THE CHAIRPERSON: Any questions, Mr. Christie?

MR. CHRISTIE: I wonder if there are any other parties or intervenors who want to ask any questions. Normally, I would think they might be in common interest with the Commission.

THE CHAIRPERSON: Do any other parties have any questions? Seeing none, Mr. Christie, please.

MR. CHRISTIE: Thank you.

CROSS-EXAMINATION

MR. CHRISTIE:

Q. You say that you wanted to see it all, so you spent a couple of hours looking at the material on the Zundelsite. Is that what you said?

A. That is what I said.

Q. Did you see it all?

A. I saw a lot.

Q. How much?

A. The amount that filled the two hours that I spent.

Q. Do you know how many documents there are on the Zundelsite?

A. No, I don't.

Q. Who picked them out for you so that you could look at them?

A. The staff person of the committee.

Q. Who was that?

A. Janice Dembo.

Q. Actually, in two hours I doubt very much that you could see 5 per cent of the Zundelsite documents. Would you agree?

A. I don't know.

Q. You have no idea how much of a representative sample you saw then?

A. I saw enough that I believed that it was appropriate for me to sign the Complaint with the allegations in it.

Q. What do you consider a representative sample to be?

A. I didn't say it was a representative sample. I said that I saw enough that convinced me that it was appropriate for me to sign the Complaint. In the Complaint I was swearing as to a belief, and that was satisfied by the time I spent looking at material.

Q. Your Complaint refers to three specific documents, doesn't it?

A. It refers to "several pamphlets including" and then it names three specific documents.

Q. What were the several pamphlets you were referring to?

A. I don't have the names of them.

Q. Do you recall them?

A. The names? No, I don't. I never knew them.

Q. You never knew them?

A. I never knew the names of the pamphlets. I looked at specific comments which, in my opinion, were hateful or likely to incite.

Q. How were they selected for you?

A. I believe we selected them at random. We called up the site and started going through it.

Q. Obviously, if you have acknowledged that Janice Dembo picked them for you, you must be acknowledging that she directed you in some way. Is that accurate or not?

A. She was the person who brought the site up on the computer. As I said, we went to the beginning and selected parts of it along the way.

I think what was significant to me was that I saw a number of statements that supported the allegation in the Complaint that the material discriminated against persons on the grounds of race, religion, national or ethnic origin.

Q. Do you remember my question?

A. Your question was related to the selecting of material.

Q. That is what it was. It was specifically who selected the material. Originally, you said that Janice Dembo did and then I asked you if you made the selection of the passages that you looked at, and I don't know what your answer is to that yet.

A. I answered your question.

Q. What was your answer?

A. My answer was that Janice Dembo brought up the site and that we started at the beginning.

Q. So by what means did you make your selection, just random?

A. That is possible.

Q. You don't recall?

A. I don't recall.

Q. Did you swear your oath of office on the 8th of December, 1994?

A. Whatever the date; I don't know the date.

Q. Do you know the terms of your oath of office?

A. Not offhand. To serve the people of Toronto. Beyond that, I don't know the details of the oath.

Q. Were you aware of the fact that you swore an oath to be impartial, not to exercise any partiality?

A. Now that you remind me of that, yes, I am aware of that.

Q. It also included an unusual word called "malversation." Do you know what that word means?

A. No, I don't.

Q. In your oath it says that you are to exercise impartially, without any malversation or undue execution, in your office. "Malversation", as I understand it, is a word that refers to a variety of things such as corruption, exaction, larceny or concussion, whatever that means. Were you familiar with any of those terms when you swore your oath?

A. I didn't go to the dictionary ‑‑

THE CHAIRPERSON: Are you any more familiar than Mr. Christie is?

THE WITNESS: I took from it overall a belief that I was swearing to uphold my duties in a way that was honest, was fair, was within the law.

MR. CHRISTIE:

Q. Impartial?

A. Impartial.

Q. With regard to impartiality, are you familiar with the principle ‑‑ you are a lawyer, aren't you?

A. I am.

Q. Have you ever heard of the term "audi alteram partem", to hear both sides?

A. Okay.

Q. Are you familiar with that expression?

A. I am.

Q. Did you ever ask for or communicate with Mr. Zundel on any of these issues?

A. No.

Q. Did you ever ask for an explanation from him?

A. No.

Q. Did you ever contact him in any way to give him an opportunity to defend himself against the accusations brought by Mr. Kurz?

A. No.

Q. Did you ever allow him to appear before the Toronto Mayor's Committee on Race Relations?

A. He was never invited to appear.

Q. Did he ask to appear?

A. I believe at one time on another issue he asked to appear.

Q. Was he allowed?

A. It was not an issue on which deputations were heard.

Q. In relation to the position of Mr. Zundel, were you at any time familiar with the judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada on his publication of the booklet, "Did Six Million Really Die:"?

A. Not in any detail.

Q. Were you aware that the majority of the Supreme Court had held that all communications which convey or attempt to convey meaning are protected under section 2(b) unless the physical form for which the communication is made, for example, a violent act, excludes protection and the content of the communication is irrelevant? The purpose of the guarantee is to permit free expression to the end of promoting truth, political or social participation and self-fulfillment. Were you aware of that?

A. Not in any detail.

Q. Were you aware that immediately after the judgment of the Supreme Court in 1992 Karen Mock and Mr. Kurz had a news conference? Are you familiar with Mr. Kurz, Marvin Kurz?

A. Yes, I am.

Q. And he was speaking at that time for B'nai Brith, as he is here today, but he was also joined by Janice Dembo, Co-ordinator of the Toronto Mayor's Committee on Community and Race Relations. Are you familiar with those events?

A. With the press conference?

Q. Yes.

A. No.

Q. Were you aware that the person on whom you relied to make the selection, the person you mentioned as Janice Dembo, was at that time urging the Mayor's Committee, of which at that time you were not the representative, to pass a resolution urging police to investigate and prosecute Mr. Zundel under the Criminal Code anti-hate law? Were you aware of that?

A. Again, not in any detail.

Q. Do you think that Ms Dembo may have had an axe to grind in selecting the portions she wanted you to look at from the Zundelsite?

A. No. From my experience, Ms Dembo does not have an axe to grind. She, like me and many citizens in our community, abhors racism and anti-Semitism. When there is a suggestion or evidence of it, she, like many other citizens, takes action to try to get rid of it or to see that the laws of the country are enforced.

Q. Is it normally your view that it is part of your job to prosecute people?

A. It is not part of my job to prosecute people. I see it as a part of my job to bring to the attention of the appropriate authorities, such as, for example, the Canadian Human Rights Commission, breaches of the law or regulations as I see it. I am not a prosecutor, but citizens often come to the Mayor or to City Council requesting that we bring a whole range of actions to the attention of the authorities.

Q. And it does not trouble you in the least that Ms Dembo, who you had assist you to make your selection, was the same person who even before the Supreme Court had issued its judgment was already demanding prosecution for Mr. Zundel? That does not trouble you at all?

A. No, it doesn't.

Q. And it doesn't trouble you equally that she was seeking the committee to obtain allocations of all necessary resources toward those goals of having Mr. Zundel charged? That doesn't trouble you?

A. I would see that as her doing her job, which was to bring to the committee's attention actions or behaviour in the community that was seen to promote racism or anti-Semitism.

Q. With regard to the Toronto Mayor's Committee, of which you have been Chair, you also, I understand, granted or arranged for moneys to be paid to a group called Anti-Racist Action. Is that correct?

You can't remember that?

A. I am just trying to recall whether it was the Mayor's Committee or Council itself. I know there was a small grant made to a group to assist them in holding a conference that brought together young people in the city to address this issue of anti-racism.

My hesitation was only as to whether it was the Mayor's Committee or Toronto City Council that assisted in that way.

Q. Am I right in understanding that a grant was made by one or the other to a group called Anti-Racist Action?

A. Some resources were certainly ‑‑ and, again, I am not trying to evade it. I know, for example, that assistance in Xeroxing and some other resources were made available. There may have been a small financial grant as well. I just don't recall the details, but there was some assistance given to that group for the holding of a conference.

Q. Perhaps this might refresh your memory. About $8,000 ‑‑ do you remember that, and a long debate that took place before the Council?

A. I don't recall the amount, I am sorry.

Q. Do you remember the debate at all?

A. I remember a debate.

Q. I don't mean "a" debate, I mean "the" debate.

A. A debate on that issue.

Q. Thank you. Were you aware that this organization was not incorporated and had to have its moneys held in trust by another organization from Vancouver?

A. Yes.

Q. Were you aware that the representation that that organization was incorporated was not true and that it was not incorporated? Do you remember that?

A. I don't remember that.

Q. Were you aware that the group known as Anti-Racist Action that received these funds through your committee, on the recommendation of your committee and by approval of that committee, was condemned as a violent and hateful group by a number of school boards?

A. I don't remember that specifically. I do remember that the group was considered to be controversial.

Q. Controversial or was categorized by, for example, the Durham Board of Education as a hate and violence group whose tactics involve physical confrontation and extreme violence that has led to bodily injury and police intervention? Are you not familiar with that?

A. No, I am not.

Q. It doesn't trouble you that that is so?

THE CHAIRPERSON: If it were so. You are putting it to her as a proposition.

MR. CHRISTIE: That's right. I am putting it to her as a fact and asking her if that is so, and I have reason to believe that it is.

Q. Does that not trouble you?

A. Violence always troubles me.

Q. How about the fact that your committee approved and requested a grant of funds for that organization? Does that trouble you?

A. The committee recommended funds for a very specific conference, and the information before us was that that was a positive thing to do.

Q. With the information I have put before you, you would do it again, would you ‑‑ if it is true, as the Chairman says?

A. I would always look at all the information that was available before me before I made a decision.

MS ZAYID: I don't know whether Mr. Christie is going to continue with this line of cross-examination but, if he is going to put propositions to this witness which she does not accept or is not able to confirm, I think Mr. Christie should be asked to undertake to call evidence later if it is relevant at all to this Hearing, which I doubt very much.

MR. CHRISTIE: The issue of good faith, the issue of whether this is a frivolous or vexatious complaint is before the Tribunal. The good faith of the person laying the complaint is open to question, and that is how it is relevant. It is not necessary to undertake to call evidence before asking a question. I only need to have reasonable grounds to believe what I say is true, and I do.

I don't intend to cease and desist in this line of cross-examination.

THE CHAIRPERSON: All I am suggesting to you, Mr. Christie, is that you are not here to give evidence to this Tribunal. Whether you believe it to be true or not is not relevant. You can put the proposition to the witness and, if she can confirm that that proposition represents a state of fact, that is fine. If she does not, then the force of the proposition that you advance to her is lost.

MR. CHRISTIE: Unless its proof is subsequently provided.

THE CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MR. CHRISTIE: I haven't called my case yet.

THE CHAIRPERSON: I understand that.

MR. CHRISTIE: I have a duty to put to various witnesses for the Complainants issues and information that I have. That is all I am trying to do. I agree with you ‑‑

THE CHAIRPERSON: That is not what I am suggesting. Counsel is suggesting that, if you are going to pursue this line with this witness, then you should be prepared to put it in the appropriate evidentiary form, namely, that you put the proposition to her. If she cannot affirm that that proposition is within her knowledge, then I think that is the end of that line.

MR. CHRISTIE: With respect, Mr. Chairman, I can put it to her as a hypothetical and ask to examine the state of her mind in light of that hypothetical because I can later prove that the hypothetical is true, and then that bears upon her state of mind. If good faith is an issue, I have to put to her facts that I have a means to prove and I have to have the means to prove it, which I do, and I have the right to prove it later.

If her state of mind as to the good faith of this complaint is in issue, I have to be able to put to her things that I will later be able to prove in order to examine whether this is a good faith complaint, whether there is mala fides, whether there is unbiased application of some altruistic concern for the public good, as the witness affirms, or whether that is not so.

MS ZAYID: The second point that I was trying to make earlier is that it may be that Mr. Christie is entitled to examine this witness about the good faith of bringing this complaint, but questions about funding to some community group in a totally unrelated matter, in my submission, cannot assist you today in determining the good faith of this complaint. I objected on that ground as well.

THE CHAIRPERSON: I think the Tribunal has made its position clear on how this line should proceed.

Continue, having in mind what the ruling is.

MR. CHRISTIE:

Q. You are aware that Mr. Zundel's house was set fire to; is that right?

A. Yes, I happened to ride by on my bicycle at the time that the firefighters were there.

Q. And your presence there was noted in the newspapers, together with a photograph of yourself pointing to the house; is that right?

A. I recall there was a photograph. I don't know what I was doing in it.

Q. Perhaps to refresh your memory, this is a photograph and article. I think it has you and your husband pointing at the fire. Is that right? Can you see it?

A. I don't have my glasses on. You can show me.

I am certainly pointing at something, and that is my husband.

Q. It says: "Unplanned stop. Mayor Barbara Hall and husband Mac stop at the fire scene." You don't remember where you were at the time?

A. You asked if I was pointing at the fire. I said that my husband and I went by the fire, and I am pointing. From the photo I can't tell exactly what we are pointing at. I am pointing and we are looking at something. We were at the fire.

Q. The same organization, for which this same committee approved the receipt of the funds, I suggest, also distributed a poster on how to soak gasoline and set fire with a Molotov cocktail and gave the location of Mr. Zundel's house. Does that not concern you, or do you take the view that that is not anything to do with your committee or that you are not responsible for that?

THE CHAIRPERSON: There is quite a few questions rolled in there.

MR. CHRISTIE: I will put it to the witness this way.

Q. I am now producing and showing to you a poster which I will later endeavour to show is produced by the Anti-Racist Action group you gave the money to. Do you recognize that poster at all?

A. No, I don't.

Q. Let's say for the sake of argument that I can show that that is a poster from the organization that your committee granted the money to. Does it concern you that that organization would distribute a poster like that?

A. It concerns me that any organization would distribute a poster such as this. The newspaper copy you just gave to me, when I looked at it, I see there is a quote from me there saying that I am disturbed when violence is used in any form, even to fight violence.

Q. I am asking you a specific question for a specific reason. This is not just any violent group. This is a group to which your committee, the same committee that brought this complaint, approved grants of money. I just wondered if you had any specific concerns, not just a general concern about violence and what a terrible thing it is, that your committee which laid this complaint approved money to that organization which distributed that pamphlet. Does that concern you specifically?

A. It would disturb me if this committee or Toronto City Council did anything that promoted or supported violent action.

Q. So you don't take any particular concern because it was a committee that you gave money to, the same committee?

A. I said that I would be concerned if this committee or City Council did anything that promoted violence.

Q. And you don't feel in any way responsible for doing so from the facts that I have put before you. Is that right?

A. At the time that City Council and this committee made decisions, I did not believe that the decision we were making promoted violence.

