you want to do business, move to town. But that's not what we want to tell people living in the country; rural areas have the right to develop at the same pace as urban areas in this era of telecommunications and galloping technology. I suggest that we establish a basic local service rate for both rural and urban areas, as is the case for electricity rates. Of course, this can be achieved in many ways: you can choose how.

The third problem is long-distance rates between municipalities located in the same area, and even sometimes long- distance rates within the same municipality. Let me illustrate this with the example of Saint-Raymond and Portneuf, where there are two telephone exchanges, Bell Canada and Québec-Téléphone. To call city hall, people living in the sub-sector of Lac-Sergent who use Bell Canada have to call long distance. Within the municipalities located in the regional municipality of the county of Portneuf, there are sections where long-distance calls have been an obstacle to the social, cultural and economic development of the area.

In 1980, you may remember that rules on the community of interests and distance between phone companies were enacted. Today, the rule of community of interests restricts the number of long- distance phone calls. This has a perverse effect: because of long- distance rates, the community of interests is not strengthened, but weakened. It's an obsolete rule. It must be abolished or amended.

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I therefore recommend that you eliminate long-distance rates between towns located in the same regional municipality. Because that's where economic development starts.

I'll repeat my question. Can the CRTC solve these three problems quickly, or is it necessary for Parliament to pass a law enabling you to do so? Thank you.

[English]

Mr. David Colville: Thank you very much for your questions and suggestions. I hope I cover them all. If I don't, please bring me back to them.

Let me take your last point first. I think the commission has the power, either through the Telecommunications Act or our regulations, to be able to deal with all of these issues. I don't think we need any directive or direction or political intervention—and I don't mean that in a negative sense—in order to deal with these issues. I think the scope of the legislation gives us the power to deal with it.

Are we in a position to deal with them quickly? Depending on the issue, I would say some more quickly than others. As I indicated earlier in dealing with the north and this proceeding that we have under way looking right now at service to high-cost areas, some of those may take longer-term solutions. Part of the problem in solving some of these problems is that to try to solve it all at once may incur a large investment of money on the part of the service providers. If we're going to try to solve some of those problems with rate action, one may want to spread the cost out over three or five years in order to soften the blow to consumers in terms of how you deal with that, in terms of rates. So depending on the particular problem, it may take longer, but many of the problems I think can be resolved in fairly short order.

We have some applications before us now from some of the independent telephone companies, both in Ontario and Quebec, to deal with issues, some of which relate to eliminating long-distance charges in the EAS, or extended area service, that you mentioned.

You mentioned the issue of choice, one of the problems we've been dealing with with a number of the independent telephone companies. I mentioned in my opening remarks that we established this scheme of contribution where the long-distance providers provide the subsidy to the local telephone companies in order to keep rates affordable and in order for them to continue to provide local service. Part of the problem we have with some of the independent telephone companies is that the contribution rate is so high that it doesn't encourage competitors to go in and offer service in those areas.

So one of the issues we are addressing—we ran a proceeding, we've had a meeting about this, and we expect to be putting a decision out on this within another six or eight weeks—is to try to deal with that issue to get this contribution rate down to a level that will encourage competition so that consumers in some of these areas will have more choice of a long-distance service provider.

In terms of the local rates in rural areas, we are concerned that as competition may evolve it will initially start in the more urban centres, and we do have a concern about what the pressure may be then to drive more rural rates higher. That again is one of the main reasons why we undertook this high-cost proceeding to take a look at and make sure that we don't fall into the trap of driving rural rates so high as to make service become unaffordable. We want to try to come up with a scheme that allows or creates an incentive for the competitors to go into these rural areas as well.

One of the things we did when we opened up the local market to competition was we put in place what we call a portable subsidy scheme. That is, if you're on the receiving end of this contribution subsidy, you're a local service provider. You get that if you're the incumbent, former monopoly. Or if a new entrant goes in to serve an area, they are entitled to receive that subsidy as well. So we hope that by doing that we would encourage competitors to enter, but we recognize that competitors won't go everywhere in Canada. There will be certain areas that simply are of such a high cost that competitors won't go.

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So that again is why we're looking at this high-cost areas proceeding to come up with funding mechanisms that will ensure that we continue to make service affordable and eliminate the problems that you've identified. But I think your suggestions are useful, and as I say, we have specific proposals from a number of the companies to deal with some of those.

Mr. Pierre de Savoye: On the community of interest...?

Mr. David Colville: Yes, I think the community of interest issue is an interesting one. Generally they've been dealt with on a case-by-case basis of the companies coming before us with a specific application, where the members of two communities have looked at the issue and said there's enough of a community of interest now. I guess the question would be, is the threshold too high in some areas, depending on where those communities are?

I'm not too familiar with the specific case and whether or not we've had a proposal to deal with that. I don't know whether Scott....

