INDU committee passes motion to call on Big 3 telecom CEOs to testify

The House of Commons committee on Industry met Wednesday to discuss affordability and accessibility in wireless and internet service. BCE Inc. Rogers Communications Inc. and Telus Corp. sent senior executives to represent them. That wasn’t good enough for the panel. “I appreciate that we have witnesses here and with all due respect to them, they are not the ones that this committee requested appear,” NDP member Don Davies noted. He moved a motion, first introduced Monday by his colleague Brian Masse, that called on Mirko Bibic of Bell, Rogers’ Tony Staffieri and Darren Entwistle of Telus to present themselves to the committee. There was no debate and the motion was carried by consensus, without a recorded vote. During their testimony, the telecoms’ management continually cited Statistics Canada figures showing wireless and internet prices have gone down in Canada in recent years. Robert Malcomson, EVP and chief legal and regulatory officer at Bell, said wireless prices have declined by 41 per cent from 2020 to 2024, at a time when inflation was up 15 per cent. The president of Rogers Wireless, Phil Hartling, averred that prices had decreased 50 per cent over five years. Doug French, EVP and CFO at Telus, looked at the short-term, explaining last winter’s pre-Christmas sales were the most competitive in years. “Some of the prices we saw during these holiday periods were so lucrative they were actually not profitable during the contract period,” he told MPs. Hartling, too, pointed out recent developments as good harbingers for the sector. “In fact, since our merger with Shaw and ’s acquisition of Freedom Mobile, the industry has never been more competitive,” he stated. French quoted Statistics Canada figures which found that housing costs went up $1800 from 2021 to 2023, groceries shot up $1600 and electricity prices jumped $150. For the same period, cell phone prices dropped $275 while home internet costs fell by $75. The executives blamed the public sector for the high cost of telecom services in this country. “Meanwhile payments to government for spectrum in Canada are among the highest in the world,” Malcomson reported. “Most recently Canadian telcos paid the federal government $8.9 billion for the 3.5 spectrum. In Australia, telcos paid one tenth of that amount for comparable spectrum.” He criticized the CRTC for last fall’s ruling on third-party access to internet service. In response BCE has reduced its capex spending by over $1 billion. “If the regulator does not allow reasonable return on investment, Bell cannot justify investing billions of dollars in brand new infrastructure just to subsidize its competitors,” he stated. French agreed with his counterpart at Bell. “The cost of building networks in Canada is 103 per cent higher than any other G7 country based on its unique geography, topography and population dispersions,” the Telus representative said. The hearing was an abbreviated session. Votes in the house delayed the committee’s start by 40 minutes; further votes scheduled resulted in the adjourning of the meeting after 45 minutes. The LIberals and NDP supported the adjournment while the Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois vociferously opposed it, saying the panel could reconvene after the votes. –Reporting by Paul Park at ppark@thewirereport.ca.

INDU committee passes motion to call on Big 3 telecom CEOs to testify

News | February 29, 2024

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INDU committee passes motion to call on Big 3 telecom CEOs to testify

News | February 29, 2024

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