Q. So you had no knowledge of this group being involved in any of the things that I have suggested they were involved?

A. No.

MR. CHRISTIE: Could that which is in front of the witness be marked as the next exhibit.

MS ZAYID: Mr. Chairman, that exhibit has not been identified and perhaps it should be marked Exhibit "A" for later identification if it can be proven.

THE CHAIRPERSON: You have introduced this document. It cannot be introduced without an appropriate identification by a witness. Are you undertaking to do that?

MR. CHRISTIE: If it is marked "A" for identification, it can be later identified.

THE REGISTRAR: The poster entitled "Bored?" will be marked "A" for identification, to be later identified.

EXHIBIT NO. "A" (for Identification): Poster entitled "Bored?"

MR. KURZ: Could we ask that copies be made for the parties. I certainly have not seen any of these documents.

MR. FREIMAN: If I may, Mr. Chairman, it does raise a concern with regard to the Tribunal's order on disclosure of documents. There has been a number of documents that we have never heard of or seen.

MR. CHRISTIE: Of course, that is true, but that is true for me as well. It seems that the rule doesn't apply. I just got documents this morning, the three things that were introduced. I had never seen them before, and I am not going to make a fuss about it.

MR. EARLE: Mr. Chairman, with respect to that comment, my friend's client has obtained all those documents through a disclosure letter that I sent back in August pursuant to your direction on disclosure.

THE CHAIRPERSON: The Tribunal is prepared to identify it as "A" for identification. We will reserve any ruling with respect to its ultimate fate.

MR. CHRISTIE:

Q. Were you aware that Mr. Kurz was a representative of B'nai Brith?

A. That he was involved with B'nai Brith, yes, I was.

Q. Did he disqualify himself from the vote on the issue of this complaint?

A. I am just looking at the minutes to determine whether he declared a conflict. There is no indication in the minutes of that.

Q. Were you present at the meeting?

A. Yes, I was.

Q. Can you tell us?

A. The meeting was on May 1, 1996, and I have been to thousands of meetings since then. I don't recall by memory who did and did not declare a conflict at that meeting, so I need to depend on the minutes. There is no indication there.

My belief is that Mr. Kurz did not declare a conflict.

Q. With regard to other committees that he served on, he had disqualified himself with regard to any voting for the Toronto Mayor's Race Relations Committee, had he not?

A. I am not familiar with Mr. Kurz' involvement in other committees.

Q. Were you aware that Mr. Kurz attended the ARA conference that the committee funded?

A. No, I wasn't. I am aware that a member or members of the Mayor's Committee attended some or all of the conference, but I am not aware of individual members.

Q. Are you aware that B'nai Brith has a very workable and amiable relationship with the ARA despite their tactics?

A. I am aware that B'nai Brith is involved with many groups in the community who share their mandate around dealing with anti-racism and anti-Semitism, but I don't have specific knowledge about their relationship with any particular group.

Q. Are you aware that Darren Thurston, who was named in an Information to Obtain a Search Warrant in respect of the bombing of such institutions as the Mackenzie Institute and Alta Genetics in Alberta was also attendant at the ARA conference that the City paid for?

A. No, I am not.

Q. Does that concern you in any way?

A. I would need to know more about it before I could say whether I was concerned or not.

Q. Who is Allan Tonks?

A. He is the Chairman of Metropolitan Council.

Q. Were you aware that the League for Human Rights of B'nai Brith wrote to that person and supported the grant of $8,000 for ARA?

A. No, I am not privy to Chairman Tonks' correspondence.

Q. Would you have encouraged or participated in the efforts by Mr. Kurz himself to encourage Metro Council to approve funds for the ARA conference?

A. I am a member of Metro Council. I supported the grant to ARA for their youth conference at Toronto City Council. I don't recall whether nor not I was present at Metro Council when the vote was taken there on funding for that item. If I had been, with the information that was available before me at the Mayor's Committee or at Toronto City Council, I would have supported it there also.

Q. I have a letter from Janice Dembo of March 6, 1996 which says:

"The Toronto Mayor's Committee on Community and Race Relations at its meeting on May 1, 1996 considered the communication from Ajith Aluthwatta on behalf of Anti-Racist Action requesting the committee's support for the Youth Against Hate Conference to be held in Toronto on June 22 and 23, 1996."

Were you aware of those events?

A. Which events?

Q. The May 1, 1996 meeting at which Mr. Aluthwatta appeared requesting support of the committee.

A. I guess that is the same meeting ‑‑ yes.

Q. Were you in attendance then?

A. I was. I chaired that meeting.

Q. Were you aware that Mr. Aluthwatta was shouting "Burn Zundel down" outside his house not long after you were there?

A. No, I am not.

Q. Were you aware that Mr. Aluthwatta, representing himself as ARA, was unincorporated and could not receive the grant?

A. You referred to that earlier. I believe I was aware of that.

It is not unusual for community groups who are not incorporated to have a relationship with another group that is in order to receive funds.

Q. Is it customary to give funds from the City of Toronto to organizations from British Columbia who purport to be incorporated?

A. I am not sure that it is a common practice.

Q. Do you remember the group called CARES? That is an acronym; I don't know if you are familiar with it. Are you familiar with that?

A. No.

Q. I noted in the minutes of May 1, 1996, which we were just given today, that you sent copies ‑‑

MR. EARLE: Mr. Chairman, I am just going to repeat ‑‑

MR. CHRISTIE: I heard what my friend said. If he has an objection ‑‑ I don't agree with his position. If we are going to have an argument about it, maybe we should do that some other time.

THE CHAIRPERSON: I don't know what the objection is yet.

MR. CHRISTIE: Sorry.

MR. EARLE: I am just going to object to my friend's comment that this is a document he received today. His client received the documents a long time ago. In my letter of disclosure in August I listed these documents along with other documents that were provided to Mr. Zundel. I never received any letter from Mr. Christie saying that he had a copy of these minutes, which was his right to do.

MR. CHRISTIE: I disagree with my learned friend's understanding of the facts. I don't agree with him in any way. That is my position.

THE CHAIRPERSON: Are you referring, counsel, to HR-7?

MR. EARLE: Yes, HR-7, the minutes of the meeting of May 1.

THE CHAIRPERSON: I recognize the validity of your objection. However, having in mind that it is a public document, I assume, I am not sure that the Tribunal is prepared to take a rigid position on this. Counsel do know that we ‑‑

MR. EARLE: Mr. Chairman, I would just point out that in the interests of ongoing co-operation between counsel and in carrying out this Hearing in a civilized manner those kinds of comments are not helpful.

MR. CHRISTIE: With all due respect, neither are my learned friend's, because I don't agree with them. If we are going to argue about that, we are not going to get on with the cross-examination.

THE CHAIRPERSON: There are standing orders of this committee concerning productions, and the Tribunal expects those to be complied with. In the meantime, carry on with your cross-examination.

MR. CHRISTIE:

Q. Why was a copy of the document, the May 1 minutes, sent to Seigmund Reisler?

A. Which page is that?

Q. Page 5, May 1, 1996, 3.7.

A. I don't know.

Q. Wasn't that because Seigmund Reisler is the B'nai Brith representative on the Canadian Human Rights Commission?

A. As I have said, I don't know.

Q. Was it to attempt to influence the Canadian Human Rights Commission?

A. I have said I don't know.

Q. Whose decision was it, then, to send to the specific people you have named there ‑‑ actually two, to Max Yalden, the Chief Commissioner, and then a copy to one member of the Commission and then one other member of the Commission, Marvin Witter. Why was that?

A. I don't know.

Q. Who would know? I assume there is a reason for things that are done. I have a pretty good idea what the reason is.

A. I assume there is also, but you are asking me and I am telling you that I don't know the answer.

Q. Who would?

A. I don't know. Maybe the Clerk of the Committee.

Q. Wouldn't the committee decide who they were going to send this correspondence to, make a decision in the course of the minutes, because it is recorded in the minutes?

A. It is. I am answering your question in an honest way. I don't know why the communication was sent to those particular people. For example, my name is on there. I don't know why it was sent to me.

Q. It doesn't even indicate what is being done there, does it? I suppose it says "cc" and then "Seigmund Reisler, Canadian Human Rights Commission; Marvin Witter, Canadian Human Rights Commission; Mayor Barbara Hall; Marvin Kurz; Marianne Chandler; Kevin Lee, May 16, 1996."

Does that imply or mean that you all got copies?

A. That is what it looks like.

Q. Then that was a decision made in the course of the minutes themselves, rather than just some clerk's decision later.

A. No, I think it was ‑‑ my understanding is that what is in brackets is an indication of who received communication of that. This is a public document. The item was dealt with in a public meeting. That is an indication of subsequent to the meeting who received copies of the action of the committee with respect to that.

Q. I understand that. I am suggesting that it was sent to Seigmund Reisler for a reason, the reason being‑‑

A. And I am saying that I don't know what that reason is.

Q. Was Mr. Kurz a representative of B'nai Brith on the Toronto Mayor's Committee?

A. No, he was not there representing B'nai Brith. He was there as a citizen interested in particular issues, who also had an involvement with B'nai Brith.

Q. Did you select him?

A. The committee has a selection process. I was not personally a part of the selection process.

Q. I thought the process you described was that the Mayor proposes the members to the Council who ratify it.

A. That's right.

Q. Well, you proposed him, didn't you?

A. That is right, on the recommendation of a subcommittee of the committee that deals with nominations.

Q. Was that Janice Dembo again?

A. No, it wasn't the staff who did that. It was citizen members of the committee or citizens from the broader community who were appointed to a committee to make recommendations on membership.

Q. Who was that?

A. I don't know who those individuals were at that particular point in time.

Q. In your Complaint you say that one of the several pamphlets you complain about is "Did Six Million Really Die:" I would like to show you that pamphlet.

Have you ever looked at that before?

A. I have never seen it like this.

Q. Do you deny that that is what you saw on the Internet?

A. I don't deny that. I said I had never seen this in this form.

Q. I am not suggesting that you have seen it in the form. I am suggesting that, if you actually did look at whatever is on the Internet under the title of the term "Did Six Million Really Die:" then you looked at those same contents.

Having sworn that you did look at it, are you saying, "That is not correct, Mr. Christie; it's a different book," or what are you saying?

A. No, I am not saying that at all. You handed me something, and I said that I had never seen it before.

THE CHAIRPERSON: Excuse me, Mayor.

She has not had a chance to compare it with the Internet downloaded copy, so I don't think it is fair to put it to the witness in the way you have.

What are you seeking to obtain from this witness with respect to this pamphlet? Do you wish her to do a comparison with the downloaded copy?

MR. CHRISTIE: What I am expecting to get from this witness is not something that I want to say in front of her for the moment.

THE CHAIRPERSON: I was very specific in what I asked you. Carry on.

MR. CHRISTIE: Thank you.

Q. Do you recall anything about the pamphlet you complained about, "Did Six Million Really Die:"?

A. I recall a portion of the web site entitled that.

Q. If you recall a portion of the web site entitled that, I suggest to you that it involved the content that you have in front of you in written form. Did it or didn't it? Have a look.

MR. KURZ: We have before us at tab 1 of Exhibit HR-2 what is alleged to be that actual pamphlet downloaded from the Internet, rather than some other document. I wonder why it is necessary to put the pamphlet to this witness rather than the exhibit that is already before the Tribunal.

THE CHAIRPERSON: We are going to take our morning break, and we will allow the witness an opportunity to examine the exhibit entitled "Did Six Million Really Die:"?

THE WITNESS: Mr. Chairman, while I am doing that, I am not sure what I am meant to be examining it for.

MR. CHRISTIE: At this point ‑‑ and I thought my question was clear: Is it the same document? That's all. If that is not clear, I will ask it in another way.

THE CHAIRPERSON: You are being asked whether the pamphlet appears to you to be the same as the one in the exhibit.

THE WITNESS: So I should compare the two.

THE CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

‑‑- Short Recess at 10:46 a.m.

‑‑- Upon resuming at 11:09 a.m.

MS ZAYID: Before we begin, I think it was raised yesterday that Mayor Hall is only available until noon today. I don't know whether the cross-examination is likely to be finished by then, but we should be aware of that.

THE CHAIRPERSON: Let's see how we make out and we will deal with that issue later.

MR. CHRISTIE: Just for the record, as an example of the process of disclosure, the next witness is, I am told, Ian Angus. In the break I was given a booklet of materials called "The Commission's Brief of Materials for Ian Angus." In it there is some which I received the day before yesterday or maybe yesterday, but there are 27 new pages of complicated graphs, charts, diagrams, explanations of what is the Internet in graphic form. All this material is deposited on me at this moment. If I am to cross-examine this expert, one would have to have the opportunity to have this in advance and discuss with some other expert as to whether there is a possible area of mistake or whether there are areas of question.

Just as an example of what really occurs in the process, I would submit that that is hardly 10 days' notice.

THE CHAIRPERSON: Mr. Christie, I am not going to comment about that at this time. Let's finish this cross and then we will deal with that issue.

MR. CHRISTIE: Very well. Thank you.

Q. Before you made your decision to lay this complaint, you asked to read the materials or some materials from the web site. You said at one point that you wanted to look at it all. Did you consult any experts in history?

A. No.

Q. Did you contact anyone who might have been familiar with the first Zundel trial or the second Zundel trial or the Supreme Court of Canada judgment regarding this very document that you put in your Complaint, "Did Six Million Really Die:"?

A. No.

Q. Have you had an opportunity to compare it with the one that is in the book?

A. I have. There is certainly a lot of similarities between the two. There are pictures in the book that are not in the materials. There is an index in the book; there doesn't appear to be an index in the material. I have not read the entire thing, so I can't say that it is identical. For example, the headings are the same.

Q. Rather than deal with what I gave you, we will try to refer to the text, as Mr. Kurz has advised.

A. This would be tab 1.

Q. I am going to suggest to you that, if you took two hours, you probably couldn't have read this booklet in its entirety.

A. That is correct.

Q. I suggest to you that there are 2,000 documents in the site that is known as the Zundelsite. Are you aware of that?

A. I am not aware of the exact number. I know there are a lot.

Q. Even one of them ‑‑ many of them are books which have hundreds of pages in them.

A. It is pretty dense stuff.

Q. I take it that, having looked at the site for two hours. you wouldn't really have looked at much.

A. I was not looking at it to really review the historical information on it. My concern and the complaint was messages contained within it that, in my belief, exposed people to hatred. What I wanted to look at was enough to satisfy myself that there were such messages contained within it. I guess, in a sense, if I had seen one, that would satisfy me. I saw more.