Mr. Scott Hutton (Tariff Analyst, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission): I don't think we've had a proposal to deal with that one per se. One thing you mentioned earlier was the SIP program, which we approved for Bell. In that SIP program, there was opposition by the telephone company to expand the calling areas. The company itself decided to name this proposition its natural calling area, which would give the outlying municipalities free calling access to the major centre of population and the roads along the way that would take them there, so it would sort of make calling quarters.

We have approved applications of that nature from Bell Canada. Many of the independents have proposed those, and others are prepared to propose others. But I think you picked up on the nature of the MRC-wide, regional municipality calling plans, and no, we do not have applications that would cover that particular point.

The Chairman: Thank you very much. There was no time really to share, but I will come back to Jean-Guy.

So I'm going to ask Reg, please.

[Translation]

Mr. Réginald Bélair (Timmins—Baie-James, Lib.): I would like to follow up on what our colleague Mr. de Savoye said. Before we think of hooking up with the Internet for better business opportunities, for sharing one's culture or for social interaction, we should first look at a fundamental problem, which is party lines. Before moving on to anything else, we must solve that problem.

We just have to recall that in most rural regions in Canada, the companies providing telephone service have a monopoly because no competitors are interested since there is an insufficient volume and their chances of a return on their investments are rather slim.

In the orders governing the CRTC, is there not a provision to ensure that before you issue a licence to a monopoly that will service rural or remote regions of Canada, that it will have to assure you that the subscribers will be able to have a private line, for availability, privacy and to conduct their affairs?

[English]

Mr. David Colville: Not a specific regulation, but I guess it's fair to say that not just the CRTC but indeed many of the provincial regulators who regulated many of the companies before they came under our jurisdiction in 1990, I guess it was, had been regulating companies, not just on the basis of a specific provision to deal with single-party service, but that the telephone companies would provide universal service and would improve over time the grade of service to become single-party. Certainly one of the objectives we are addressing with all the companies is to eliminate multi-party service and provide single-party service throughout their territory.

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Mr. Réginald Bélair: But my question is, is there any way you can enforce this? When you do allocate a licence, is there no way you can force the fact that the licence is given conditional to...?

Mr. David Colville: We don't actually issue licences to the phone companies; we regulate them, and they serve a territory. There isn't a licence, and in return for getting a licence you commit to certain things, as we do in broadcasting and cable television. However, we're well on the way to solving that problem with all the companies.

In the particular case of Bell, as I indicated earlier, when we approved their move to a price cap regime, they applied for a service improvement program, and Bell has a plan in place and is reporting to us and has committed to eliminate party lines by the end of next year, I believe it is, within Bell territory.

Mr. Réginald Bélair: The question is, then, if Bell does not operate in my area, what do I do?

Mr. David Colville: Well, in the case of the particular telephone company—I'm not sure which one—

Mr. Réginald Bélair: It's Northern Telephone, which belongs to Bell, by the way.

Mr. David Colville: I guess Northern Telephone is one of the more problematic areas that we have to deal with in terms of all the independents. It is one of the issues we are looking at in terms of dealing with them and how we can improve the service in the northern area.

Part of what we're doing, both in looking at the individual independent companies as part of the review we've been going through and in this process of looking at the high-cost serving areas, is addressing the independent telephone companies and their ability to provide single-party service, because that's the objective we want to put in place.

Mr. Réginald Bélair: Mr. Chairman, I have a brief comment and question.

Strangely enough, I have six first nation communities on the west coast of James Bay and they are better served because of the satellite system than some of my constituents down south. So would it not be appropriate for the CRTC to recommend to whoever—to Industry Canada, I guess—to ensure those satellites are there to be used and, through some form of subsidy, to give those private lines to those constituents?

Mr. David Colville: You make an excellent point, and again part of this process of looking at service to high-cost areas is alternatives like satellite and other wireless solutions.

I gave the example of Iqaluit. I know, for example, that MicroCell, which has been licensed to provide digital wireless telephone service, is looking at a project in Iqaluit to be able to provide wireless telephone service using a small cell site. They're trying to look at the technology and the cost of providing a wireless form of telephone service in smaller, more remote areas. So I think the developments in satellite and other wireless technology are going to provide options for us.

Mr. Réginald Bélair: Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Bélair. Those were excellent questions all around.

Yvon Godin, please.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Godin (Acadie—Bathurst, NDP): I would first like to tell you that I am pleased that you are with us here today.

I understand the point of view of my colleagues who have described the problems in Northern Ontario and in certain rural regions. Although things are not perfect in my area, it would be difficult for me to make similar complaints about telecommunications in New Brunswick, except perhaps that costs are higher in the rural regions than in the towns, and this limits economic growth in the rural regions. It should be pointed out that communications are not the only things that are more expensive in remote regions; everything is more expensive. When people living in those areas need something, they have to go into town, and that becomes more expensive. In the field of communications, everyone should be treated fairly, and all Canadians should pay the same price from coast to coast.

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I would also like to speak to the subject of cable services. The Parliamentary cable channel is not broadcast in all regions, and, therefore, some Canadians do not have the opportunity to see what is happening in our country or to see our leaders. I have received numerous complaints about this. All Canadians should be able to view the proceedings of the Canadian Parliament. I would recommend that the CRTC and the cable companies look at this issue.

