“Conservatives support this bill because better cell and internet service helps people find work in rural areas. But the government's economic plan is failing. The country lost 50,000 private sector jobs last month, unemployment is rising, and three in ten Canadians cannot afford basic needs. The government ignores these numbers and rejects our plans to create jobs, build homes, and support families.”

“Mr. Speaker, I look forward to sharing a few thoughts on Bill C-268. I do think it is important to begin by discussing the context, in terms of the economic situation of our country. This bill includes an aspiration about opportunities that can be associated with rural connectivity. As members know, we are supportive of that. The broader context, when it comes to opportunity for Canadians, is a challenging one. Yesterday, the government announced its budget. A budget is primarily about the government making the case for the things that it wants to do and the impact that it proposes will result from its policy. It is an exposition of the government’s proposals, ideas and plans. On the other hand, today, we received the jobs report, which is a report card, an assessment based on realities in the real world of what is actually happening in the economy, and gives us a real picture of whether or not the government’s plans are working. The contrast between yesterday’s message and today’s reality is quite striking. Yesterday, the government talked about all the jobs it was going to create. Today, we heard the results. Here they are. More than 50,000 private sector jobs were lost in the last month alone. Those are the realities, not hypotheses about the future. We saw an increase in youth unemployment from 13% to 13.7%, and an increase in the overall unemployment rate from 6.5% to 6.7%. The unemployment rate for 55-plus went up as well. There were increases across different demographics in the unemployment rate, increasing the unemployment rate overall. Underneath that, we see some other data points that I think are important to dwell on. Number one, it is getting harder for unemployed people to find a job. The statistics track job-finding rates. Fewer than one in five unemployed Canadians found a job in the last month. It is getting harder for people who are out of work to find a job. Also, the Statistics Canada report today looked at financial insecurity in households. Three out of 10 Canadians are living in a financially insecure household. That is a household where people are struggling to pay for their basic needs. We have a situation where people are working hard and yet there is an increase in that financial insecurity. Adding to that is the reality that Canadians are working longer hours, which is also in the jobs report. Canadians are less likely to be working at all. If they are working, they are working longer hours and yet they are seeing higher levels of financial insecurity. If they are unemployed, they are having a harder time than ever before of finding jobs. Now, these are the realities in our economy. First of all, we asked about the jobs report in question period, and the government consistently refused to respond or even mention the jobs report. The Liberals want to talk about the budget. We are happy to debate the provisions of the budget, but they do not want to acknowledge the existence of the jobs report, which is the report card, the results of their policies. The jobs report shows the government is failing. The Liberals do not even want to acknowledge or talk about it, and yet we have all of these numbers that demonstrate problems. These numbers demonstrate that it is harder to find a job than ever before, that more Canadians are unemployed than in the past, that it is particularly hard for young people to start out in life and access opportunities, and that those who are working are working longer and are more likely to be dealing with financial insecurity. These are the realities that I think demonstrate that the government’s approach is not as sunny as it would like to pretend it is. Moreover, when we highlight these problems, the Liberals say, “Stop talking things down. We should be optimistic. Why are you saying negative things?” I think it is important that we speak truth and look at realities. A young person who edits their credit card statement before they give it to their parents is not doing themselves or anyone else any good. The goal of looking frankly at these realities is to try to promote concrete action to address them so that we can solve the problems our country is facing. We want to solve these problems. We want to identify problems and then propose constructive solutions to them. The government putting its head in the sand, pretending that problems do not exist and pretending that things are sunnier than they are is not going to lead to solutions to the problems. Let us look at the jobs report. Let us talk about the frank problems it demonstrates in terms of it being harder to find a job, harder to get ahead and harder to make ends meet even for those who are working. Let us talk about those problems and then let us talk about concrete solutions. In the lead-up to the budget, Conservatives proposed detailed, concrete solutions. A year ago, we presented a jobs plan that focused on unleashing the economy, fixing immigration, fixing training and building homes where the jobs are. There were concrete proposals associated with all of those areas of recommendation. We have not seen action from the government on any of our proposals. In fact, in many cases, it has moved in the opposite direction. We also presented five different substantial constructive proposals to support families, like working to integrate work and family life, reforms to parental leave and changes to CPP to ensure that parents are not penalized for being with their kids later on in their retirement years. These are no- or low-cost proposals that would make life substantially better for Canadians, in one case protecting families impacted by the death of a parent. It was a proposal that cost less than a $1 million a year. The Liberals are zero for five on implementing these constructive ideas. One would think they would have seen the constructive proposals coming from the opposition on jobs and families and said, “Let us put some of them in the budget. Maybe it will be harder for the opposition to criticize the budget if we take some of their good ideas and put them in there.” However, it is oh for four on taking ideas from the jobs plan, and oh for five on taking ideas from our proposals to support families. We see today the result of their unwillingness to listen to the constructive ideas that have come forward in the House. The result is a continuing worsening situation when it comes to jobs and financial security for families. When it comes to the issue of jobs and connectivity, which the bill deals with, in rural and remote communities, addressing connectivity gaps can contribute to opportunities for people to have employment. One of the areas we are working on regarding jobs and opportunities in remote areas is to promote the construction of housing where the jobs are. We see high levels of unemployment in certain regions, which often but not always are bigger cities, and then there are labour force needs in other places. We want to support Canadians taking Canadian jobs, and that includes having an ability to take jobs where they are. One of the barriers that can contribute to making it harder for people to relocate for jobs and opportunity is the availability of housing. We have introduced as part of our plan a significant incentive around workforce housing construction, making it easier to build homes where the jobs are and for people to choose to locate near where jobs are. Connectivity is part of that. It is one thing that allows opportunities to grow in remote areas and makes it easier for people to make a choice to locate in a different area in order to get jobs and opportunity. Conservatives have been supportive of the bill. We have been constructive in the process. We have contributed to the work that needs to happen in the area of promoting connectivity, work that I think the government has been way behind on. Sadly, this is existing within an overall picture in which jobs are down and the government is failing. The Liberals want us to ignore their failure and feel sunny and happy about their hopes for the future. We need to look squarely at the realities and challenges and do the work necessary to address these problems. That should include implementing the constructive solutions that we have put forward as part of our jobs plan and our plan for work and family life.”