Clearly, it was an overwhelming amount of material. I saw the index and a number of things that there were, but you are correct that I have not read every word or many of the words contained here.

Q. Obviously, somebody must have pointed you in the direction of these three documents you refer to.

A. I had this Complaint Form in front of me. It was contained in a book of signing things. I said, "I don't want to sign this until I have seen the Net." I was being required to sign something saying that I had read the allegation and that, to the best of my knowledge, it was true. I looked at enough to satisfy me that it was true.

Q. Did you look at the item called "Did Six Million Really Die: Truth at Last - Exposed:"?

A. I looked at it.

Q. What did you find in there that was hateful?

A. I would have to read that entire piece in order to tell you that. When I reviewed the material, I did not necessarily find items in each of the named publications, but I did within the totality of what I looked at see a number of statements that, in my opinion, fostered hate.

Q. Can you direct me to any?

A. Within the overall material as opposed to the "Six Million?"

Q. In the material that is entitled "Did Six Million Really Die: Truth at Last - Exposed:", I wonder if you could direct me to anything that you say there promoted hatred.

A. What I am saying to you is that I would have to read through it in order to do that.

Q. I agree. To do that, I suggest, unless you are a particularly fast reader, it would take more than two hours.

A. I am a fast reader, but you are right; it's a long, dense publication.

Q. Did you take the two hours to read this one?

A. No, I did not read the totality of this.

Q. Were you aware that in the back are the corrections that arose out of the two trials that involved this book and exact quotations from the prosecution historian, Christopher Browning? For example, in Part 8 ‑‑ on the Internet the various components are divided into parts of the booklet. If we go to Part 8, if you go to page 3 of 5, you see, "What's Wrong with Did Six Million Really Die?" It says:

"After 10 years of wrangling, what follows is the essence of what was found wrong with the pamphlet by the prosecution witnesses. In italics are the primary parts of the pamphlet disputed by the prosecution followed by evidence given by expert witnesses on both sides. 1. By 1939, the great majority of German Jews had emigrated, all of them with a sizeable proportion of their assets. Never at any time had the Nazi leadership even contemplated a policy of genocide towards them...Had Hitler cherished any intention of exterminating the Jews, it is inconceivable that he would have allowed more than 800,000 to leave Reich territory with the bulk of their wealth."

Then it says:

"prosecution historian Christopher Browning's ‑‑"

Have you found the spot?

A. No.

Q. You see that it is divided into parts. It starts with "Part 1" at the top.

A. And it is Part...?

Q. Eight. On the Internet you can't put more than a certain number of documents in a part. At Part 8, page 3 of 5 ‑‑ down at the bottom it says "3 of 5" and then the heading "What is Wrong with Six Million Really Die?"

A. Right.

Q. It gives an account of what prosecution historian Christopher Browning's opinion was, that slightly over half ‑‑

A. I see that now.

Q. Were you aware that that was all included in the ‑‑

A. No. You see, the complaint is not related to the historical debate, per se. The complaint is related to the suggestion or the statement within these materials that is found in a number of places that an identifiable group of people, the Jewish people, have conspired for their own benefit, fraudulent benefit, of fund-raising or whatever to deceive or manipulate the world.

Q. Is that in "Did Six Million Really Die:"?

A. I can't point to it there, as I said, in order to say whether it is specifically in that portion of the materials. I would have to read it.

Q. And you were not aware, apparently, that the contradictions to the pamphlet itself are published within the pamphlet derived out of two major trials. You are not aware of that?

A. I am aware ‑‑

Q. I am referring to what is set out in Part 8 at page 3 of 5.

A. Yes.

Q. You weren't aware of that?

A. I was aware that there were some corrections contained within the material.

Q. Were you aware that they were published and did you read the corrections?

A. I don't recall if I did or did not. But, as I said, the complaint, in my mind, was not related to the details of the historical facts. This is not about disputing or objecting to a debate on history. It is about statements made against an identifiable group of people.

Q. Can you show me any statements in that particular publication that allege ‑‑

A. I have answered that question several times. I can't without reading the entire "Did Six Million Really Die:"

Q. I suggest that you really never read it.

A. Well, what I have said to you is that I did not read that entire portion of the site at that time.

Q. What did you read out of that?

A. I can't tell you exactly what I read on that day. I read enough to show me that it was appropriate for me to sign the Complaint.

Q. We will come to that.

Is this your oath of office?

A. It is.

Q. Did you sign it?

A. This is my oath of office as a member of Metro Council, not as Mayor of the City of Toronto. It is my oath as a member of that council, and I signed it on the 8th of December.

Q. 1994?

A. 1994, yes. That is my Metro oath.

Q. Do you have a similar oath as Mayor?

A. Yes, I did sign an oath as Mayor. I can't tell you if it is exactly the same or not.

MR. CHRISTIE: Could that be made an exhibit, please.

Q. With regard to impartiality, I take it that you are aware that you have many ‑‑

THE CHAIRPERSON: Excuse me, we will mark the exhibit.

THE REGISTRAR: The copy of Mayor Hall's oath of office dated 8th of December, 1994 will be filed as Respondent Exhibit R-2. I will provide copies to everyone later today.

MR. CHRISTIE: Thank you. I would have liked to be able to do that, but I didn't have a chance.

EXHIBIT NO. R-2: Copy of Barbara Hall's oath of office as Member of Council of the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto, dated December 8, 1994

MR. CHRISTIE:

Q. I take it that you are aware of the existence in the city of Toronto of German groups as well.

A. That's correct. I, in fact, have worked with a number of German citizens, individuals or groups in the city of Toronto.

Q. Were any of them represented on the Toronto Mayor's Committee on Race Relations?

A. I am not sure if there is anyone of German ancestry on the committee or not.

Q. Did you consult with any German groups about whether it was a fair thing to do to lay this complaint?

A. I did not consult with community groups of any background about this complaint about hate.

Q. I think you acknowledged at least that you were aware that Mr. Kurz, who had initiated with this letter the complaint to the committee ‑‑ you acknowledged that he represented an ethnic group, didn't you, a group of ethnic dimensions, B'nai Brith, or am I wrong in understanding that they are such?

A. I indicated that I knew that Mr. Kurz had some involvement with B'nai Brith. He may well have involvement with a number of other groups as well, as do various members of the committee. He is not on the committee as somebody representing B'nai Brith. No one is on the committee representing any particular group.

Q. Did you read anything entitled "66 Questions and Answers on the Holocaust?"

A. I certainly saw that portion and flipped through it and read parts of it.

Q. What parts did you read? It is actually at tab 2.

A. I can't tell you what portion I read or didn't read on July 18, 1996.

Q. Can you refer me to anything that was promotional of hatred?

A. Questions 21 and 22 are parts of the argument that is more strongly put in other parts of the total web site. Here it suggests that the Holocaust is used in Jewish money-raising campaigns to justify a number of actions. It generalizes about the fact that this is used by an identifiable group of people, an entire group of people, in a particular way.

So it certainly in those two questions alludes to the statements elsewhere on the site that are the ones that I think are hate material.

Q. So it alludes to statements elsewhere on the site that you think are hate material?

A. That's right.

Q. This one, then, is not expressive of hatred at all, is it? Questions 21 and 22, are you saying they express hatred?

A. I think that sentiment is included in those answers. But would I have signed a Complaint based only on 21 and 22? No.

Q. You said that sentiment is included in those answers. What sentiment?

A. That a particular community of people, the Jewish people, are giving misinformation, spreading misinformation about the Holocaust, deceiving people, manipulating people to believe that the Holocaust occurred in order to raise money or do other things, get funding from government, get support from government.

Q. You find all that in those two questions and answers, do you?

A. No. You asked me what sentiment I was talking about, and I told you. I said that I believe that inherent in this is that. But, as I said, it is more clearly stated in other parts of the material.

Q. We will try to get to that, but I want to deal with these two that you have identified.

Do you think it is true that the Holocaust helps protect Jews as a group from criticism?

A. I don't know that.

Q. Are you familiar with public affairs, current affairs, at all ‑‑ for example, Middle Eastern affairs?

A. I read the newspaper.

Q. You are involved in politics somewhat.

A. Somewhat.

Q. Would you agree with me that, if it wasn't for the Holocaust, a lot of sympathy for Israel might diminish in view of what has happened to Palestinians, for instance?

A. I don't know that that is the case.

Q. Have you ever thought about it?

A. About that?

Q. Yes.

A. No.

Q. Does the Holocaust provide an emotional bond between Jews and their leaders?

A. I think it is impossible to say that anything applies to all members of a particular group or a particular community.

Q. So it is impossible to say that anything applies to all members of a particular group or community. Is that your position?

A. That is.

Q. So you are saying that it is impossible to say, for instance, that the apostles create a common bond between all Catholics, at least nominally. Surely people are bound together by common beliefs in groups, all of them, if they are members? Many are. Do you agree with that?

I could give you lots of other examples, but I suggest that that is one. Very clearly, people are bound together by common emotional bonds, aren't they?

A. People are often bound together by common bonds, but I think that it is impossible to say that all people within a particular group are bound together by a particular thing. You have used the example of the Apostles Creed in a particular faith. I don't know that all people in that faith are bound together by that.

Q. So it is impossible, is it?

A. Yes.

Q. Because you don't know it, that makes it impossible?

A. I think it is more than that I don't know it.

Q. So you are stating an absolute there, that all members of a group cannot be bound together by a common emotional bond and that it is wrong to say that. Is that your position?

A. I am saying that one cannot assume that all members of a particular group are bound together by something. If we look at other parts of the material ‑‑

Q. I would like to look at this part for a moment.

A. But you are talking about something in a hypothetical way, and my way of answering that is to refer to other things within the materials. There is nothing here about the Apostles Creed and the Catholic faith. If you can refer to that in asking the question or putting the hypothetical to me, then surely I can refer to other materials here in answer.

Q. In answer to a question, yes. Do you know what the question was? Can we get back to that?

THE CHAIRPERSON: Perhaps we have all forgotten. The specific question is whether the Holocaust is something that binds people of the Jewish faith together.

MR. CHRISTIE:

Q. I just suggested that that is true and that there is nothing wrong with that.

THE CHAIRPERSON: If you care to make a comment on that, Mayor Hall, please do.

THE WITNESS: It may bind people together.

MR. CHRISTIE:

Q. I would like to ask you another question. It says:

"It is a powerful tool in Jewish money-raising campaigns, and is used to justify US aid to Israel."

Are you familiar with any Jewish fund-raising campaigns? The United Jewish Appeal, are you familiar with it?

A. I am familiar with it.

Q. Do you contribute?

A. No.

Q. Simon Weisenthal Center ‑‑ are you familiar with their newsletters?

A. No.

Q. How can you say that it is not true, that they don't use the Holocaust to raise money, frequently suggesting the dangers of Neo-Nazis, the recurrence of the Holocaust and the need to donate to their cause in order to prevent this terrible calamity? I suggest that that is what happens. Are you unfamiliar with that?

A. I don't dispute the fact that there may be groups who use the Holocaust as an example to assist in raising money. My concern is that what this does is lump together all Jewish groups in that way.

Q. So it may be true that it is a powerful tool used in Jewish fund-raising campaigns. It may be true. Is that right?

A. In some.

Q. I see. It doesn't say "all." It could mean some; it could mean all, but it says Jewish fund-raising campaigns.

A. What I said earlier was that what I believe is inherent in this is not as clear as it is in other parts.

Q. I appreciate that you want to go to other parts, but I would like to deal with this. I asked you to specify something so that we can deal with something concrete, and I want to then analyze it. Obviously, it may not be as easy to answer as dealing with other issues, but please assist me by answering these questions.

First of all, do we agree that the Holocaust may be used as a powerful tool in Jewish money-raising campaigns? Do we agree on that?

A. By some.

Q. If "some" is added, then it may be true.

A. It may be true in some, yes.

Q. "‑‑ and is used to justify US aid to Israel." Are you familiar with or are you aware of what arguments are made to justify U.S. aid to Israel?

A. I am not intimately familiar with the rationale of U.S. foreign aid.

Q. Not being familiar with it, you couldn't take issue with that statement. It may very well be true that the Holocaust is perhaps used to justify U.S. aid to Israel. Maybe you would add "in part." There may be other explanations.

How would you criticize that if you are saying that this is an area that is productive of hate? I asked you to specify, and you did; you pointed to this. Can you not agree with me that it may be true, at least to say in part, that it is used to justify U.S. aid to Israel?

A. I can't say that it is used at all to justify U.S. aid to Israel.

Q. You can't say it is and you can't say it isn't, can you, because you apparently don't know?

A. I can't say it is.

Q. Pardon? I didn't hear you. You can't say what?

A. I can't say that it is.

Q. Can you say that it isn't?

A. No.

Q. Thank you. Then it says "How does it benefit the State of Israel?" It says:

"It justifies the billions of dollars in 'reparations' Germany has paid to Israel and many individual 'survivors'."

Are you aware that Germany has made reparations to Israel directly as state transfers?

A. Vaguely.

Q. Do you know of any other reason why Germany would support Israel than the Holocaust?

A. I am not familiar with the details of Germany-Israeli relations.

Q. As a citizen, can you name any other reason, logical or imaginary, or any reason at all why Germany would pay reparations to Israel except for the Holocaust?

A. I don't think it is appropriate for me to speculate on that. I said I am not familiar with the details of German-Israeli relations.

Q. It may be true then that billions of dollars in reparations by Germany are paid to Israel and individual survivors. That may be true. Is that your position?

A. My position is that I am not familiar with the details of their relationship.

Q. Then how can you say that it is wrong to say what that says?

A. I didn't say that. I said that the sentiments contained in the answers to Questions 21 and 22 suggest ‑‑ and it is set out in more detail in other parts of the material ‑‑ that the Jewish people are using the Holocaust to manipulate or in a fraudulent way, and I view that as hateful.

Q. When we deal with the facts, what it says here may be true, though; isn't that so? Fraud requires falseness, doesn't it?

A. When we get to the other parts, it will be clearer.

Q. Let's deal with this, because I want to know what is clear about this. It was clear once, I thought.

What is there about those statements that is fraudulent, false, in the answers?

MR. FREIMAN: I am sorry, I don't think that is what the witness said.

MR. CHRISTIE: I said: What in these statements, in the answers, is false? If my friend didn't hear me, I understand.