I wonder if you know that, the Gaspé, unlike New Brunswick, does not have fibre optics. I know this region well, and I wonder if fibre optics might provide the solution.

[English]

Mr. David Colville: I can't really answer your last point on the amount of fibre in the Gaspésie. We don't have that level of detail, or at least I don't have that information with me today, in terms of the distribution of fibre in different regions of the country.

On your point about CPAC, it's certainly our view that cable operators in all parts of the country—to the extent they have the channel capacity and so on and recognizing that some of the smaller over-the-air cable systems have very limited channel capacity in very small rural areas—for the most part should be offering CPAC so Canadians can see their Parliament in action. If there are particular problems, we'd be interested in hearing about them and will pursue whatever action we can to get them to do that.

On your first point about a single rate across Canada, I come from Nova Scotia and still live there, so I have a bit of an appreciation for telecommunications service in some of the more distant parts of the country. I don't come to this with a central Canada focus necessarily, so I can appreciate the economic development interest too in having good-quality telecommunications services in all parts of the country.

We've been trying to recognize the differences in geography and the relative levels of development. It's quite interesting to note, for example, that Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have virtually 100% digital single-party service, so they've been able to achieve that objective.

Mr. Yvon Godin: We still don't have any jobs.

Mr. David Colville: In Nova Scotia, for example, we're paying somewhat higher rates than some other parts of the country, partly because of the smaller base over which to spread the cost, but also because the companies there have taken steps to overcome some of these problems, perhaps a little ahead of some other parts of the country.

It's generally recognized, frankly, that NBTel has done a particularly good job in developing the telephone service, and has been not just a North American leader but a world leader in some of the developments they've done. Certainly they were one of the first to recognize the importance of going 100% digital. We started that about 20 or 25 years ago.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Godin. Thank you, Mr. Colville.

I will have Ben Serré, Jean-Guy and then Claude.

Mr. Benoît Serré: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Gentlemen, it's a great pleasure to have you here this morning. I'd like to welcome you to my riding of Timiskaming—Cochrane, serial code 1955, home of Northern Telephone, where we still have 5,000 homes without private telephone lines and on rotary phones.

If I sound a little frustrated this morning, it's because I am. In all fairness, I don't want to put all the blame on CRTC or one organization. I know that in Ontario until 1994 telephone service was governed by the Ontario Telephone Services Commission. CRTC only came into the picture in 1994.

I just want to read one excerpt of the mandate of the CRTC from the 1993 Telecommunications Act:

One of the objectives is to render reliable, affordable telecommunications services of high quality, accessible to Canadians in both urban and rural areas in all regions of Canada.

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I was a guest speaker at the Ontario Telecommunications Association annual meeting in Aylmer last June. Industry Canada made a presentation to us, and man oh man, was that ever impressive, with the high tech, the nice colours, the imagery, the whole bit. I looked at it and thought, my people in Timiskaming—Cochrane cannot even telephone! It was raining outside, and when it was my turn to speak, I threw my speech away and said to Industry Canada, “I'm sorry, but I'm going to rain on your parade; it's raining outside and I'm going to rain on your parade. All these nice high-tech things don't do us any good.”

I guess the point I want to make is why? Whose responsibility is it? In the last year, I've dealt with this issue extensively. I have piles of research documents and a couple of thousand letters from my constituents. I have met with Industry Canada and Northern Telephone on many occasions. I met just this morning with Bell Canada.

It's ironic that when you make a negative statement in the House of Commons, all of a sudden they have time to talk to you. I got a phone call from them right after my statement in the House and they had time to talk to me this morning. I have met with the CRTC on many occasions and this was a very productive meeting.

But everywhere I go it seems as if somebody is passing the buck. Industry Canada tells me it's private enterprise; it has to be done by private enterprise. Private enterprise tells me they need changes to the CRTC, licensing and all that; it's the CRTC's fault. The fact of the matter is that it's still not done.

We're ten months away from 2000, and if someone in my riding has a heart attack, they can't phone because some kids have left the party line open. We have overcrowding in the hospitals, and doctors cannot send their patients home because they need monitors that cannot be accommodated on party lines. We are missing out on job opportunities. We're into the high-tech information highway jobs. People are bypassing us and going to New Brunswick or Toronto, and we end up with 23% unemployment.

Whose responsibility is it? Industry tells me it's the industry, and the industry sends me to the CRTC. Somebody has to take the initiative here somehow—maybe the government through other legislation. I don't know, but somebody has to take the leadership and be fair to all Canadians, including rural Canadians.

An hon. member: Hear, hear!

Mr. Benoît Serré: I've participated in the high-cost servicing area hearings and I'm very optimistic that something will come out of them. But again, you see, my first discussion with the CRTC was that the report was going to come out in May. The second time I talked with them they said it was coming out in June. This morning I heard it would be July. Knowing how bureaucracy works, it will probably be September or October before we have a report. It goes on and on.

