Thank you, Mr. Chair and honourable members.

My name is Doug French. I am the executive vice-president and chief financial officer of Telus. Leading a team of over 1,400 professionals, I oversee the financial operations of Telus. I'm a resident of Whitby, Ontario.

This past November and December, we saw the most aggressive price competition between the four national mobile operators in recent memory. It has continued into 2024.

Looking at Telus, we had some incredible deals during this period, including rate plans of $29 for 30 gigabytes on Public Mobile and 50 gigs for $34 on Koodo, which were up to 97% lower than 2020 at the start of the government's 25% reduction mandate for price per gigabyte. Some of the prices we saw during these holiday periods were so aggressive that they were actually not profitable during the contract period.

Customers are taking advantage of these highly competitive environments, which are enabled by a wide range of choice among all our carriers and the ease with which they can switch providers while keeping their own phone numbers. During the last quarter of 2023, the volume with which customers were switching providers was up 40% year over year.

Like cellphone prices, Internet prices are rapidly declining. Statistics Canada data from January show that consumers paid over 4% less for high-speed Internet services on average from one year earlier. Telecom prices continue to go down even as prices for all other essential services are on the rise.

According to Statistics Canada, between 2021 and 2023, average housing costs went up by more than $1,800 a year, groceries by more than $1,600 a year and electricity costs by more than $150 a year. By comparison, Canadians are paying, on average, $275 less for cellphones and at least $75 less for Internet.

Even as Canadians are paying less for their telecom services, they're getting more. Every year we're offering faster, diverse, more expansive and more reliable services, as well as larger data buckets for the same or lower pricing.

Given high rates of inflation, we're seeing significantly rising costs associated with running, building and protecting our infrastructure, including the impacts of the changes we're seeing in the Canadian climate; the high price of devices, equipment and spectrum; and increasing labour costs. The cost of building networks in Canada is 103% higher than in any other G7 country, based on its unique geography, topography and population dispersion, and including the items I talked about above.

Against this backdrop, Canada still has some of the best networks in the world. According to the OECD, we're second only to South Korea for wireless services and in the top 10 for home Internet.

Our world-leading networks are supported by world-leading investment, creating massive benefits for all Canadians. The industry directly and indirectly provides jobs for over 724,000 Canadians when you look at our investments as they're being talked about today. Connectivity infrastructure accounted for almost 20% of Canada's labour productivity between 2009 and 2019. The telecom industry generated over $76 billion in GDP in 2022, making up over 3% of the national economy.

At the heart of Telus is our social purpose. We are leveraging our technology and compassion to drive social change and enable remarkable human outcomes. We are bridging digital divides by bringing our networks to rural, remote and indigenous communities. We make connectivity accessible to everyone, no matter their social or economic circumstances, through our Connecting for Good programs, which offer heavily discounted home Internet and mobility services for low-income families, seniors, youth transitioning from foster care and new refugees coming to Canada. Not many industries in Canada, or industries anywhere, offer these kinds of discounts under that framework.

Our social purpose drives all the areas of our business, from how we invest to how we innovate to how we put customers first. We're ready to compete to do what's right for Canadians and generate the best outcomes for our customers, our team members, all of our communities across Canada and shareholders.

We know there is more to be done and I look forward to continuing to work together.

Thank you.