Q. Did the witness hear me?

A. For example, in No. 21 it says that it helped protect Jews as a group from criticism.

Q. Yes. Is that false?

A. I believe that is wrong.

Q. Is it false?

A. I believe it is false.

Q. Is that your opinion or is that a statement of fact?

A. That is my opinion.

Q. And it is their opinion that it is true, so we have a difference of opinion.

A. They have an opinion and I have an opinion.

Q. Why should theirs be illegal or subject to complaints and inquiries like this?

A. As I have said ‑‑ and it will be clearer in other parts ‑‑ I believe that that sentiment, as it is expanded in other parts of the site, in fact, is hateful and, therefore, in my opinion, contrary to the law of this country.

Q. As it is expressed there, though, you wouldn't call that contrary to the law of this country, would you?

A. As I have said to you, I would not have signed the Complaint based on the answers in 21 and 22.

Q. Earlier, though, I thought that was what you pointed to in this document as a reason why you included it as one of those named in your Complaint, because of Questions 21 and 22. Did I not hear you right? I thought that is what we had established, that that is why you put it in your Complaint.

A. I never said that.

Q. Why did you put "66 Questions and Answers" in your Complaint, then?

A. It is listed, as are a couple of other items, as part of the documents on the site that constitute hate. That, when taken alone, may not constitute hate, but when taken in the context of other things in support of the positions taken elsewhere.

This could have been left out. It is a part of what is on the site.

Q. But it wasn't. It was named by you. I want to know ‑‑ when you told us to look at 21 and 22, I thought you were telling us one thing. What were you telling us? That it expressed a sentiment which when expanded elsewhere promotes hate? Is that what it was?

I am trying to understand and, I am sorry, I don't understand.

A. I am sorry you don't understand.

Q. What is false about the answer to Question 22? What is false about that?

A. Taken in the context of the overall document, what it says to me is that ‑‑

Q. I am sorry, I didn't ask you what it says to you. I just asked you what is false.

A. What it says to me is that it is part of an argument that the Holocaust is being used to manipulate; that it is being used by an identifiable group of people to manipulate government and public sentiment.

Q. Now you have told me what it says to you. Would you please answer my question: What about it is false? Let's get to the point here.

A. I believe that it is false, that it is used to dictate the things set out in that item.

Q. You believe. Do you know?

A. I believe.

Q. What do you really know about this subject, about the existence or otherwise ‑‑

A. Based on what I know ‑‑ and I have acknowledged that I am not an expert ‑‑ I believe those things, and that is why I laid a complaint. I am not the prosecutor; I am not the finder of fact. I have made a complaint to a tribunal setting out that I believe a particular set of documents, when taken together, on the Internet constitute hate.

Q. Do you have any knowledge of the existence or otherwise of the Zionist/Israeli lobby in the United States?

A. No detailed knowledge.

Q. Is there such a thing, generally, without detail?

A. I suspect that there is probably a lobby in the United States around policy in relation to Israel.

Q. Is there a pro-Israel foreign policy in the United States?

A. I really ‑‑ as I have said, I am not an expert on that.

Q. The bottom line is that you really have no direct knowledge or personal knowledge of the truth or falsity of any of those statements. Isn't that right?

A. As I said, I don't believe that the statements contained in that are true.

Q. Do you have any direct knowledge, personal knowledge, of whether those statements are true or false?

A. As I have said, my information on those items is general. Based on that, I don't believe that those statements are true.

Q. Where is this general knowledge? Where did it come from?

A. Reading newspapers, watching the news.

Q. You don't have any knowledge of the existence of a Zionist or Israeli lobby in the United States?

A. No. I just said that I suspect that there is likely a lobby in the United States related to policy on Israel. There is probably a lobby on just about anything that the American government deals with.

Q. Is it true to say that billions of dollars per year are paid to the State of Israel from the United States or is it not?

A. Certainly money is paid. I don't know the details of how much. Probably billions.

Q. Do you know how many people there are in Israel?

A. I don't know the population.

Q. You don't know the population?

A. No.

Q. Would you agree with me that it is under 3 million?

A. I don't know the population.

Q. So it doesn't strike you as unusual that probably billions of dollars are paid to a small state with a population of under 3 million?

A. I have no ‑‑ I don't know that.

Q. Well, what do you know about it?

THE CHAIRPERSON: What do you know about what?

THE WITNESS: I believe that the ‑‑

MR. CHRISTIE: The size of the State of Israel, the amount of money paid to Israel by the United States ‑‑ any of the questions I have asked if she has any knowledge.

THE CHAIRPERSON: I think she has made it clear that she doesn't have any specific knowledge about the amount of money that is paid to Israel ‑‑

MR. CHRISTIE: She said "probably billions."

THE CHAIRPERSON: ‑‑ by the United States of America or what the precise population is.

MR. CHRISTIE: She said "probably billions."

THE WITNESS: But I preceded that by saying that I didn't know, and then I said "probably."

MR. CHRISTIE:

Q. Which is it? I am not sure whether you do know the probability or you don't know. I am suggesting that most people know that, and I think you do, too.

A. No, I don't know the exact amounts that are paid. If you told me it was billions, that would not surprise me. That's the "probably." I don't know what the exact amount is.

Q. Can you point to a single statement of fact in the answer to Question 22 that you can say is factually false from any knowledge whatsoever?

A. I believe that the fact of the Holocaust being used to dictate a particular foreign policy is incorrect.

Q. And what is the basis of that knowledge?

A. Well, I have told you already what the basis of my knowledge on this is, from following in the newspaper, on television, general reading, radio news coverage.

Q. So it is incorrect to say that the Holocaust is used to dictate a specific American foreign policy.

A. That is what I said I believe to be incorrect.

Q. It doesn't say "a specific American foreign policy;" it says "a pro-Israel American foreign policy." Is that incorrect, too? That is not a specific foreign policy.

A. I don't believe that is correct.

Q. The final item that you refer to in your Complaint is an article entitled "Jewish Soap," which is at tab 3.

MS ZAYID: I am sorry to interrupt Mr. Christie, but we have reached the noon hour, Mr. Chairman.

THE CHAIRPERSON: I know we were put on notice of this, and we understand why the witness cannot continue.

MR. EARLE: Mr. Chairman, it is my understanding that the Mayor has a speaking engagement which actually commences at 12 noon. She has stayed here as long as she could in order to get as much of this under her belt as possible.

MR. CHRISTIE: I don't mind interrupting my cross-examination. I am not finished, and we will be here on Monday, I guess, if that is suitable.

THE CHAIRPERSON: Can you come back on Monday morning, Mayor?

THE WITNESS: Yes, I can. I apologize for having to leave. I am speaking at a luncheon.

THE CHAIRPERSON: You are excused until Monday morning.

THE WITNESS: Thank you.

MR. CHRISTIE:

Q. Are you an electrical engineer?

A. No, I am not.

Q. An electronics engineer?

A. No.

Q. How do you become an associate member of the Electrical and Electronic Engineers Association without being either an electrical or electronics engineer?

A. The definition of an associate member is someone who is not an engineer, but who joins the association in order to participate in its educational programs, to learn from it and to contribute to it.

Q. How do you earn your living? Do you do it by making speeches or writing articles? How do you make your living?

A. I earn my living by giving speeches, writing articles and consulting.

Q. Which is the largest part of your income, giving speeches, writing articles or consulting?

A. At present, probably the majority of it comes from writing. That is because one of my positions is as editor of a magazine which keeps me fairly busy.

Q. What magazine?

A. Telemanagement.

Q. Your expertise, if any, seems to be in the area of telephones more than anything else. Is that fair?

A. I don't think it is, no.

Q. What is it in the area of?

A. Telecommunications includes data communications; it includes video conferencing and certainly includes Internet operations. I have worked with a great number of things.

I would say that it is certainly true that I began in this industry working primarily with voice communications, 25 years ago.

Q. Precisely what is it that you have written articles on when you said ‑‑ and I took down a note of what you said ‑‑ you have written hundreds of articles on the subject. On what subject?

A. On the subject of telecommunications in general and business telecommunications more specifically.

Q. Telecommunications, what do you mean by that?

A. I would define "telecommunications" as communication at a distance.

Q. Communication at a distance is telecommunications. That is the way you define it?

A. Yes.

Q. And you are an expert in that, are you?

A. I believe so.

Q. How do you become an expert in that?

A. Well, I spent 25 years working with it.

Q. What is "it?" Obviously, communication at a distance could mean a large variety of things.

A. Working with organizations, businesses, governments, non-profit organizations who wish to use telecommunications products and services to advance their own organizational goals and working with companies that sell or provide services which can be described as telecommunications services ‑‑ for example, telephone companies, Internet providers and so on.

Q. Do you have any particular special training in the technical aspects of provision of telecommunications services?

A. I do not have academic qualifications, no.

Q. Any special training at all?

A. Certainly throughout my entire career I have attended ‑‑ Bell Canada sent me on and put me through many courses on the subject. I have also continued ‑‑

Q. On what subject?

A. On the whole subject of telecommunications. In addition, since I formed my own company, I make it a particular point of attending seminars and conferences on telecommunications. I am also very active in the programs which are run by major telecommunications suppliers whose purpose is to educate consultants in the products and services that are available today, how they work, exactly what the technologies are, and so on.

Q. So what technical skill or training do you possess in this area derived from those conferences?

A. I have a very, I think, thorough understanding of what telecommunications services exist and are available, how they work, what they are capable of doing, how they can be used effectively, what the regulations and rules are governing their use in Canada in particular.

Q. What special training, skill or experience do you have in how they work?

A. I can only repeat what I said before. I have attended any number of courses and seminars. I read very widely in the area.

I suppose I could add to that, as a practical matter, working with hundreds of clients of our firm over the past 17 years and a great deal of practical hands-on experience in how that equipment works, how it can be used, what it connects to, how it connects, and so on.

Q. You claim to know a great deal about the Internet.

A. Yes.

Q. Where did you acquire this special skill or knowledge?

A. Again, I have been using the Internet since the late 1980s.

Q. In what capacity?

A. Initially as an ordinary user. I needed to be able to use electronic mail, so I signed on to the Internet. I then ‑‑

Q. When did you do that?

A. In about 1989 I think; it might have been 1988.

Q. In 1989 you became an Internet user?

A. Yes. I was already familiar with the Internet as a concept, with the general technology behind it, but at that point I began to get hands-on experience, actually using it.

Q. And that is when you got an e-mail account?

A. That is when I got an Internet e-mail account. I had electronic mail from other services prior to that.

Q. When did you set up your web page?

A. To start with, we set up our Internet server, which is the equipment and software that allows us to connect our office to the Internet and provide services to ourselves and others. Late 1994 was when we started the project, and we completed it early in 1995.

We then spent some months working with the technology, making sure we were thoroughly familiar with how it worked, what it was capable of, and so on. We opened our web page to access for people other than inside our organization in June of 1995.

Q. So your web page was accessible to the public in June of 1995.

A. Yes.

Q. In your experience, in 1994 you were then creating your web page and becoming an Internet service provider to yourselves.

A. Yes. That is a way it could be explained, yes.

Q. Had you been a member of any Internet service provider organization prior to that time?

A. No.

Q. Are you now?

A. No.

Q. Are you aware of the fact that Internet service providers have regular conferences that deal with the provisions of services to Internet consumers?

A. In fact, I have spoken at some of those conferences. However, Internet service providers are in the business of selling Internet service to other people, and for me to be a member of such an organization or to be in such an organization would disqualify me from being a member of all the consulting organizations I am a member of.

Q. Why?

A. Because they do not allow us to sell services of that type. Our function is to provide advice and information on an independent basis.

Q. Who does not allow you to sell?

A. The Canadian Telecommunications Consultants Association, for example, defines a "consultant" as somebody who does not sell Internet service or telecommunications service or products.

Q. But you could be a member of an association without being a vendor of services, like you are a member of the Electronic and Electrical Engineers Association, couldn't you?

A. It may be possible. I have not explored the possibility.

Q. Internet service providers are those people who deal with on a day-to-day basis the provision of service to Internet consumers, are they not?

A. Yes.

Q. And they are the ones who, if ever, would have to regulate the access to the Internet for Canadian Internet consumers. Is that a fair statement?

A. They are certainly the ones whose equipment most consumers would go through to connect to the Internet, yes.

Q. How often have you consulted with them in respect of your expertise?

A. I have worked with ‑‑ I discussed previously the fact that I worked with a group of Internet providers and Bell Canada to mediate and resolve a dispute about how they connect to services. That was specifically related to the lines and circuits which Internet providers use to let their customers connect to their services.

Q. When was that?

A. That was in the fall of ‑‑ again, I have to get my dates right. In the late fall of 1995, September through December, and it went on early into the year 1996.

I have also consulted to various Internet service providers who are interested in questions related to what technology is available to them, what options are available to them and how they might use their service or compete with others, and to companies that provide services to Internet service providers.

Q. Have you done any study or do you have any special training or skill in the methods by which Internet communication is possible?

A. In order to do the project I specifically described, I had to spend quite a lot of time making sure I understand how Internet connections take place, how the links are made, how the networks work, yes.

Q. What did you study in order to acquire this skill?

A. I spent a great deal of time actually talking to Internet service providers. In addition, I subscribe to virtually ‑‑ I am going to say virtually, but I think it is "every," but there might be one I haven't seen ‑‑ every publication about the Internet that has come out in the past four or five years. We started this well before we launched our own site.

I read extensively in the professional literature. I also spend quite a bit of time simply working directly on the Internet and the World Wide Web, researching the information that is available there.

Q. Are you aware of what effective changes have occurred in the Internet since the fall of 1995 in the method of provision of services?

A. I certainly am. In fact, I have written about it in Telemanagement and other places.

Q. You have testified once before as an expert witness in 1987.

A. Yes.

Q. Did that have anything to do with the Internet?

A. No, it did not.

Q. That was in regard to Newfoundland Public Utilities Board Hearings on terminal attachment.

A. Yes.

Q. Did it have anything to do with computers?

A. Not directly, no.

Q. Do you have any special training, skill or ability in respect of computers?

A. I took my first course in computer programming when I was in high school in 1962. I worked with computers at Procter & Gamble, which was a job I took for two years shortly after I left high school. When I went back to university, I used computers extensively for historical research in my Master's degree.

At Bell Canada I worked with computers a great deal as part of the job, including being responsible for doing a great deal of the research that Bell Canada's Marketing Department did on their own customer base, who was using what.

In 1980 I acquired the first computer I owned myself. I learned how to program it. I have been working with a computer on my desk entirely since that time. I own personally perhaps five computers. I have a home that is completely wired with computers. I think I can say I am fairly knowledgeable about computers.