I know, Mr. Colville, you cannot pre-empt the report. I understand that. I know it's a very difficult issue to deal with. There's no easy solution.

I've made some recommendations, as part of my intervention at the hearings, to have some kind of cross-subsidization or to build a pool to get the money to help those areas. When I hear about independence in talking about Northern Telephone, that's an oxymoron. Northern Tel is 100% owned by Bell, which is 100% owned by BCE. BCE made $1.6 billion net profit last year. Why could they not spend $100 million to bring all of northern Ontario into the 21st century? Whose responsibility is it if they're not doing it? Is it because they're not good corporate citizens and nobody has enough guts in Industry Canada or the CRTC, or wherever the blame lies, to force them somehow to do it?

There's a solution, as far as I'm concerned, and it's not that complex. Let's do it the Canadian way. We've done it for rail transportation; we've subsidized the west for years. We've done it through equalization payments to the provinces. We just gave Quebec a nice cheque of $1.4 billion through equalization. We can do it the Canadian way, which is to charge a contribution of some kind on every telecommunication bill in the country, create a pool of money, and subsidize—not 100%, of course not—some high-cost servicing areas, and do it quickly. I don't want to see that done in the year 2010.

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It's no use to perpetuate a dinosaur. We want private lines, but we want a lot more than that because we're still 20 years behind. We're 50 years behind now. With private lines we'll still be 20 years behind. We want to be able to access the information highway and be as Canadian as the rest of you.

I've given you a lot of ideas and statements. I would like to hear your comments on this.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Mr. David Colville: Thank you very much for your comments. I appreciate them and I certainly can get a sense of the frustration that you said you have. Frankly, I don't mind the criticism.

I was telling Mr. McCormick earlier that I had some surgery on my back last summer and the doctor told me that in spite of my size I have unusually thick skin on my back. I said it goes with my job. I don't mind the criticism.

You've focused in clearly on one of the problem areas we have to deal with. There are a few of the independent companies in the north where we have some significant problems.

Personally, I don't think we can totally rely on this high-cost proceeding. I take your point. We think we're probably going to have to deal with the problem of this high-cost proceeding in two ways. One, to the extent it's possible, solve the problem within the company's territory. But there are some areas of this country where a total solution to that problem won't be possible simply within the revenue base of the company. So we may well have to have some kind of national subsidy that gets the service levels you want. But separate from that, I think we have to deal with some of the specific independent companies we've been talking about here today.

In a somewhat similar vein to your comment about throwing away your notes, I spoke to the Canadian Independent Telephone Association in Toronto just a few weeks ago. After I read my prepared text, I said, “We collectively have a problem, you the companies and we the commission”, because I don't think we've been serving them well—them, the companies, or indeed their subscribers—in working together with them to solve the problems of not just the regulation of those companies, but of providing service to their consumers. The challenge I was throwing out was that we have to work together better to improve the way we go about relating to them and the way we together work to provide service to the consumers.

So I take your point. It is a problem. We have to deal with it. We want to deal with it in two ways—working individually with the companies to resolve a number of these issues and, on a broader basis, through this high-cost proceeding that we're working on to look at broader, longer-term solutions that may involve a national subsidy for some of the solution to the problem.

The Chairman: Be real quick, Ben.

Mr. Benoît Serré: Two years ago Bell made an application for a rate increase to build up a pool of $200 million, supposedly to use that money to increase the services and the technology in the rural areas, and to their credit I think they've done it.

Mr. David Colville: Yes.

Mr. Benoît Serré: The south part of my riding, which is served by Bell, is I think quite ahead of the rest of the riding.

Is it within the powers of the CRTC to say, okay, without government legislation or if you need government legislation, starting, let's say, September 1, 1999, we will charge 50¢ or 1% of all telecommunications voices in the country? Are you able to do that? Is that within your power?

Mr. David Colville: Yes, it is within our power. In fact, the most recent amendment to the Telecommunications Act that was just put through last year gave us the power to be able to create a fund to support the provision of basic telephone service throughout the country. That is one of the issues we're looking at in this high-cost proceeding, because the struggle then becomes....

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For example, you just indicated the situation with Bell, where they've undertaken a program to improve service in their territory. We want to fairly well define what service we would subsidize through such a fund and where that would be. We don't want to create a huge, big subsidy scheme that ends up subsidizing service that otherwise would have been provided by some of the more profitable and economical companies. We want to try to focus such a subsidy where it's really needed. That's the analysis we're going through right now, in fact, at the meeting we were having this morning that I left to come here.

Mr. Benoît Serré: I believe that's a very, very important factor because of my discussion with some members of the OTA and some other providers. I think they're already at the truth and a lot of those companies don't need it. They say if it's going to be there let's try to access that. I think your problem and your role is to make sure that whatever pool of money is created is going to be used where it's needed.

Mr. David Colville: Exactly. Thank you.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Jean-Guy Chrétien, please.

Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien (Frontenac—Mégantic, BQ): Although I am raising a very specific case, the same thing must surely occur in other municipalities. In Lac Mégantic, a small community with 6,000 people, Mégantic Transvision Inc., provided a community television service that the public liked a lot. For reasons unknown to me, the owner sold his company to a larger company, namely, Câble Axion Digitel Inc. from Magog. The very next day, the community cable channel stopped broadcasting local programs, and it has never broadcast any others.

The municipal council and several organizations asked me to meet with the new owner to convince him to reintroduce community cable television. The answer was very clear: I was told that since the CRTC did not oblige the company to do it, it would not do so, because there were less than 20,000 subscribers.

There are obviously not 20,000 subscribers in Lac Mégantic; that would be wildly improbable. However, if I add up all the company's subscribers, the figure obviously exceeds 20,000. Can the Commission do something to help rural communities in this situation?

[English]

Mr. David Colville: Thank you for your question. We've taken the view that with the smaller cable systems over the years we had never mandated that they must provide a community channel, but we encourage them to do so. So I wasn't familiar with the particular case of Lac-Mégantic. I knew the system had been bought by Câble-Axion Digitel, but I wasn't aware that they had discontinued the community channel.

Is it that they discontinued it altogether or is it now coming from another source? Sometimes what we find happens when smaller systems are bought up by other ones is they integrate the community channels with some of the larger ones and then people in the community mention that it's not relevant to their communities. It's still there but it's not as relevant as it used to be. In this case I take it it's not there at all.

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien: No, we do not broadcast any community programs. Previously we could broadcast programs with the provincial MLA, the federal MP, members of the municipal council or of the school board, or carry an item about a specific event that was happening in the regional municipality or in the town. However, there is no longer anything; the expenses have been cut and we only take the cash.

[English]

Mr. David Colville: As I say, we've never mandated that smaller systems like that do it, but we've certainly tried to encourage them to do so. I think with pressure from the community and perhaps a little encouragement maybe we can get them to—

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien: Do you have anything stronger than encouragement that you can use? Can you twist their arm a little?

[English]

Mr. David Colville: As I say, it's hard to have incentive with teeth if you're not going to mandate that they do it. We never did mandate that the smaller cable systems do that. It really grew out of the time when many of them had a relatively limited channel capacity. So unless we go back and put in place a regulation that actually mandates that they must provide a community channel, it's hard to put teeth into it.

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien: I would like to raise a second point quickly. May I?

The Chairman: Yes, briefly.

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Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien: I would like to talk about wireless telephones. In the regional municipality of Le Granit, which is huge, very densely populated and on the American border, over 50% of the area cannot be reached by cell phone.

As a result of some lobbying efforts, I made enquiries of Bell Canada, which told me that we could get Iridium service, which naturally would cost a fortune. Customer services then told us that it costs $5,000 to buy the telephone—which will discourage at least one potential buyer—$60 to activate the telephone, $70 a month for the subscription and $2.50 a minute. That means that virtually no one could afford the service. There won't be many takers at that price.

When we told Bell that we were close to the border, we were told that they could not increase the frequency close to the US border. It's strange, but I when I go to Rock Island, which is on the American border, my cellular telephone works very well. However, it does not work well in the regional municipality of Le Granit, apparently because we are on the American border and we don't want to irritate the Americans with the strength of Bell Mobility. Can you do anything to help the rural community I represent?

[English]

The Chairman: Thank you.

Mr. David Colville: We don't regulate the wireless cellular digital PCS telephone service providers. We've chosen not to do that because there is a considerable degree of competition in that business, and in fact, while there are a number of parts of Canada that don't yet have wireless service, I think it's probably fair to say that the service has expanded to cover a lot more areas than we would have anticipated even a few years ago, both with the original analog cellular and now the digital PCS service.

On the particular issue of the spectrum, I hate to sound as if I'm passing the buck here, but the CRTC doesn't manage the frequency spectrum. That's handled by Industry Canada, and I know there are a few folks here from Industry Canada, so you may want to direct the question to them on that part of it.

But I suppose as technology develops over time—and as I indicated earlier, one of the new companies, MicroCell, is looking at developing the technology to allow digital PCS service to be available in smaller communities by reducing the cost of the cell site that you have to put in—it may well be that as a result of changing technology, digital PCS service will get to more rural and remote areas, but for the time being, I think just the cost of it and rolling out the technology is going to prevent it from getting to some of those areas.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Colville.

We have Claude Drouin, and then a last short question from Yvon.

[Translation]

Mr. Claude Drouin (Beauce, Lib.): I would like to ask three questions of Mr. Colville and the CRTC representatives. I would like you first to tell me about the rule referred to by my colleagues earlier under which municipalities within the same regional community should be able to call each other without long- distance charges. Could you tell us exactly what the rule states, whether it has been in place long, and whether there are any plans to change it in the near future?

Are there any rules governing the installation costs charged to an organization or a business that chooses to operate outside a company telephone network? A seasonal business in my region, the Beauce, which asked the local telephone company to install a commercial line, was asked to pay $18,000, if I remember correctly. Are there any rules in cases where one company has a monopoly and is the only one that can install such a line? If not, I think it would be a good idea to look into this and draft at least one rule to ensure that people can get fair service.

