Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today in my Member’s statement I talked about the need for consumer protection legislation as it pertains to wireless communications. In fact, I used the word “cell shock,” because I think that’s what happens to many people when they open up their cell phone bills. I know I’m part of that 99 percent. As a result, as I said in my Member’s statement, many provinces have adopted legislation to help protect consumers with respect to this type of unaware procedure that may be occurring within the telecommunication industry.
So my question for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs is: Is the department prepared to entertain such legislation in the near future?
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. MACA is interested in ensuring that our consumers are protected from practices such as these, but we want to go about it in a way that we consider the other roles and responsibilities of the regulatory bodies.
My understanding is the CRTC has announced that it will hold some consultations to probe the state of the wireless competition, and then they’ll determine whether they should actively regulate wireless service contracts. Thank you.
Thank you. Yes, I agree, CRTC is obviously one of the national bodies that look after this. However, consumers today don’t have a vehicle and if we have to wait for rulings from large organizations such as CRTC, consumers could be waiting for a long period of time.
Given the fact that this is nothing new, there are many provinces that have already jumped on board, obviously there’s legislation that has been created, there are steps, procedures in place to help protect the public. Again, my question to the Minister: Is this something feasible that the department would consider doing in the very near future?
Thank you. I can commit to the Member that from MACA’s perspective, we’ll do some research and see how much work is required to put this into force, and that’s where the feasible part of it comes in. There’s always going to be a cost to everything, but I will commit to the Member that we’ll do some research as far as the other jurisdictions go and see where we can enact some of that or maybe borrow some of their legislation, but it’s going to be quite a piece of work. Again, we kind of wait on CRTC to see what they come up with before we decide to go the next step. But I will commit to the Member we’ll do our research. Thank you.
I just want to thank the Minister for coming forward today and helping out the consumers. No further questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