Q. Are you familiar with the fact that universities have faculties of engineering and computer science?

A. Yes, I am.

Q. Are you a graduate of any university in engineering or computer science?

A. No, I am not.

Q. Have you ever taken a course at university in engineering or computer science?

A. No, I have not.

Q. When you mentioned that you have written articles for Business Communications Review, what article was it that you wrote for Business Communications Review?

A. The article that comes to mind in particular was one I wrote about 10 years ago, in which they asked me if I would write an article to help explain to businesses how they would go about hiring a telecommunications consultant.

Q. Have you written a subsequent article for Business Communications Review?

A. I don't believe I have written a major article for them. They have published some small paragraph-sized items from me, but nothing significant.

Q. Anything attributed to you in the last 10 years?

A. Yes, my name would have been associated with the items.

Q. In what way, in letters to the editor?

A. No, they don't publish letters to the editor, to my knowledge.

Q. So what articles have you contributed that have been published in Business Communications Review in the last 10 years?

A. I have named one. I would have to check my files. I write a great deal. I don't recall any significant articles. If I wrote for them, it would have been small paragraph items, something that happened in Canada that people would want to know about, for example.

Q. So the only one you can recall is how to hire a communications consultant?

A. For that specific publication, yes.

Q. And that, of course, didn't involve anything to do with the Internet, did it?

A. No, it didn't.

Q. The other major magazine you wrote for was Computing Canada. Is that right?

A. Most of these publications have substantial circulations. I simply cited two that were, I thought, well-known examples of prominent publications.

Yes, I have written for Computing Canada on a number of subjects, including the relationship between voice and data and communication networks.

Q. When did you write an article last for Computing Canada?

A. I am afraid I can't remember the exact time. It was certainly within the last five years.

Q. How many articles have you written in the last five years?

A. For Computing Canada or in general?

Q. For Computing Canada.

A. One or two.

Q. Do you remember the titles of them?

A. No, I am sorry, I don't.

Q. Can you tell us that either one of them was related to the Internet?

A. Either one of them might have mentioned the Internet, but the major topic was certainly not the Internet.

Q. What would the major topic have been?

A. As I said, the articles that I have written for Computing Canada have primarily related to voice and data communications, how they are used in business, or how they relate technically.

Q. Voice and data communications by what means?

A. By many means. I have written about voice and data communications through the telephone network, through local area networks within buildings, through private branch exchanges which are what people would commonly call business telephone systems.

Q. This is all related, basically, either to telephones, local building telecommunications systems inside a building is what you mean, is it?

A. When I said "local area networks," that is what I was referring to, yes.

Q. That is like internal to a building, like an intercom system.

A. No, a local area network is a high-speed data communications network which typically links computers together within a building and then links them jointly to the outside world to communicate with other sites.

Q. In that regard, are you suggesting that there is some relationship to those methods of communication and the Internet?

A. For example, in my own office we have a local area network that uses a technology called Ethernet. That is how all the people within my office connect to the Internet. Their computers connect to the Ethernet. It, in turn, connects to the wider world.

Q. What is Ethernet?

A. Ethernet is a high-speed communications network designed for use within buildings, to connect computers together.

Q. How does it connect them?

A. My computer on my desk has a circuit board plugged into it that is called an Ethernet card. That card takes information from my computer and organizes it in a fashion that the Ethernet network understands and puts it onto a cable. In our case it is actually just ordinary twisted copper wire, pretty much like phone wire. Those go through the walls and back to a central computer, which is called a server, which in turn has Ethernet cards in it.

Each of the computers can talk through that server to each other, to printers or, in our case, to fax machines, to the Internet, and so on.

Q. Are you able, through any special skill, training or ability to tell us how the telecommunications network is accomplished through the flow of electrical impulses?

A. Yes, I am.

Q. What did you do to acquire any special skill, training or ability in regard to the electrical communication of messages?

A. The entire 25 years of my career in telecommunications has been devoted to that. The question of moving it electrically and electronically is fundamental to telecommunications.

Q. Wouldn't an electrical engineer or an electronics engineer know this, in a sense, better than you?

A. An electrical or electronics engineer, depending on his training, might know many of the things I know. Typically, they tend to specialize in fairly narrow technical areas. I think I have a pretty fair overview of the subject because it involves dealing with multiple areas, not just how does one card work or one type of circuit work.

Certainly, engineers call me for advice on these things.

Q. Do you ever call engineers?

A. Yes, I do.

Q. Obviously, it is true that people in different areas consult each other. What I am suggesting is: Do you particularly have any special training, skill or ability to identify the method by which the electrical impulses travel in the process known as the Internet?

A. Yes, I do.

Q. Where do you acquire such special skill and knowledge?

A. As I said, I have been working in the field of telecommunications for 25 years. I have been familiar with the Internet. I can't say when I first heard the term, but certainly for well over a decade. I have been using it for seven years. I have consulted both to businesses that are in the Internet business and to organizations that provide services, that provide the actual physical services that the Internet is carried on. I have implemented Internet sites.

I think all of those things, plus my general involvement in the industry over this entire period, provide that information to me.

Q. To put it very bluntly, you have no academic qualifications in the area at all.

A. When I entered the telecommunications industry in 1972, there were no university-level courses, no college-level courses whatsoever in Canada in telecommunications in 1972. Even people who called themselves telecommunications engineers in 1972 in Canada were people who had learned on the job. They were electrical engineers, but there was no specialty in telecommunications.

Up until today there is only one ‑‑ excuse me, two universities in eastern Canada that offer degree-level programs in telecommunications, and those programs are very recent. There are a few community college programs that are primarily geared to technicians.

In fact, in telecommunications the way you learn it is by doing it.

Q. Could you answer my question?

A. Would you like to repeat it?

Q. To put it bluntly, you have absolutely no academic qualifications in the field of electrical or electronic engineering whatsoever.

A. I answered your question at the beginning, sir. You are correct: No, I don't.

Q. You said that you had made public presentations, and you gave a number of examples in your curriculum vitae. You referred to one, GTE.

A. Yes.

Q. You drew our attention to that for a reason. What was it?

A. Simply, it was an example. I could pick any one of these.

In the case of GTE, you had a large American telephone company that thought my expertise in the integration and relationship of voice and data communications ‑‑ and that was the specific topic I spoke on ‑‑ was useful to present to their customers and to have me travel to 14 cities across the United States to make those presentations to their customers. I thought it was an example that covered a number of the different aspects of how I speak, but I could pick any of the others if you would prefer.

Q. Let's just ask a couple of questions about this.

When you spoke, were you the sole speaker on these 14 different occasions?

A. No. GTE was running a series of one-day seminars for their customers, and I was the keynote speaker. I spoke for the first 90 minutes of the day.

Q. It was for their customers?

A. Yes, their business customers.

Q. And you were promoting the sale of their services?

A. No. In fact, part of the arrangement I had with GTE was that I would not in my presentation talk about their products or services or promote their company in any way.

Q. Who was paying you?

A. GTE was.

Q. Why were they paying you?

A. Because they felt that my expertise was such that their customers would learn from my presentation. Their approach appeared to be that knowledgeable customers, I guess, would be better customers.

Q. And buy their products.

A. Presumably.

Q. This was a commercial venture by GTE to have you speak at a seminar. How was the seminar advertised?

A. I was not involved in the advertising of it. As I recall, they sent letters to their larger customers saying: We are having a seminar. Would you like to come?

Q. What exactly was GTE selling at that time ‑‑ not that you were selling it. I understand that you weren't selling anything.

A. GTE is a holding company which owns a large number of telephone companies, data communications concerns, a manufacturing arm. They sell quite a lot of different products. They are either the largest or second-largest owner of telephone services in the United States.

Q. As an expert, you were being asked to speak about voice and data communication.

A. Yes.

Q. How many people attended these seminars in 14 cities?

A. The smallest one was attended by about 30. The largest one, if I remember correctly, had something over 250 people at it.

Q. Where was that?

A. There were two that were that large, the one in Tampa, Florida and the one in Honolulu.

Q. These occasions are like business seminars, aren't they, that companies send their best employees to to hear about the latest products available?

A. Yes, I believe so.

Q. And you were telling people what the latest products available are.

A. Actually, at that particular session I was talking to them about the latest trends in how computers and telephones and telephone networks work together, how the technology was evolving and what some of the applications that I was seeing in my clients' operations of these new technologies were.

Q. So you were basically a paid speaker for GTE on these occasions.

A. Yes.

Q. I suppose that might apply to a number of other of these public presentations. Would that be true?

A. Yes.

Q. So it is a commercial circuit where people come together with major suppliers to consider what products are available, like a trade show. Is that right?

A. These were events at which I was invited to speak and to present what I understood about telecommunications, and I was paid to be there.

Q. I understand. Essentially, aren't these like trade shows where the various products available are explained and sometimes advocated?

A. Yes, that is one of the things that happened at some of these. There are others on this list that include, for example, the Hospital Communications Association which is an organization of people who run communications systems in Ontario hospitals, or Sheridan College which is a community college which asked me to talk to some of their students. There are many different ones on there.

Q. You said what your function is on these occasions, to explain what is available in voice and data communication. Isn't that right?

A. No.

Q. What do you do then?

A. Voice and data communication is a large and complex area. What I am trying to do in these presentations ‑‑ and, of course, they vary with the audience ‑‑ is to explain what are the latest developments and trends in telecommunications, how does the technology work, how can, depending on the audience, it be used effectively in their environment to improve their organization's functioning. There is a wide range of things.

I very rarely actually talk about what specific products are available.

Q. Have you ever spoken at a university on the subject of telecommunications?

A. I have spoken to Ryerson Polytechnic Institute ‑‑ which it was; it is now Ryerson Polytechnic University ‑‑ on a number of occasions to students there. I have also spoken at Sheridan College.

Q. Have you given lectures in those colleges?

A. Those were lectures, parts of courses, where I was invited by the professors involved to speak.

Q. What did you speak on at, say, Ryerson, and when?

A. The Ryerson one was through the late 1980s and up until about 1993. This was an annual engagement where I was brought in to a course that was on current developments in business technology for their students. I was speaking on telecommunications, the current developments in telecommunications, what were the new services available, how was technology evolving.

Q. So, once again, this didn't involve the Internet in any way.

A. I don't recall speaking about the Internet at Ryerson, no.

Q. What was the other college you spoke at?

A. Sheridan.

Q. How many times did you speak at Ryerson in the course of a year? Once every year you would go in and speak about it?

A. It was kind of twice a year, once in the fall and once in the spring, over a period of about five or six years. I don't remember the exact number of times.

Q. It would be like an hour or an hour and a half?

A. Usually three hours.

Q. Sheridan College, where is that?

A. Sheridan College is in Oakville. It was the first community college in Canada to develop an actual program in telecommunications management.

Q. How many colleges and universities presently, to your knowledge, have degrees in computer science and technology?

A. I don't know.

Q. There must be what, 10?

A. I just don't know.

Q. Isn't this a field in which you are claiming expertise?

A. My field is telecommunications, and I know how many offer degree-level courses in telecommunications.

Q. I am interested in, and I think the Panel might be interested in, the subject of the Internet. I am suggesting that telecommunications isn't covered exclusively by the Internet. I am asking you, as the ‑‑

A. The Internet is a telecommunications environment. The Internet operates over telecommunications services and facilities.

THE CHAIRPERSON: Allow the questioner to finish.

MR. CHRISTIE: I will try to focus so that we will at least be ‑‑

THE WITNESS: I apologize.

MR. CHRISTIE:

Q. What I am trying to get at is: There are today in universities courses in computer science.

A. Yes.

Q. How many universities have those courses?

A. I don't know.

Q. Have you ever been asked to give a lecture at any of those courses?

A. No.

Q. If you were asked to look at some

equipment and to define its use in the field of Internet use, would you be able to describe it, define it, identify it and explain it?

A. Yes.

Q. Are you sure?

A. I don't guarantee that I have seen every piece of equipment there is or that I could identify every piece of equipment. But, yes, for the components that are widely used to operate the Internet, definitely.

Q. At the present time, are you up to date on what is occurring in terms of the methods by which Internet communication is possible?

A. Yes.

Q. What is the latest information you received on that subject and where did it come from?

A. The latest information I would have received, I guess, would be a paper I received a week ago Thursday from a company based in Vancouver which has developed a technology based on radio spectrum methods of accessing the Internet, using spread spectrum technology.

THE CHAIRPERSON: Using what, I am sorry?

THE WITNESS: Spread spectrum. It's a specialized version of radio.

MR. CHRISTIE:

Q. I am informed that that is not recent technology at all. Are you saying that it is?

A. Spread spectrum technology as a method of accessing the Internet is not, as far I am aware, in commercial use anywhere.

Q. Is that right? What method do you have to keep up with this information? Is it just a company sending you information or is there some central clearing house of information?

A. No. In fact, many people come to us for it, and we try to act as a clearing house for it, as part of one of the things we do. I stay in touch with the companies in the business. People who have services in this area do send us material, invite us to briefings, demonstrate their equipment to us, frequently lend us equipment so that we can test it and see how it works. We try out different services whenever we can.

In addition, because we work with clients who are constantly looking at telecommunications, we are frequently in a situation where a client asks, "There are five different ways I want to do X" or "I am considering the following Internet providers, and how do they compare?" and we have to evaluate them.

Q. Were you aware of the Canadian Association of Internet Service Providers Convention?

A. I was aware of it, yes.

Q. Were you present?

A. No, I was not.

Q. Where was it?

A. As I recall, it was in Ottawa, but I might be wrong on that.

Q. The last one was in Vancouver, wasn't it?

A. It could be.

Q. Do you know who Margaret Langford is?

A. I have seen her name in some of the documents related to this case.

Q. You have been studying documents in relation to this case, have you?

A. I was shown a transcript of some testimony that Mrs. Langford made.

Q. When were you first consulted in regard to your proposed evidence?

MR. FREIMAN: Excuse me, I understand that this might be a question that Mr. Christie would want to ask in cross-examination. I don't understand how this question is relevant ‑‑

THE CHAIRPERSON: How is it relevant to his qualifications?

MR. CHRISTIE: I just asked whether or not since that time he has done anything to research the questions in the case. That is basically what I want to know. Do you mind if I ask?

THE CHAIRPERSON: Ask him that if you wish.

MR. CHRISTIE:

Q. I wanted to ask you specifically when it was that you were asked to become a witness.

A. I don't recall the date, but it was about four or five months ago.

Q. Since that time you were given, I understand, Ms Langford's testimony or at least the cross-examination on her affidavit. Is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. What I am asking you is: What have you done since that time to do research in this area?

