The Ministry of Innovation, Science and Economic Development outlined those priorities in a new policy direction to the CRTC Monday. The document tells the CRTC what to consider when issuing decisions and making policy involving issues such as wireless and wireline internet services.
The government told the CRTC to consider how its decisions encourage “all forms of competition and investment” and how they “foster affordability and lower prices,” as well as how they “enhance and protect the rights of consumers in their relationships with” telecom companies.
Among other key objectives, the CRTC must look at ensuring the availability of “affordable access to high-quality, reliable and resilient telecommunications services” in all regions of Canada, and reducing barriers to market entry for new and smaller telecom companies.
The policy direction from the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development is focused on telecom-related issues. The CRTC will receive a separate policy direction from Heritage on how to implement the Liberal government’s controversial online streaming legislation, Bill C-11, at a later date.
The previous version of the policy direction told the CRTC to “rely on market forces to the maximum extent feasible.” That has been removed now that the new direction is in place, officials confirmed in a technical briefing.
The final version of the direction released Monday is largely similar to a draft version released in the spring, which was supported by small telecoms who depend on wholesale access to the networks of the largest incumbent telecom companies. Five of Canada’s largest telecom companies earned 87 per cent of revenues in 2020.
The CRTC has in recent years been under criticism from consumer advocates for its handling of the wholesale internet regime, who blame the CRTC for a wave of acquisitions in the sector that have seen independent ISPs bought by big telecoms.
The regulator’s new chairperson, Vicky Eatrides, told National Post shortly after starting in the job in January that the current wholesale wireline model isn’t working.
The big telecoms criticized the draft policy direction when it was released in the spring. In written comments, Bell told the government the document “provides directions that are so specific and prescriptive that they lie beyond the powers” the government has under the Telecom Act.
Officials told reporters in a background briefing the government “flat out” disagreed with those arguments from the big telecom companies.
Consumer advocates took issue with the draft policy direction from the other side, arguing it was too permissive. The Public Interest Advocacy Centre called it a “largely toothless instrument,” and said it should be rewritten “to be directive, not suggestive.”
Appearing at the House of Commons industry committee Monday afternoon, Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne said the policy direction is “the first one in many, many years, which puts competition and price at the center of that directive.”
He said “we want to see better prices, more competition, and we want to see innovation in the sector.”
Champagne was also questioned about the $26-billion Rogers-Shaw deal, which would see two of Canada’s five biggest telecom companies merge while spinning off Freedom Mobile to Quebecor. Freedom Mobile has been credited with driving down prices as the fourth competitor in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia.
Champagne has final approval over the deal, but he said Monday he’s not in a hurry to make the decision about whether the merger will go ahead or not, even as the companies have extended a self-imposed extended deadline to Feb. 17.
He said he’s not bound “by any artificial deadline. I’m the regulator. I will make my decision whenever I come to the conclusion that we have looked at every aspect… I want to be very clear with Canadians there is no deadline.”
Source: https://theprovince.com/news/crtc-telecom-policy-competition-affordability