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“I support this bill. Our wireless rules are outdated, and people in rural areas still cannot even make phone calls in the middle of town.”

“Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for bringing forward this bill. Hearing her speech, I imagine our ridings share some similarities insofar as the rural nature of them. I think this bill would make a difference, and that is why Conservatives supported it at second reading. I intend to also support it today. In fact, I brought up this bill while standing in a community with residents who were asking me why they could not make a phone call right where we were standing in the middle of town. I think this is a step. Again, I was reviewing the budget from yesterday, and I see references to things like increasing spectrum availability and having it at an auction. Now, that sort of promise is positive, although it has no associated timeline with it, which is, of course, worrisome. Going back to when we started developing this spectrum policy, it was the very earliest days of iPhones. Things have changed so immensely in technology and the way we live our lives. Let me outline some differences. I might be driving home today here in Ottawa, and my phone call might drop. It will be annoying for a brief second, but I will hit redial, my call will be answered, and I will pick up where I left off in my conversation, versus when I am driving down—”

“I support this bill. Phone companies say their coverage maps are complete, but rural areas have huge dead zones. People in the country pay the same prices as people in cities, but they get worse service. That puts people in danger when they cannot call for help in an emergency.”

“Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, there is good service in the big cities, and that is the key difference. We can stand in this place and make a phone call, but when I am driving down the highway heading from my home in Portage down to Winkler, I know exactly where the dead spots are. When I am on the phone, I will say, “Okay, I have to let you go. I am going to lose you here.” That is not identified on the map. It is one thing to lose a phone call and have to pick it up a couple of minutes later or 10 kilometres later, which is worse than dropping a phone call in a city. Where it really matters is when someone’s home in a rural area has no coverage. They can buy a booster for a bit of coverage right within their own home. Another example is of someone driving a combine during harvest and, heaven forbid, there is a fire, which does happen. They try to call emergency services, hoping they might be able to get there in time to save their $1-million piece of equipment, but find that they have no service. Someone could have an invader on their property in the middle of the night in a rural area, and they hope to call emergency responders, but they leave their house and have no service. It is one thing to be annoyed in a city when we do not have the ability to make a phone call. It is another thing to have legitimate safety concerns on farms and across rural landscapes across this country. It is unfair. We pay the same prices as anybody else buying their plans from any of these big telecom companies, and we get, at best, half the service. In many locations, people simply more or less live without service. I can think of Elm Creek, Miami or Somerset. Standing in town feels like we are living in a third world country, yet when I pull up the maps, the coverage is perfect.”

“I support this bill, but it is only a small first step. Phone companies claim their coverage is great, but rural areas still have dead zones, dropped calls, and worse service. People pay high bills for bad connections, which hurts our local businesses. This bill forces companies to show real coverage maps, and we should pass it quickly. I also want the Senate to review this every two years instead of five, and the government must do more to actually fix rural service.”