A. In respect of the questions that were asked of Ms Langford, if that is what you are asking ‑‑

Q. That is exactly what I want to know.

A. I saw the transcript of her testimony for the first time yesterday at 12:30 in the afternoon, so I have done nothing more than quickly read through it, and I have not read it in detail.

Q. Have you done any research in this field since you were advised that you were going to become a witness?

A. Yes. I was asked some specific questions that I should work on. Many of them I felt I already knew answers to, but to be sure I spent quite a bit of time in both talking to people who knew about those subjects and in obtaining books and obtaining reports to review those things.

Q. What books did you obtain?

A. I don't have a full list.

MR. FREIMAN: Again ‑‑

MR. CHRISTIE: I know what the objection is going to be. Sorry, go ahead.

MR. FREIMAN: Again, this question has nothing to do with qualifying the expert.

THE CHAIRPERSON: We are getting into the merits now, and perhaps you could ‑‑

MR. CHRISTIE: Would you please permit me to answer before you make a judgment?

THE CHAIRPERSON: I have not made a judgment. I just want you to listen to me when I am speaking.

It seems to me that we are dealing with the merits of his evidence that he intends to give rather than dealing with issues related to whether he is an expert or not.

MR. CHRISTIE: Sir, if a person is asked to be qualified as an expert and they then go out and read books and talk to people, they are, by doing so, indicating that the time when they were sought to be called as an expert they weren't. Anyone can do what this witness has done.

Say they want to call an expert, so they tell someone that they are going to seek to qualify them, and then the person goes out and does exactly what this witness did, spends time talking to people, obtaining books and reports and studying them. That is an indication that they never were qualified. You don't have to do that if you are an expert, and you do have to do that when you are someone who is seeking to make themselves useful as an expert.

I am just going to suggest that this is a classic instance of someone who decides that they are going to get themselves qualified after they know that that is what their job is. I just suggest that I have never run into a situation like that.

THE CHAIRPERSON: I don't understand his evidence to be as you put it, in the first place. The fact of the matter is that he said that he has done additional research since he was retained in this matter, that he did not initiate this research on the entire subject of telecommunications.

If you want to explore this area further to bolster your line of argument that you anticipate you might be able to make, go ahead and do so.

MR. CHRISTIE: Just a couple of questions, thank you.

Q. I take it that you were given some specific questions, one of which was whether text alone could ever constitute or be part of a telephone system. That is one of the questions you were asked, wasn't it?

A. I was never asked that question, no.

Q. You were never asked that question exactly. You have a copy, of course, of the questions you were asked to address, don't you?

A. Yes, I do.

Q. Anything similar to that in those questions?

A. No.

MR. CHRISTIE: You prepared a preliminary opinion and ‑‑ those are my questions. Thank you very much.

MR. FREIMAN:

Q. Mr. Angus, before we start, I wonder if we could deal with a few definitions to make it easier for us to understand what we are all talking about.

Do you have understanding of the definition of the concept of telecommunications?

A. "Telecommunications" refers to communication at a distance.

Q. Do you have any understanding of the meaning of the word "telephonic?"

A. It is an adjective to refer to the use of telephony services.

Q. What about the adverb "telephonically?"

A. Again, a very similar definition, only as an adverb, the use of telephony services to be the key.

Q. Mr. Angus, this morning long before nine o'clock did I call you to ask you to find in a reputable telecommunications dictionary a definition of any word?

A. You called me at approximately eight o'clock this morning and asked me to get a definition of the word "telephony."

Q. Have you done that?

A. Yes, I did.

Q. What text did you refer to in order to get that definition?

A. I went to Newton's Telecom Dictionary.

Q. Can you tell me something about that? Is that an authoritative source?

A. It is very authoritative. It is the most widely used dictionary in telecommunications in the United States and Canada, by order of magnitude. There aren't many, but this is the one that almost everyone in the industry would refer to; it is the one that I keep beside my desk whenever I need to check a point.

MR. FREIMAN: I ask that the document be distributed.

MR. CHRISTIE: For the record, a new document.

MR. FREIMAN:

Q. Mr. Angus, can you identify the document you are looking at now?

A. Yes, this is a photocopy I made from my copy of the dictionary.

MR. FREIMAN: May this be the next exhibit, please?

THE REGISTRAR: The document entitled "Newton's Telecom Dictionary", containing pages 1028 and 1029, will be filed as Commission Exhibit HR-9.

EXHIBIT NO. HR-9: Document entitled "Newton's Telecom Dictionary", pages 1028 and 1029

MR. FREIMAN:

Q. With reference to HR-9, could you tell me what the definition of "telephony" that is presented by this text is?

A. It defines it as:

"The science of transmitting voice, data, video or image signals over a distance greater than what you can transmit by shouting."

It then goes on to discuss how it has been used.

Q. Prior to my asking that question of you at 8:00 a.m. this morning, I addressed a number of questions to you for your consideration and response. Can you tell me what those questions were?

A. Would you like me to bring up the slide so that we can summarize them?

MR. FREIMAN: Yes, please.

Just to help the Panel and the parties, these slides are simply in the nature of an aide-memoire to assist in the process of the witness' testimony. I will try to remember to remind Mr. Angus to flip through slides, but it is simply a progression through some of the questions that were asked.

THE WITNESS: The questions that I was asked to comment on were:

What is the telephone network?

Is the telephone network analogue or digital, or both?

What is the relationship between the Internet and the telephone network?

What is the World Wide Web?

What is the relationship of the Zundelsite to the World Wide Web, the Internet, and the telephone network?

MR. FREIMAN:

Q. Before we start to address those specific questions, I had better ask you whether there is any relationship between telephony and the telephone network.

A. Certainly the telephone network operates as a method of telephony. It is a telephony environment, if you like.

Q. Let's start with that. What is a telephone network, Mr. Angus?

A. The telephone network is a world-wide telecommunications system, a system for communicating at a distance. It is owned and operated by, quite literally, hundreds of telephone companies, all of which interconnect their facilities so that any point in the system can establish a communication link with any other point. It is universally interconnected. In some countries there are many telephone companies and in some there is only one. That is, broadly speaking, how it is structured.

Within Canada ‑‑

Q. Before we get to that, could I ask you: As a general matter, is it necessary for a telephone handset to be involved in order for a group of components to constitute a telephone network?

A. It is not necessary. Certainly the most common connections are telephone handsets, but there are many other things that connect to telephone networks.

THE CHAIRPERSON: Does this imply that a telephone network is connected by wires?

THE WITNESS: Yes. Actually, I have two slides on that, and I will go through the pieces in it.

MR. CHRISTIE: I couldn't hear you, I am sorry.

THE CHAIRPERSON: I was asking whether a telephone network is restricted to connections by wires.

MR. CHRISTIE: I see.

THE WITNESS: No, and it is not automatic. For example, cellular telephones are an example of telephones that don't use wires.

THE CHAIRPERSON: That is part of the telephone network.

THE WITNESS: Yes.

THE CHAIRPERSON: I am getting away ahead of the evidence, I am sure.

MR. FREIMAN: I think you are directing yourself to some of the key areas in the evidence rather deftly and directly.

Q. Can you talk about the telephone network as it appears in Canada?

A. Certainly. In Canada, there are four different types of telephone companies. These are the companies that actually own the network.

There are, first of all, the companies that are known as the Stentor Alliance. They are the largest of the phone companies. In most cases, there is one in each province ‑‑ BC Tel, Manitoba Tel, Bell Canada which operates in Ontario and Quebec, and they have a couple of associate members that are slightly smaller such as Northwestel in the Northwest Territories.

Secondly, there are about 40 companies that are known as independent telephone companies. These are generally much smaller, in most cases rural or small town phone companies. As an example, the City of Thunder Bay actually owns its own phone company; Bell Canada does not provide telephone service in that city.

Third, there are what are called specialized carriers. These are companies that connect to the telephone network and provide transmission for the telephone network, but only in specialized kinds of services. For example, Telesat has a monopoly on the satellite pieces of it. Teleglobe is the one that carries international traffic to everywhere out of Canada except the U.S. Then there are four licensed wireless telephone companies.

Finally, there is a group called the interexchange carriers. These are companies that provide long distance service and own and operate their own facilities ‑‑ that is, they are not buying their services from Bell Canada; they actually install their own cables. The principal ones of those are AT&T Canada, Sprint Canada, fONOROLA, and a company called Westel. These companies together own the phone network in Canada; they own different pieces of it.

Q. Dealing with the telephone network, is it subject to regulation?

A. Yes, it is.

Q. By whom is it regulated?

A. It is regulated by the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, the CRTC.

Q. Pursuant to what statute?

A. The Telecommunications Act, which was passed by Parliament in 1993 is the current basis of regulation.

Q. With regard to the telecommunications facilities operated by these companies, are those telecommunications facilities also subject to the Broadcasting Act?

A. The CRTC's view of this is that, if an organization is engaged in broadcasting activities, it is subject to the Broadcasting Act. If it is engaged in telecommunications activities, it is subject to the Telecommunications Act. A company might be subject to both, depending on what they are doing.

For example, a number of the cable companies now offer Internet access services. The CRTC says that that is a telecommunications service; therefore, those cable companies have to get the CRTC's approval under the provisions of the Telecommunications Act.

Q. We are getting ahead of ourselves a little, but with regard to the Internet, which I will ask you to describe in a few moments, are any of these services ‑‑ under which Act are the Internet services of telecommunications companies regulated?

A. Many of these companies have structured their Internet services so that they are offered by separate subsidiaries, in which case the CRTC says they are not regulated. To the extent to which they are offered by telephone companies, this group here, the CRTC regulates them under the Telecommunications Act.

Q. Could we now address the issue of what composes a telephone network. What are the major components of a telephone network?

A. I should say that a telephone network is extraordinarily large and has innumerable components. I have tried to identify here the three main ones, and it is certainly an oversimplification.

Q. Let me just stop you so that we can understand what you are showing in the diagram. I will ask you to identify and to discuss the various components, but first I want us to be clear about what is being shown.

There is a number of yellow lines. What are they?

A. Those are examples of circuits.

Q. Then there are Xs inside white boxes; some of them are large, some of them are small, and one is quite small. What are they?

A. Those are examples of switches.

Q. Finally, it appears that there is a number of devices. One looks like a telephone handset; another is a rectangle that has the word "Fax" in it; another is two telephone handsets; and the last is what appears to be a computer. What are they?

A. These are examples of communication terminals.

Q. Are those the elements of the telephone network?

A. Those are the principal elements, yes.

Q. Could we discuss them then in order. What are circuits?

A. Circuits are communication paths between different points in the network. Traditionally, they were just copper wire. In recent decades we have also seen the introduction of wireless connections, microwave connections, and fibre optic connections to provide those links.

Q. Let me stop you there. In terms of their being engaged in telephony or being part of a telephone network, does the fact that the circuits are glass or fibre have any influence or make any difference?

A. No.

THE CHAIRPERSON: Make any difference to the regulatory structure?

THE WITNESS: It doesn't make any difference to the regulatory structure, no. In addition, of course, they are all what we normally would term a "telephone call." It might pass over wire or glass or through a satellite. The caller in most cases would simply have no idea what the call was going through.

MEMBER DEVIN: In Canada, do they in fact pass over all of these different ones?

THE WITNESS: Yes.

MR. FREIMAN:

Q. Let's talk about the various components.

A. The other point that the slide makes is that there are two different kinds of circuits, and this is conceptual. In fact, often they are physically the same. There are circuits which are dedicated to the use of specific individuals or applications. The telephone line between my house and the nearest phone company switch is only used by people in my house; nobody else's phone connects to it.

There are also businesses ‑‑ and I have shown the example of a grey box there which says "Private Phone System," where a business has its own telephone system. In this case it actually has a circuit that connects it directly to the long distance network, so it doesn't have to go through the local network at all. That would be a dedicated circuit used only for its purposes; it is part of the phone network, but it is dedicated to their use.

Then there are shared circuits. These are circuits that are used by everybody on the network somehow or other. It might be on a call-by-call basis. If I call Vancouver, they don't set up a link to Vancouver and leave it there forever for me; it is just during my three-minute call and, when I hang up, then it is for someone else. Also in many cases these circuits are actually carrying very many calls simultaneously. One of the abilities of fibre optics is the ability to put thousands and thousands of calls, that can be voice or video or data or whatever, all shared by common users.

Circuits are either designated or shared, but they are all just circuits.

Q. Again, whether a circuit is dedicated or shared, does that make any difference to its participating in telephony or being a part of the telephone network?

A. No.

Q. Let's look at the next component, and that is the tall rectangles and the smaller rectangles with Xs in them that are labelled "switches." What is a switch?

A. You could imagine a telephone network in which there was a circuit from every place to every other place. It would not be economical to make it; it wouldn't make sense. Instead, the switches go to hub locations. These switches are actually just large computers. What they are able to do is take an incoming circuit and connect it to any of the outgoing circuits so that we can link all the different points in the network together.

In this diagram I have shown three different kinds. In the grey box we have one that is actually devoted entirely to the service of one business perhaps or one company. That is usually called a PBX. Then there are local switches which are switches that switch typically within a city. Then there are long distance switches which handle the calls that you make when you dial "1" first.

Q. Let's then pass to terminals. What is the function of a terminal?

A. A terminal's function is to allow a human or a machine to connect to and use the telephone network.

Q. Could you elaborate a bit about the different kinds of terminals that are portrayed in this diagram.

A. There are many kinds of terminals, but certainly the red telephone, the most common kind of device is a telephone handset. There are millions of those, and they allow people to pick up and make what we think of as phone calls.

Also shown there is a computer which is a device that can use the telephone network that can allow a human or another computer even to call the network.

We have shown a facsimile machine, a fax machine, on the right-hand side, which is a communication terminal that allows a type of communication using the network. And there are certainly others.

Q. Let me first ask you: If one were to remove the handsets from a network, does the combination of elements become something other than a telephone network?

A. No.

Q. If one has such a combination with no handsets, is that any less engaged in telephony?

A. No.

MR. CHRISTIE: This witness was qualified as you said. He has now become the definitive definer. He is now giving definitions that are not supported by his own dictionary reference, the one and only one he has used. He is answering questions about what is or is not telephony and a telephone network. It is beyond the scope of an expert even in telecommunications to define terms.

It is partly, I should hope, the function of this Panel, but even more so perhaps dictionaries which have used these terms over several generations.

I don't know how this witness and my learned friend can arrogate to themselves the power to simply tell you as a matter of fact that this is a telephone network when that is based upon a definition they are creating right here.

THE CHAIRPERSON: To the extent that he has expertise, Mr. Christie, isn't that what his expertise is about?

