By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – On Friday, March 19, during a break week(!), the members of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology (INDU) of the House of Commons held a meeting at the request of four of its Conservative members to examine the proposed $26-billion acquisition of Shaw Communications by Rogers Communications.
The very busy committee – which has already undertaken studies on competitiveness in Canada, Investment Canada Act, development and support of the Aerospace Industry, front-line grocery store workers, affordable telecom, and domestic manufacturing capacity for a Covid-19 vaccine – agreed the Rogers/Shaw transaction must be looked at because of its impact on consumers, especially in the west. It was also argued that it is the only committee able to conduct such study.
It was suggested by the committee vice-chair, Pierre Poilievre, that because time is tight and he wants to avoid disrupting the already full agenda, meetings on Rogers/Shaw be scheduled during the Easter break weeks between March 29 and April 9.
Despite some pushback from other members of the committee (what we call break weeks are called by them constituency weeks, even though during the pandemic they are not spending much time in Ottawa), there was consensus, sensing the proximity of an election which would push back the study until later in the fall, which could be well after other regulatory decisions would be taken, that the meeting be scheduled for next week and/or the week after.
From an initial proposal of 20 hours, the members finally agreed, in the spirit of collaboration, to have only eight hours of study where witnesses would have a mere three minutes to present their case.
The clerk of the committee was tasked on Friday to schedule the meetings and it was agreed that the minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada not be invited, since he could not say much on the subject in any event. Rogers, Shaw, the Competition Bureau and the CRTC could probably not say much either but…
We will provide an update once the meetings have been scheduled.
