Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Erin Knight. Today I'm calling in from New York City, which is the traditional homeland of the Lenape.

Thank you for the chance to speak today on behalf of the OpenMedia community, comprising nearly 300,000 people in Canada. OpenMedia is a non-partisan grassroots organization that works to keep the Internet open, affordable and surveillance-free.

It's my sincerest pleasure to be here today in full support of Bill C-288. OpenMedia was very pleased to see all the parties come together to advance this bill to the committee stage, because—let's be clear—Bill C-288 is not a controversial piece of legislation. We can all agree that it serves to empower everyday people, support their right to high-quality connectivity and protect them from shady business practices by big telecom. Improvements to the status quo will benefit every person in this room and people in Canada writ large.

With that said, I'm happy to share some of the specific reasons that parliamentarians on all sides should be eager to pass this bill.

I will begin by sharing an important statistic: According to a September 2022 survey for Globalive, people in Canada view our telecom sector more negatively than any other industry. It's no wonder. If you talk to the average Canadian, they'll tell you that big telecom is very good at squeezing customers on not only pricing but also the value received for services purchased.

I'm referring, of course, to advertised Internet download speeds versus the actual speeds customers receive on average. Over the years, members of the OpenMedia community have raised concerning discrepancies between the two. In general, the problem goes something like this: ISPs might advertise a certain speed for a particular plan. A customer subscribes to that plan, believing that is the speed they are paying for, only to discover their connection is far slower than that speed during the times they actually need to use it. This is because the service agreement says their plan only goes “up to” the advertised speed, but there are no promises. This information is not plainly shared with customers, but instead hidden in the fine print.

To illustrate this, I will take a moment to share the experience, in their own words, of Angela, a low-income member of the OpenMedia community: “Two and a half years ago, I signed up for Internet 600 with Shaw.... I have never once received the actual Internet speed I was paying for. It has always been artificially capped at around 300 Mbps or sometimes even 200 Mbps.... Trying to upgrade to the newer, faster option...would carry a bigger price tag with no guarantee or even any reason to believe they would actually deliver on the improved service. The prices are always going up and the service is unreliable and falsely advertised. These problems have existed across the board with all the big Internet companies.”

Bill C-288 tackles this issue clearly and concisely. When you sign up for an Internet plan, you deserve to know what you're paying for before you pay. This legislation will make it so. At the end of the day, it's about truth and transparency. If an Internet provider is advertising certain speeds, consumers have the right to know, before they buy, whether those speeds accurately reflect average performance.

There's a fundamental reason that we need this to come in legislative form, rather than relying totally on the regulator. I want to make clear the difference between the new CRTC policy direction and Bill C-288, and how the direction needs to work in tandem with legislation like this if we hope to see any of the protections we're discussing today implemented.

The policy direction tells the CRTC how to interpret cases in front of them in a way that promotes competition, affordability and consumer interest. It's a framework that will only apply to future CRTC regulatory decisions moving forward. The direction can only help the commission interpret what is in front of them. There is no CRTC proceeding explicitly taking place right now that is related to broadband speed advertising, so there is nothing on the topic for the commission to apply the policy direction to. Without the application component, we will not see this issue move forward at the CRTC.

Bill C-288 is that legislative application. The bill directly mandates the CRTC to hold public hearings on this issue. That means the bill would immediately put the broadband speed advertising item in front of the commission, giving the CRTC the opportunity to apply the policy direction framework.

In closing, I'd like to remind us all where Bill C-288 sits in the wider scope of the transformative changes we need to urgently make in telecom in Canada. If I can be frank, this is the lowest-hanging fruit. If we can't do this simple, uncontroversial, pro-consumer move that other countries have already done, I'll be deeply concerned about our ability as a country to make the changes we so desperately need.

Thanks, and I look forward to your questions.

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