MR. CHRISTIE: That is not what I heard. I heard you say and I heard my learned friend clarify that he was going to be an expert in telecommunications, and then that was defined a little more precisely. I often find this a big problem, because experts' scope always seems to move as soon as they become experts. It grows.

He was defined as an expert ‑‑ my notes indicate that his expertise was explained to be in the communication industry and ‑‑ it was not defined that way. It wasn't defined as the Internet, but it was defined ‑‑ I can always come back to the record, but it was definitely not to allow him to define the terms "telephony" and "telephone network" as he chose, and that is exactly what he is doing.

THE CHAIRPERSON: He has referred to certain authorities. It is not uncommon in jurisprudence for experts to refer to dictionary definitions to give background to their expertise. I am sure you are familiar with that kind of process.

MR. CHRISTIE: The dictionary definition that he gave does not support the interpretation he is giving to those words now. He is simply defining ‑‑

THE CHAIRPERSON: You can explore that in cross-examination.

MR. CHRISTIE: I am objecting to the use of this supposed expert to tell us that it is a telephone system nevertheless.

THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. We are going to allow it.

MR. FREIMAN:

Q. Mr. Angus, we were talking about terminals. I wonder whether there are other terminals that are not portrayed on this slide, but that are also attached as terminal attachments to telephone networks.

A. There are many types. I mentioned earlier cellular telephones, wireless telephones, as examples. They connect on a wireless basis and then on a wired basis after they have reached the nearest antenna.

The telephone devices for the deaf are ones that are used. These are telephones for people who cannot hear, so they are, in essence, small keyboards that allow people who are hard of hearing or deaf to communicate through the telephone.

Q. Can I just stop you for a minute? When we are dealing with telephone devices for the deaf, in that application, does that have anyone speaking at one end or anyone hearing something at the other end?

A. No. There are also voice mail systems, alarm systems, modems, many other devices connected as terminals.

Q. Let me play the fall guy and say that, because of my limited computer expertise, I surmise that others may wish to have a bit of a refresher course on what a modem is.

A. We will discuss that in more detail, but very quickly a modem is a device that takes the digital information that comes from a computer and translates it into a form that allows it to go over a telephone line. Most modems translate the digital information into an analog signal to go on a telephone line.

MEMBER DEVIN: May I just ask for my information: Under "terminals," you have computers and modems separately. As I understood the information you just gave, they don't offer it independently. One requires a modem in order for a computer to operate as a terminal. Is that correct?

THE WITNESS: Normally, a computer and a modem work in tandem. A computer requires a modem to connect to the network in most cases. However, there are modems that are used for other purposes than what you might think of as computers, including, for example, meter-reading devices. There are actually devices which sit there ready to translate when someone plugs something into it.

MEMBER DEVIN: Would a computer operate as a terminal without a modem?

THE WITNESS: In one of the later diagrams I distinguish between two different situations. Most commonly, a computer that connects to a telephone network needs a modem. It is the most common situation.

However, there do exist digital telephones and digital telephone lines. In that case there is a device used that is often called a digital modem. It is not really one; it is just the term that we use. It is a device that changes one form of digital into another form of digital.

MR. FREIMAN:

Q. Just to round out our discussion, you also have this private phone system or PBX. What does PBX stand for?

A. The terms means Private Branch Exchange. It is a very old term without a lot of content any more.

Q. What is that used for?

A. That would be a communication system dedicated to the use of a specific organization. Usually you can tell you are calling from a PBX if you have to dial 9 in order to get a line outside.

Q. Again, with regard to a PBX, does it have to terminate in a telephone handset?

A. No.

Q. The second question I asked referred to the terms "analog" and "digital." I asked you whether the telephone network is analog, digital or both.

Before we get to your answer to that, perhaps you could explain to us what is meant by "analog" and what is meant by "digital" in the context of telephony.

A. Although we often feel that we are talking over the telephone line, in fact, sound doesn't transfer over telephone lines. It is an electrical method of communication, so you need some method of changing the sound into an electrical form so that it can go over the wires.

For most of the history of the telephone industry, and even today, that was most commonly done in analog form. When we speak, we make waves in the air. The telephone handset or other device, but typically a telephone handset, takes that sound wave and creates an image of it as an electrical wave. Because that electrical wave is analogous in its shape and characteristics to the sound wave, it is called an analog wave.

In the late 1950s it started to become technically possible and then economically attractive to change a sound into electrical forms using a different type of technology, using technology in which, rather than creating an image of the sound, you actually measure the sound and transmit the measurement as numbers, ones and zeros. That is digital technology, in which case you are transmitting ones and zeros, offs and ons bits, instead of a continuous wave.

Q. Other than the way in which the originating impulse is converted to electrical energy for transmission, is there any difference for purposes of understanding a telephone network or telephony whether these impulses are analog or digital?

A. Certainly if you are a technician or a technical person, you need to know that because you have to fix something that is going to be physically very different. In terms of making connections, establishing telephone connections through the network and so on, no.

In fact, on the next slide and in the comment on the next page, if you make a phone call here in Toronto, the chances are that your telephone handset itself is analog, but it is absolutely certain that the switch you are connected to is digital and that any other switch connection you make is digital.

Q. Just so we understand the diagram, what is the difference between the wavy lines and the lines that look more angular?

A. This is a common way in the industry of distinguishing when you are drawing an analog or a digital. We show the analog as a wave and the digital as a series of squares to show that it is off/on or up/down.

What I have shown here is that we still have telephone sets that operate in traditional analog form, but the connection between switches is digital. That is, as I say, very widely the case today.

Q. We have dealt with the situation in Toronto where the communication between one switch and another switch is digital, but the communication between a switch and a terminal tends to be analog. Is there a situation where the communication between a terminal and the switch is also digital?

A. Yes, there is. Most telephone handsets are still analog, but there is a growing number of digital telephone sets. Northern Telecom alone, which is the largest supplier in Canada, has shipped more than three million telephone sets in which the set itself changes sound into digital form right in the set.

THE CHAIRPERSON: How would the user know that?

THE WITNESS: You may have heard the term ISDN. It is a standard for being digital. The goal for most of the industry is that eventually the whole thing will be digital, that analog technology will disappear from the telephone network in the long run, because digital has some big advantages in terms of quality of transmission and, one hopes, in cost.

The whole direction of the industry now is to install digital technology wherever it is economical.

MR. FREIMAN:

Q. Just as a matter of interest, cable, when it is used in the Canadian context, cable television and for any other purpose, is that a digital technology or an analog technology?

A. It is entirely analog in Canada today.

Q. Just getting back to the series of diagrams that we have looked at, with reference to them, where the handset is analog, is the entire system or the entire circuits through which the message passes also analog or are there digital elements even where the handsets are analog?

A. In fact ‑‑ again, the example of a telephone call made in Toronto. That call will be analog usually at the handset and local wire level and certainly digital in the switching centre and the interswitching centres because in Metro Toronto there are no other kinds of switches. They are entirely digital.

If you made a call across Canada, the call might change from analog to digital three or four times or more in the course of the transmission and, if you transmit it internationally, even more translations.

Q. I should ask in the converse. If the first hop between the terminal and the switch is digital, will there nevertheless be an analog portion in the circuits?

A. Virtually certainly, if only because at this point digital handsets are still a minority and it is very likely you are trying to call a place that has analog service.

Q. Would that change if the terminal device at the other end were not a handset but, say, a modem or a computer?

A. No.

Q. Let's pass to the third question, and that is: What is the Internet? We will have to go very slowly here. We hear about the Internet and we know about surfing the Net. What is the Internet?

A. The Internet can be looked at in two ways, and I have tried to do it here. The Internet is a global information system which is based on a set of protocols or standards that are called TCP/IP. It is actually two related sets of computer standards, computer communication instructions: the transmission control protocol, which handles how the information moves through the network, how it is organized to move through the network and so on, and the Internet protocol which handles such things as how do you establish addresses, how do you know where one device is on the network, and a different device?

Q. Let me stop you for a moment. My attention may have lapsed, but I am not sure that I understand what you mean by the word "protocol."

A. A protocol is an agreed-on set of rules, in this context an agreed-on set of rules that all participants in the Internet, all the technical components in the Internet, agree to abide by. I agree that, if a packet of data arrives with this type of address on it and it is not going to me ‑‑ and I am being a computer here ‑‑ I will pass it on to the next location. I agree that, if I receive data and something in the packet has an error in it that I recognize, here is how I will ask for correction ‑‑ that kind of thing. It is a very complex set of rules.

As the Internet has grown, it is constantly evolving. For example, we ran out of Internet addresses a couple of years ago, so the Internet protocol had to be rewritten to allow much longer addresses.

THE CHAIRPERSON: Who controls the protocol?

THE WITNESS: Who controls the protocol is one of those truly fascinating questions. There is an organization called the Internet Advisory Board which is a voluntary organization of the participants in the Internet. Typically, the participants in it are people who work in very large Internet companies or telecommunications companies and computer companies. It makes decisions by extended discussions followed by voting.

MEMBER JAIN: Is it within Canada or is it international?

THE WITNESS: It is an international organization. Because the Internet originated in the United States and the largest part of the Internet is still in the United States, it is physically in the U.S. and most of its members are in the U.S., but Canada is represented there.

MEMBER JAIN: And there are warranty agreements?

THE WITNESS: Yes.

THE CHAIRPERSON: Does it have a head office?

THE WITNESS: I could find the address; I don't have it here. They have a newsletter which I get. They have lots of things, but I get it on the Internet which means that I don't physically ever see a stamp.

MEMBER DEVIN: The head office is virtual.

THE WITNESS: Yes. In fact, a great deal of the discussion is virtual. It is conducted on the Internet itself.

MR. FREIMAN:

Q. You have raised a term that you are referring to, so maybe we should pass to that. What is meant by a virtual network and how is that related to the Internet?

A. Perhaps I can explain "virtual" best by explaining ‑‑ we have been talking about the telephone network as a physical network, an accumulation of things that you can touch and see. A virtual network in that context would be something created by software that allows people to communicate as though they had a physical network to themselves but, in fact, really they are sharing the environment with many others who are invisible to them.

If I can digress a little bit, somebody once said that the way to understand all of this is to realize that there are things that are virtual and things that are transparent. Transparent networks are networks where it looks like there is nothing between you and the other end, but in fact there is an enormous amount of switching equipment and things that you never see. Virtual networks are the opposite. They are things that look like they are there, but they are not. They are entirely just agreements and relationships rather than physical things.

Q. How does that assist us in understanding the Internet?

A. The Internet is an example of a virtual network. It operates with these protocols and agreements and rules for how computers and routers and all kinds of other devices communicate with each other, and then it operates over a physical network which is almost entirely owned by telephone companies. The physical facilities that carry this Internet are the telephone network.

Q. Maybe this is obvious, but I would like to ask you this. Who owns the physical network over which the Internet communication happens?

A. The Internet is very, very large, and there are many owners. The great majority of it ‑‑ I couldn't put a percentage on it, but I wouldn't question somebody saying 98 or 99 per cent of it ‑‑ is owned by the companies in Canada, the companies I described as telephone companies.

THE CHAIRPERSON: What is there to own?

THE WITNESS: We are talking about the physical facilities. For example, if I am an Internet service provider ‑‑ and I will show you this on some of the other diagrams. As an Internet service provider, what I have are some computers that know how to connect to customers and pass them on to the Internet, but I have to have things to connect them on. I get wires from some source, usually the local phone company, to connect out to the end customer, and I probably get wires on the other side to connect me to what is called the Internet backbone.

MR. FREIMAN:

Q. Does that have any relationship to the physical network that you are talking about?

A. Those are pieces of the physical network we are talking about.

MR. CHRISTIE: I couldn't quite hear, I am sorry, sir. You were asking a question and I would very much like to know what it was.

THE CHAIRPERSON: I am sorry you didn't hear me. I said: What is there to own?

MR. CHRISTIE: Thank you.

MR. FREIMAN:

Q. Dealing with that physical network, does it have any relationship with the physical network that transports, say, voice communication from one telephone handset to another telephone handset?

A. They are the same circuits, the same cables.

Q. Does that have any relationship to the concept of shared circuits that you were discussing before?

A. Certainly. If we talk about ‑‑ the term used is "Internet backbone"; that is, the main pathways that things go across the country on. In Canada, those travel over fibre optics which are owned by the Stentor phone companies in Canada. Those same fibre optic cables are, first of all, carrying data from many different Internet providers, but also carrying voice calls and video calls and other things all at the same time.

Q. Another term that we sometimes hear with regard to the Internet is the concept of packets or packet switching. Can you explain what that is and how it is connected to the Internet?

A. This is one of the things that distinguishes the Internet from other types of communication environments. In the Internet data is organized into packets. That is, when I make a voice call on the Net, I am talking to you and we have this circuit devoted to us all the time. When I make an Internet connection and start sending messages, the computer breaks my message up into small pieces called packets, organizes them with various additions, most important the address of the location I want to send to, and sends it out into the Net. Then the packets can be routed independently of each other.

This was originally designed for the U.S. military, which is the origin of the Internet, on the assumption that there might be an atomic war and they would like to keep communication. Even if a major hub or several hubs were destroyed, communication would continue.

For example, in the case of this diagram, if we had someone at point A and someone at point E both wishing to communicate with each other over the Internet, in a single connection between A and E, a single e-mail message or conversation or whatever, the first packet might go A-C-E, which is the most direct route; the second one might go A-B-C-D-E, and the next one might go A-D-C-E, depending on traffic at a given time, how busy the system is, how busy the various nodes are, and so on. That is the essence of packet communication.

Then at the receiving end you have a computer which is smart enough to recognize that maybe the packets didn't arrive in the right order, that the second one arrived first, and it reorganizes them and puts them in the right order and delivers them to the end.

MEMBER DEVIN: But they all have to be received in order to receive the message. If one is interrupted for some reason and doesn't arrive ‑‑

THE WITNESS: If one is interrupted and doesn't arrive, first of all the receiving device knows that it should have received the following number of packets. It sends a message back to A saying, "Send me that one again, please." Or, in some cases, depending on the application, it decides that it is not an important enough kind of communication to do that ‑‑ the computer has been told, and it does what it can. Usually, the packets are small enough that ‑‑ if you have ever received an e-mail message where suddenly there is a couple of letters that are garbled or a word that is garbled, that is what has happened. One of the packets got corrupted, and the system has just decided to put it through rather than go through the effort of correcting it.

MR. FREIMAN:

Q. Just taking your hypothetical sender and receiver at A and E, can either the sender or the receiver decide what route the various packets are to take to get from A to E?

A. In this situation, no, or in any configuration like this. The user sends the packet out. At each node of the network, the lettered points, a decision is made: Where does it go next? There is no advance decision about routing.