One municipality in my riding, Saint-Jules, has a population of less than 1,000. Nevertheless, these people have a choice of four telephone companies. In one rural area, two neighbours living across the street from each other have to call long distance to speak to each other. Their numbers start with 426, 397, 588 and 744. It makes no sense to have four telephone companies. I think there should be a rule forcing three of the companies to withdraw from the market and ensuring that only one remains to provide telephone service. At the very least, some action must be taken to deal with this ridiculous situation.

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[English]

Mr. David Colville: Again, thank you for the question.

On the issue of toll-free service or what's generally referred to as EAS, or extended area service, typically there are rules in place that vary by the individual telephone company. Those rules can always be subject to change. There's nothing chiselled in stone in terms of those rules. We've had a certain set of rules in place for a while. Largely, we've depended on the companies coming to us to propose EAS links or lines joining particular communities of interest, and if the people in the community feel there's a strong enough community of interest and vote in favour of this, then typically we approve it. If companies wanted to change the rules because they felt that it wasn't adequate to serve the needs of the people in the communities, certainly we'd be prepared to take a look at those.

That somewhat relates to your third question, because the issue, I take it, isn't really so much the number of phone companies that are providing service as it is the anomaly that you run into where somebody has to pay a long-distance charge to call somebody across the street, which is really the fundamental issue of why I should have to pay a long-distance charge. I'm not familiar with a particular case there, but in principle I think I would agree with you that where one can eliminate those kinds of charges where you have that community of interest, we should do so.

On the second point, which is really the question of construction charges, I think for most of the telephone companies, if a new customer goes into an area where there aren't already telephone lines, there generally are tariff provisions that define the parameters around which how much of the cost will be borne by the company and how much of the cost should be borne by the subscriber, whether it's a business or residence. And largely that's to cover if somebody chooses to build a home at the top of the highest mountain in the Rocky Mountains. If they choose to go there, then maybe they should bear some of the cost. That's the extreme case, of course.

Again, I'm not familiar with particular circumstances here and would certainly be prepared to take a look at it. I don't know what the particular provision is and the tariff of that company who would handle those particular construction charges, so I can't really comment on the $18,000, but typically if you're not in an area where there is already a line, the subscriber is expected to pay in many cases some of the cost if it's a particularly remote or rural area.

[Translation]

Mr. Claude Drouin: Fine. I would appreciate it if you could send me a copy of the rules covering the first two situations and if you could speak again about the steps that could be taken to ensure that Saint-Jules, which currently has four telephone companies, gets proper service. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

The Chairman: Thank you.

Mr. David Colville: I'd be happy to get the specifics and we can take a look at that and get back to you.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Colville. Thank you, Claude.

Yvon, a very short question.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Godin: I would like to go back to the issue of CPAC.

[English]

I want to come back to CPAC, because as you were talking about CPAC and small cable television and all of that, when we look at New Brunswick, Fundy Cable is a big one. When they closed CPAC in the Acadian Peninsula, to me there was no reason. We have 60,000 people. And when I made a request to Fundy Cable to put it back in, they did, but they put it on channel 99 and never told anybody. Can we complain to your organization, CRTC, to get some help to bring it back where it should be?

Mr. David Colville: We've wrestled with this issue about cable operators and where they position certain channels. We reviewed all of the regulations we have for cable television undertakings a couple of years ago, and one of the proposals that came before us was that we should in fact order cable operators to put certain services on certain channels. We came away with the conclusion that it would be too intrusive in the day-to-day operations of the business for us, as a regulator, to say you must put TSN on this channel, etc.

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As you may know, recently we rendered two decisions respecting TVA and the APTN, the new aboriginal peoples' television service, and mandated that those two services go on the basic service package of cable television. Even there we didn't mandate which channel they actually go on, we left that discretion up to the cable operators. I think that's a case of friendly persuasion with Bill Stanley and Tony Cassetta who run Fundy Cable Ltd.

Mr. Yvon Godin: As long as I know where to go.

The Chairman: Thank you, Yvon.

Yvon had the last question. First of all, let me say I regret that I was late this morning. I got snowed in; I live out of town. So I thank my vice-chair, Mr. Serré, for taking my place for the first half hour. I would also like to thank, on behalf of the committee, Mr. Colville and his colleagues for helping us get started.

Ben, a short comment.

Mr. Benoît Serré: I think, Mr. Chairman, we haven't had time to even touch all the issues that need to be addressed. I would hope we can have the witnesses back, that the committee will see fit do so, maybe in the next three or four weeks after we hear from the telephone association and the consumer group.

The Chairman: Mr. Serré, a good point. Thank you, Ben.

Again I want to thank you for your attendance. This is a very important issue. I have a large rural riding with issues similar to many of those that were raised this morning. Thank you for that.

Colleagues, we're going to adjourn this meeting, take a one-minute break and convene our business meeting, which is, let me remind you, an in camera meeting.