“Mr. Speaker, I will outline them. For one company, it is perfectly green with a couple of spots. For the other one, it is perfectly blue. The coverage is perfect, if I go online. That is not reality. It is not reality for thousands of my constituents. It is not reality for, I assume, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Canadians across this country. Yes, the bill is a positive step. Forcing transparency upon these companies, to show the actual network service they are providing to their very highly paying customers, is the absolute minimum step we can take. I do applaud the member for bringing this forward, but I think it is time to look beyond this. Let us fix this problem. There were efforts by Conservatives on the bill in committee to try to hasten the pace of the review from five years down to two years. I wish it had been adopted, and I hope the Senate might consider such a change to make sure there are updates to this proposal, to make sure these big telecom companies are following the letter of the law, should this plan to implement transparency actually come to light. The other factor, with respect to our rural communities, is that we are thriving for many reasons, in many places, in many ways thanks to the entrepreneurial spirit of our people. We have so many businesses that are driving our rural economy, and more importantly Canada’s, that are reliant on travel between smaller communities, whether in agriculture, manufacturing or anything else. We are yet again at another competitive disadvantage, from the business lens, when they do not have good enough service. I recognize that if this problem were easy to fix, some government would have fixed it by now. We live in a nation where competition is something we have long dreamed of yet have never been able to achieve, frankly, in just about any of our major sectors, and particularly the telecoms, so taking this small step to make transparency emerge with the big actors here would be of value. It is frustrating that when I go close to the border, I lose service from my Canadian provider, yet an American tower will pick me up, and I will join a roaming charge service to be part of a U.S. network. Why on earth would we allow an overlapping signal to come from the United States and allow our big telecoms to not be providing service to our border communities? These are some of our most important communities in terms of trade, and in my case agriculture, that are living with a U.S. signal as their main provider. This country needs to do better. We may not think of this sort of infrastructure as infrastructure, but it is vital infrastructure that is lagging, with tremendous disparity based on where people live. When I go back to the map, just outside of my riding in Oak Bluff, just in the corner, there is good service. In Winnipeg, there is wonderful service. I understand that many people live in our big communities, but to charge the amounts we get charged as Canadian users of these technologies, particularly the ones who are receiving some of the poorest service we could imagine, is outrageous. Anybody who has ever travelled internationally knows there are some countries we might not expect would have unbelievable cell phone coverage, but they do. It is remarkable that people can travel across so many places in this great nation and lose signal so many times. The Liberal government has focused time and time again on fibre and access into homes, and that is important, but in my view, the wireless networks and the shortages and lacks of coverage across so many regions are more important. This is an urgent issue. It is an urgent issue for our business community, for our families and for the safety of the people we are sent here to represent. In the budget, there are nods to this being a problem. There is a section titled “Increasing competition in the telecommunications sector”. That is a great idea, but when I read through some of the offerings of the Liberal government, I see plans to make plans, to make promises to maybe do something. We have suffered with Liberal government inaction on this policy file for 11 years. Not a single person in my riding would say their cell phone connectivity has gotten better. In fact, many of them tell me it has gotten worse. I think of the tower near Carman that was removed, which had everybody in the region wondering, “What happened? I used to get service here. Where did it go?” The consultation process among these companies with the people who live, work and play across our rural landscapes is abysmal. While they simultaneously manage to say that they are enhancing services, what happens on the ground is really all that matters. I would love every map in this country from our big telecom companies to be 100% accurate. I hope that by passing this legislation, we will force upon them the level of transparency required to come closer to achieving that. I recognize that it is difficult and is something that these companies surely do not want to do, but Canadians have a right to know that they are not getting the service they are paying a significant amount for, often $100 or more a month. It is not good enough. I hope we can pass this legislation expeditiously and, more importantly, take steps to solve the true problems of service reaching cellphones across my riding and across this country.”

“I want the House to pass this bill. Rural northern areas like my riding do not have the cell service they were promised. That hurts our economy and makes people unsafe, especially on Highway 16. We need to hold telecom companies accountable for real coverage.”

“Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to get up on behalf of Skeena—Bulkley Valley to talk about Bill C-268, which is long overdue, decades overdue. The last review was done in, I think, 2017. That aside, we are talking about connectivity. We are talking about cellphone coverage. That is what we are really talking about. The north, in my riding, has been underserved for years, with broken promises. We are also talking about safety. I agree with that. I have heard all the speeches, but in one instance, we are talking about Highway 16, which has been referred to as the Highway of Tears, where a lot of aboriginal women go missing. The promise back then was to have 100% connectivity from Prince Rupert to Prince George. We are not even close. We have not even reached 50% of that connectivity promise. This is not just about safety. It is about building Canada strong. In this case, I would urge the government to take a lesson from this side of the House. I know it does not like to, but it really should, because the north, especially regions like my riding, actually drives the economy of Canada, yet it does not get the services it requires to be a full, functioning, healthy economy. Connectivity has a lot to do with that. Look at the Stewart port. It has billions of dollars of potential. The Liberals mention it when they need a photo op, but does it have good connectivity? No. Has it asked for that? Yes. Has it asked for highway upgrades? Yes, it has. The Tahltan first nation was here just yesterday asking about connectivity so they will not have to subscribe to Starlink, a U.S. company, to provide them cell service. They also want infrastructure promises. The government has to get away from getting on the coattails of projects that already have their own momentum and look at different regions that can provide billions of dollars in investment to kick-start our economy after a 10-year period of stagnation. The golden triangle in Tahltan territory needs connectivity and highway infrastructure. In Burns Lake, we need connectivity. We can contribute more than what we already see in the papers in places like Stewart, Tahltan, Burns Lake and even Kitimat, and especially along the Highway of Tears. That was promised decades ago. In this instance, we have to hold these big telecom companies in Canada accountable and make them do as they say and say as they do, not the other way around. This legislation is long overdue. I really urge this House to vote in favour of it going forward.”

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