Q. Again, just so that we understand, does that have any influence in terms of whether packets travel over digital or analog, for instance?

A. Any one of those links might be digital or analog or wired or wireless or copper or fibre. The Internet protocol does not actually specify what the physical medium is.

THE CHAIRPERSON: In the meantime, what is in the packet is stored in the computer until it is ‑‑

THE WITNESS: Until it is received at the other end. One certainly hopes so, although I think we all lose messages from time to time.

MR. FREIMAN:

Q. Can we now discuss the relationship between the Internet and the telephone network? You have already told us that the telephone network is a physical network over which the information passes. Can we understand that in terms of components?

A. This is, again, a simplified diagram. I used the term "virtual" before for something that seems to be there, but isn't. The Internet ‑‑ from the point of view of a user, you feel as though you are connected to the far end, that it is direct, I am sending and they are receiving and we are talking back and forth or receiving files or whatever. In fact, in between those two locations are multiple segments, multiple hops, switching equipment, different computers on the way. This is just a simplified version of that.

If I go to my computer ‑‑

Q. Let me stop you for a moment so that we understand what is being shown.

What is A and what is B?

A. They could be anything that is using the Internet. In this case I have shown two computers which are the most common things that use the Internet.

In this case, let's say that A wants to send an e-mail message to B. That goes through their modem ‑‑

Q. Let's remind ourselves about what happens there.

A. The modem translates the computer information into a form that will allow it to go on to the next link.

Q. What form is that?

A. Mostly commonly into analog form. In this case we would be seeing a link that goes from the first computer at A and modem to the nearest local switch over a local telephone line, through a circuit of some kind to an Internet service provider who controls the gateway ‑‑ only the very largest of organizations would connect directly to the Internet and be their own Internet service provider ‑‑ and then into what I have shown as a white circle, the Internet itself, although within the Internet there will be many connections; then back out at the other end through another Internet service provider, through some kind of connection to a local switch, through a telephone line and into a computer at the other end.

This is relatively simple, but the point here is that there is a whole series of segments that a call goes through. In most cases all of the things that I have shown as yellow lines with arrows and all of the connections with the circle called the Internet are part of the telephone network. There are some cases where pieces of them are not.

THE CHAIRPERSON: What is the circle which you have described as the Internet?

THE WITNESS: I have another diagram that shows this a little later, but it is a connection of circuits and of computers that do this job of looking at packets and deciding where they go next. If you think of the previous diagram with A, B, C, D and E on it, that is the Internet. There is a lot you have to do just to get to that point.

MR. FREIMAN:

Q. Just so we are clear, when I asked you before what form the message takes once it is travelling from point A through the modem to the switch, you said that typically it is analog. Does that mean that it is sound that is being transmitted?

A. Sound doesn't travel over wires. It is electrical.

Q. Can we deal with how an individual connects with the Internet? The first step on this diagram you are talking about now is moving from the terminal which you have identified as A through a switch to an Internet service provider.

A. In this case ‑‑ and this would be typical of most individual users of the Internet. That person has a telephone handset, one we would all be familiar with, connected to a usual telephone line. We also have a computer. We have a modem. The modem is designed so that, if I am using the telephone handset part, it simply ignores me. It just passes me through to the telephone line without any change from what would normally happen on the phone.

On the other side we have a computer. Computers are digital. The information in them is all ones and zeros; it is not in waves. The modem does the job of changing it into a wave, an electrical wave which is very similar to the form which normal sound takes on the phone lines. If I am on a computer and I want to call the Internet, first of all, I would have had to arrange with an Internet service provider, somebody who would agree that for a fee they would hook me up whenever I want to.

I take my computer. I have some communication software, and it knows how to talk to the modem. It will ask me where I want to make my connection to. I would actually enter a normal phone number, 555-1212. The modem opens up the phone line, dials the number, establishes the connection up through the local telephone switch and over to the Internet service provider usually over the normal local telephone network. It could be a long distance call, but it almost never is.

At the Internet service provider's end, there is another modem that answers the call, sets up the connection and converts things back into a form that the Internet service provider can use.

What we have here is a telephone call, what we think of as a normal telephone call, but made from a computer rather than made from a telephone.

Q. Just dealing with the diagram for the moment, you have shown a telephone handset on the left and you have shown a computer on the right, both going through a modem. Once an impulse is passed from the terminal, from one or the other, through the modem and is going to the switch, is there any way to distinguish whether it is a voice communication or what we call a computer communication, a non-voice communication?

A. If you connected a computer to it, you would be able to tell. If you connected a phone to it, you would recognize that that doesn't sound like what I am used to hearing out of a phone. If you could look at the electricity, no, you couldn't tell the difference.

Q. Let's look at the next issue, whether it makes any difference whether the telephone circuits or the telephone handsets that are being used are digital or analog.

A. Here I have shown a case where you have a digital telephone set. When I lift the handset to talk, I still hear dial tone, but in fact it is a digital connection rather than an analog connection all the way to the nearest phone company.

In that case, what I do, if I have a computer as I am showing there, is use a device called a digital modem. That term is not very correct, because a modem actually is something that converts analog to digital and back and forth. Because it sits in the same place, that is what it is almost always called in the industry. Its more proper name is a network terminator.

What it does is take the form of digital information, the digital form that comes out of the computer, and reformats it into a form that the telephone line can handle. The telephone line doesn't use exactly the same method of organizing digital information that a computer does.

In this case, once again I would take the computer, ask my communication software to dial a phone number. It would tell the digital modem to set up the communication. Otherwise, it would be identical except that I have a digital connection in that first hop between my location and wherever the phone company is.

The next link over might be analog or digital, depending on what the Internet service provider had chosen to pay for to get from the local phone company.

THE CHAIRPERSON: The connections are both digital, but it changes the digital from the computer to a digital that is compatible with the telephone line.

THE WITNESS: For example, many computers today use 16-bit or 32-bit words. The telephone network uses eight bits. So you have to do some playing with them to make them organize properly to handle all the various functions that happen in a communication network.

MR. FREIMAN:

Q. I would like to discuss one other mode of connecting to the Internet, and that is the Internet service provider. We sometimes hear the concept of direct line. Can we talk about that?

A. If I have sufficient volume of connection to the Internet ‑‑ that is, I am not just somebody who goes to my computer and turns it on for a couple of hours and turns it off, but perhaps I have many people in my organization who are on the Internet all the time, or even I as an individual am on all the time. It can often be much more efficient from an economical point of view and many other points of view to have what is called a dedicated circuit. This is a circuit rather like some of the ones we showed earlier for dedicated connection to the long distance network, in which I go to somebody who has circuits available, which is virtually always the phone company, and say, "I want a circuit that I am going to use 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from A to B. What will you charge me for that?" They give you a price, and you decide whether it makes more sense to do that or to dial through the network.

The other advantage to doing this is that often you can get a much higher speed which (a) means that you get faster connection, but it also means that many users can share that connection because they are on and off so quickly.

Here we have a situation where a company has multiple computers and they have what is labelled a server. A server is a communication computer. It might have a batch of modems in it. If that dedicated circuit is analog, which it could be, it could have some modems whose job it is to take the computer information, the computers inside, translate them into analog and send them off together. More likely, it is going to be a digital device of some type, a digital modem equivalent. That goes, in this case, directly to the Internet service provider. Because it is working full-time, I don't have to dial a separate phone number every time I want to connect on; it is just always on. It is like having a telephone line that I never hang up.

In fact, this could be a description of my office. We have, in fact, a normal telephone line, an ISDN digital telephone line. We just never hang it up, so it is there seven days a week, 24 hours a day, for us, and everybody in the office can share that connection.

Q. Does that initial connection, the one that goes from the terminal to a modem and ends up at the Internet service provider use the physical circuits of the telephone network or does it avoid those physical circuits?

A. In most cases it will be a telephone company provided circuit, part of the telephone network. There are instances ‑‑ and I have one on the next page ‑‑ where you can bypass the local telephone network entirely.

Q. Before we talk about how you do that, you say that in most cases it is part of the telephone company but that in some it is not. When you say "most" and "some," does it mean that it is nearly equal balance?

A. No. When I am saying "most" here, I am talking ‑‑ the availability of alternative methods is something that has happened in the last 12 months, 14 months at most, in most cases. We are talking 95 or 98 per cent of it, maybe more, that is still the telephone network, and a small percentage is coming from other service providers.

Q. Maybe we can talk about that alternate method of getting to the Internet service provider. How does that happen? What are these alternate means?

A. Conceptually, our situation is something like this, where we are skipping over the phone network on that yellow circuit at the top to get to an Internet service provider. There is a number of possible ways of doing that.

First of all, the cable television industry has begun to go into the business of providing connections to the Internet, and they actually operate as an Internet service provider themselves. In some parts around here there is a service called The Wave, which is available in Newmarket and a couple of other areas of Toronto, in which you can connect to an Internet service provider through your cable television circuit. You are actually physically using their cables. You then reach the Internet service provider who, in this case, is actually Rogers. They are providing the circuit themselves.

Another way would be to use microwave radio services. There is not a great deal of that, but there is some, where I would have a small antenna on my roof that broadcasts. There are some companies that have been licensed to do that, but they are very recent and there is not very much commercial activity.

Another way that is kind of a partial way of doing this involves using satellite. Hughes in the United States and in conjunction with Telesat in Canada have a service they call DirectPC, in which I have a satellite dish that allows me to connect to the Internet. In that case, it is a hybrid. What it does is send you information from the Internet through the satellite but, when you are talking back to the Internet from your computer, you use a local phone line. It is very difficult from a house to send up to a satellite; the power is too great. That is one where you would use the phone and some other service at the same time.

At least hypothetically, although I am not aware of any cases, I could go out and put in my own physical wire. There is no logical reason why I couldn't; I just don't know of anybody who does it.

Q. Let us be sure that we understand the diagram. Is there a comparison to be done between A and B or are they part of the same circuit?

A. My example here was to show: Suppose I was a subscriber to Rogers' Wave or to one of the other services from a cable company and I am connected to the Internet, and I wanted, again, to connect to an Internet location which I have marked as B. My connection would go over the local physical section ‑‑ that is, I am skipping this local dial-up piece, the piece where I dial the phone number. I go in to the Internet service provider, but then I would have to go back through the telephone network in order to connect to B.

In fact, because so much of the Internet is still dependent on the telephone network, it is improbable to an extraordinary extent that you would find yourself entirely not on the telephone company's facilities. The call is going to be on the phone network somewhere; the connection is somewhere on the telephone network.

Q. I was going to ask you that, and maybe I can ask it directly. If one does connect in the first step from the originating terminal to the Internet service provider by an alternative means ‑‑ and let's just refresh our memories. Can you tell us whether that is a usual or a rare instance?

A. It is rare today.

Q. If one does that, has one taken the entire Internet connection from point A to point B out of the telephone network?

A. No, one has not. In excess of 95 per cent

‑‑ and I don't know an exact number, but a very large percentage of the Internet will continue to be on the telephone network. What you have eliminated is what is sometimes in the industry called "the last mile." The piece between you and the Internet service provider in this case is now not in the phone network.

Q. Would anything be changed if not only the first step between the originating terminal and the Internet service provider, but the last step between the Internet service provider and the receiving terminal has also avoided the telephone network?

A. The only way I can think of that happening here would be if I were a subscriber to Rogers' Wave, as an example, and I sent a message or connected to another computer which was connected to Rogers' Wave that is in my neighbourhood, so that we are entirely in the local environment. It could be possible that you could have non-telephone circuits end to end.

Q. But for connections that use what we call the Internet backbone ‑‑

A. No. If you get to the Internet backbone, you are on the telephone network, telephone facilities, absolutely.

Q. We have looked at the first connection that goes from the terminal to the Internet service provider or, conversely, from the Internet service provider back to the destination terminal. What is the next step?

A. The next step is for the Internet service provider to connect to what is usually called the Internet backbone. People often think that, when they are connected to that Internet service provider, that is the Internet. In fact, all of this is the Internet in a certain sense, but the big component that really makes the Internet work, the backbone, is a separate operation. You have Internet service providers which are companies that then have connections to the backbone.

Q. Let's talk about those connections for a minute. How are the Internet service providers connected to the Internet?

A. They, again, rent circuits that are in the telephone network from telephone companies, that use telco which is the common abbreviation.

Q. Are you aware of any instances where that link or hop avoids the telephone network?

A. No, I am not.

Q. What happens next?

A. Then you are inside the Internet, and this is actually the most complicated part. Inside the Internet you have Internet backbone providers. These are the companies that really run the big connections in the Internet. In Canada, Bell Advanced Communications, which is part of the Bell Canada operation, operates most of this. fONOROLA operates some. There are a few others. Sprint has some; AT&T has some. In the United States, MCI runs a great deal of this.

What you have then is specialized computers which do that job I talked about ‑‑ that is, making sure the packets get sent around and, if they get lost, resends them and so on ‑‑ and then links between those, depending on how busy they are. A link between Toronto and New York City is going to be a much bigger and more powerful link than a link between Coboconk and Bramalea ‑‑ Bramalea is not a good example because it is a busy place, but between two small towns.

What you have there are circuits that link those various ‑‑ I put them as green boxes there, but they are various computers that control traffic in the Internet. They then place those digital bits and packets onto those circuits which are, in Canada, Stentor facilities mostly and a couple of other telephone companies.

Q. Are you aware of any instance in which the Internet backbone is provided by some means other than lines leased from the telephone companies?

A. The physical lines are provided by telephone companies. I am not aware of any that are not.

Q. Can we just understand what you are saying there with the green arrows between the green squares?

A. Those are the circuits, the routes by which calls can move from point to point and point to point in the Internet.

Q. I wonder if we could just pause for a minute and summarize what we have seen so far in terms of the relationship between the Internet and the telephone network.

A. I said at the beginning that the Internet is a virtual network that operates over the physical network provided by the telephone company. What I have said here in my summary is that almost all communication to, from and within the Internet travels on shared and leased circuits or shared and dedicated circuits which are owned by telephone companies and are part of the telephone network. Some parts of the Internet use other types of facilities, and I have identified those, but they are a tiny minority of the circuits, and users don't have the option of saying, "I want it to be all on those circuits." It just doesn't happen.

MR. FREIMAN: We are moving on to the fourth question. I know we won't be able to get through that question. I am wondering whether it might be more opportune to rise now so that we can have the evidence all at once.

THE CHAIRPERSON: We will adjourn until 10:30 on Monday.

‑‑- Whereupon the Hearing adjourned at 3:54 p.m.

to resume on Monday, December 15, 1997 at 10:30 a.m.