Mr. Rob Anders: Mr. Chairman, if you go ahead and hold a meeting in camera, it should have to deal with either personal finances or national security, and matters discussing the budget of the Senate or matters discussing boreal forests and the funding for those types of projects and what not has nothing to do with national security or personal finances. There's no reason taxpayers shouldn't know.

The Chairman: What we're going to do is adjourn this meeting. We're going to open the next meeting. I'll ask that you make a motion that the meeting be in public. The rules of the committee are that business meetings are in camera. For that rule to be changed, you or one of the others would have to move a motion to move the meeting in public and then we'll have a vote on it.

Mr. Rob Anders: I'll move the motion now. I don't see any reason why this meeting should have to be in camera with regard to the issue of drawing before us the chair of the Senate committee on internal economy, budgets and administration. When we have matters dealing with personal finances or national security I see potentially a need to go in camera with regard to this. But they feel perfectly free to respond to the press. I think it's only fair that this—-

The Chairman: Let's give our witnesses the chance to leave.

Thank you very much. We're going to have a debate here for a moment. Thank you.

Rob, are you moving the motion?

Mr. Rob Anders: I'm moving a motion that we go ahead and not have this meeting in camera, that it be open to anybody who's here to take part in it.

The Chairman: The ruling of the chair, which is based on the rules of the committee, in effect is being challenged by this motion, which in effect asks that the business meeting be held in public as opposed to in camera. I'll call for a vote on Mr. Anders' motion.

Mr. Roger Gallaway (Sarnia—Lambton, Lib.): Mr. Chairman, I wonder if you could you provide us with a copy of that rule.

The Chairman: I'm in the hands of the clerk. It's been the practice of the committee as long as I've been the chair.

Marlene.

Ms. Marlene Jennings (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, Lib.): I would like to know what are the rules concerning the tabling of motions, the votes, time, notification, whatever.

The Chairman: The motion was properly provided. Now we're jumping ahead—

Ms. Marlene Jennings: I'm not talking about the motion that we're going to be asked to vote on. I'm talking about the motion that was just made right now verbally.

Mr. Rob Anders: Since there's no actual written-down rule that these things have to be held in camera, it's merely a matter of convention, or tradition or what not. The idea that I have to submit a motion 24 hours or 48 hours ahead of time on something like that I think is ridiculous.

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Ms. Marlene Jennings: I was asking what the rules were.

Mr. Rob Anders: He's saying there are no rules.

The Chairman: Marlene, if I may try to quarterback this, I'm not certain that just a motion on a procedure needs a 48-hour notice. I don't think it does.

Ms. Marlene Jennings: But you don't know.

The Chairman: That is true. I wouldn't go to my grave saying I know for sure one way or the other. But it would seem to me that on a matter of procedure of the committee, if we have a proposal to do the business of the committee in a way different from what has been the practice since as long I've been the chair, we can probably deal with that as a committee.

Roger, I cut you off. Are you finished commenting on that?

Mr. Roger Gallaway: I'm not. Committees can establish rules, and in doing so, committees pass motions that would say in this particular committee the rule will be that when certain motions are being discussed it would be in camera, and that would be a written rule adopted by the committee. It may be that in the past your convention has been from time to time to do these in camera but it is not a rule. It has not been adopted by the committee. It's a course of behaviour that in certain people's memory or to the best of their recollection has been the application.

Having said all of that, I think you must have written rules, and committees do adopt written rules that are passed by the committee and that are followed. Now, you're saying it is your convention to go in camera, yet you cannot produce a rule that was adopted at some point by this committee that would in fact back that up. So if you're going to go in camera, just show us where this was adopted by the committee.

The Chairman: Carolyn.

Ms. Carolyn Parrish (Mississauga Centre, Lib.): First of all, I have a great deal of difficulty with the motion itself. I'm a little torn on it and I'm almost leaning toward—

The Chairman: Which motion is this?

Ms. Carolyn Parrish: Motion 50.

Let me get back to the procedure. First of all, I've been on the industry committee, the procedure and House affairs committee, and this committee. In each of those, when there's a business meeting to discuss who's invited in or whatever, it's done by a steering committee. This chairman has been very flexible and he has always held his business meetings including everyone, not just a hand-picked steering committee. So first of all, this chairman has been very flexible.

Secondly, the practice of this committee has always been that decisions on who's coming in or who's invited in or what's on the agenda have always been done in camera.

Thirdly, he's been extremely flexible, allowing many investigations, particularly from that side of the table. I sit here with grey hair thinking to myself, wow, is he ever taking a chance.

So I'm going to support his decision, and I find it offensive that you guys are challenging it. If the question is whether you want to invite Mr. Rompkey in here, you don't need an audience to debate that; if the question is show business, then you want an audience. So I don't think there should be any more discussion. If the chair has made a ruling, I'm going to uphold the chair.

The Chairman: We have a list. Roy.

Mr. Roy Cullen (Etobicoke North, Lib.): Yes, Mr. Chairman, I—-

The Chairman: We're talking to Rob's motion to go in public.

