Sure. It starts, of course, with driving at more competition in the wireless sector. I know there were many voices out there that said that it can't work, it won't work, there isn't capacity, and there's no real market demand for this, but of course that's not true.

When you actually look at the hockey stick curve of the voracious increase in consumption of wireless services by Canadians, frankly, and in almost every age cohort, by the way—it's not just a young person thing—you see that there's increasing demand all across the country. We know, of course, as the government, that in those jurisdictions in Canada where there is an aggressive fourth wireless player that is challenging the incumbents, the large, biggest three telecom providers, there's a greater mix of choices of services that are offered in the marketplace, prices are generally down, and there's greater market and consumer satisfaction with the offerings in the marketplace. This is a good thing.

By the way, as a country, we should be very proud of the wireless services that we have in this country: Rogers, Bell, Telus, EastLink, MTS, SAS.... All these firms provide incredible services. When you compare the quality of wireless services that we have in Canada to those in almost any other country in the world, we do extraordinarily well. Where we are challenged is on the question of pricing and making sure it is competitive and that Canadians can afford the quality services that we do have. That's where the government's responsibility is.

When we have an end of analog television, we transition to digital television, the spectrum becomes available, and we put it into the marketplace, as we did with the 700 megahertz auction, or the AWS auction of 2008, or AWS-3 in the new year. When we dispense of the spectrum and put it into the marketplace to meet the market demand for wireless services and for these firms to deliver on the capacity side, we should do so, and try to kill multiple birds with one stone and put in place the opportunity for more competition in the wireless marketplace, which is what we've done.

We now have the spectrum capacity in every single region of the country for there to be four wireless carriers in every single region of the country. There was informed opinion that said this was impossible and never would happen. Well, it actually has happened, and it is being realized, and the spectrum capacity is there.

Now we have firms in every region of the country that are looking to engage the marketplace with the highest quality spectrum ever put in place, so that we will have more choice and more competition in the market. This is a good thing. It's good for consumers. It's good for business, good for education, and good for health services, and ultimately it will lead to a shrinking price point for consumers so they can have access to the best technologies anywhere they live. This is a good news story for Canada.

James Moore

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