Mr. Roy Cullen: I may be off topic. Maybe I'll have to wait. Previously when matters of the Senate came before the committee there was a question of whether it was outside the scope and mandate of this committee, and I wondered if the chair and the clerk have researched that. I'd like their advice on that at some point.

The Chairman: I've checked that, and it would seem as though the motion before us is in order. Well, it hasn't been moved yet. I understand, Rob, you'll move this motion when we get to that point. When Rob gets to moving it and you ask the question, then it would be in order.

Lorne.

Mr. Lorne Nystrom (Regina—Qu'Appelle, NDP): I've been at many committees going back to 1968, Mr. Chair, and different committees operate in different ways. Often a committee determines its own destiny, and we have the flexibility as a committee to decide to do this either in camera or in public. My fear is that if we do this in camera it looks as if we are trying to hide something. That's the big criticism of the Senate now, that they're not accountable or elected.

The chairman of the internal economy committee has already said he's not going to appear before our committee, that he's not accountable to us. Now, it seems to me that if we do what is being suggested by some, we're going to be playing right into that game of trying to be secretive. So I'd appeal to the committee members, let's just do this in the open. There's nothing special about this kind of debate being in the open. Committees have done that before. We've had motions in the finance committee and other committees.

I see the clerk nodding his head. I didn't hear you nodding your head but I can see you nodding your head.

The Chairman: Thank you.

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Mr. Lorne Nystrom: We have a collective responsibility, and let's not tatter our own image in terms of openness and accountability by doing this in private. It just doesn't look very nice. If we can agree on that, I don't think it's a radical request.

The Chairman: Deborah.

Miss Deborah Grey (Edmonton North, Ref.): Thank you.

Carolyn, you mentioned show business, and what I've seen for show business in the last couple of days is Sharon Carstairs, a Liberal senator, saying we're going to shut this place down. Now, if that's not show business I don't know what is, when she talks about budget increases with a virtual threat to say we're going to shut down the business of the House of Commons. Now, I don't know where you could argue this any better, Mr. Chairman, than government operations. I think that's what this committee is responsible for.

Talking specifically about whether it's going to be in camera or not, the Senate has become a secret society, and I think that's shameful. Under government operations it should be as wide—

The Chairman: Stay on the topic of the motion, please.

Miss Deborah Grey: I am, Mr. Chairman. It should be as wide open as possible. For that reason, I think we should make sure.... Liberals as well as anyone else should be glad to get this out in the public to show that we're discussing it, because what she just did, I think, holds every one of us hostage. It should be wide open.

The Chairman: Jean-Guy.

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien: I have been on a number of committees, Mr. Chairman, including the Environment Committee. Decisions to hold discussions in camera were made by the steering committee. I think this committee often has a mandate to debate motions that have been presented to the public. We have nothing to hide, at least I hope not. It would be difficult to explain to our constituents that the decision we are about to make was discussed in camera.

[English]

The Chairman: Thank you, Jean-Guy.

Finally, Pierre, unless somebody else wants to jump in.

[Translation]

Mr. Pierre de Savoye: I have nothing to say about this motion that I'm not prepared to state publicly.

[English]

There's nothing I wish to say about this motion that I wouldn't say publicly. On the contrary, I think this motion deserves to be debated publicly because the public interest is concerned here. We would go in camera if it was better for the public interest...that our discussion be so open that information to the public could restrain us from expressing our real concerns. This is why we go in camera.

But this is not the case here. Or is it? That's the question.

The Chairman: Actually, believe it or not, this is very simple for the chair. Seeing no other speakers, I'll just take the floor for a moment here.

As has been pointed out, this committee is two committees in one, and rather than be exclusive, the way we have operated is that when we've had to do business meetings and other similar types of business where we've had to put on our steering committee hats, which is all of us anyway, we've done as virtually all other steering committees do. Often those steering committees are smaller groups; they even meet in a member's office. So we've acted as a steering committee like all other steering committees, which means in camera.

It's in the committee's hands to decide if it wants to change its common practice, and that's all. Rob has simply asked the committee to consider that for this day we change our common practice and have it as a public meeting.

I'll ask you to take a vote. It's simple. I'm only following the practice of the committee, and if you want to change that practice, it's in your hands to do so.

Without any further ado, those in favour of Rob Anders' motion, please raise your hands.

Mr. Pierre de Savoye: Which motion are we voting upon?

The Chairman: Who's voting, Lorne or Yvon? We're on Rob's motion, which is to have the business meeting ex camera, in public.

Mr. Rob Anders: I want a recorded vote.

The Chairman: We're having a recorded vote. The clerk will go through that process.

• 1235

(Motion negatived: nays 7; yeas 6)

The Chairman: The motion having been defeated, we will follow our common practice to have our business meeting in camera. We'll take a one-minute break. Members are invited to stay, along with their immediate staff and of course committee staff.

We'll be back to debate the motion of the day in one minute.

[Editor's Note: Proceedings continue in camera]