Broadband Internet - competition stifled by Liberals ( while you are busy watching covid-19 news Trudeau slips this through).

[JohnnyCanuck]

While you are caught up in the Covid-19 frenzy, Trudeau is quietly slipping through orders in council, free from any parliament oversight or questioning. On August 15, 2020, Cabinet issued an order that included its expectations that the CRTC amend the terms of a decision it issued in August, 2019, which found that the rates charged by the incumbent major telecom and cable companies (such as Bell Canada, Rogers and Videotron) for internet services for at least the past four years were not "just and reasonable".   https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/vmedia-federal-cabinet-condemns-canadian-families-to-higher-internet-prices-in-bailout-of-big-telcos-870332467.html   

Summary: the incumbent big telecoms are spinning the line that they cannot afford to support the Liberal policy dream of broadband coverage over 95% of Canada, if they are forced to compete with each other in the cities. So without extracting any commitment from these big telecoms to actually build anything, Trudeau says 'at your service sir'.

The full text of Cabinet's decision (https://www.canada.ca/en/innovation-science-economic-development/news/2020/08/order-in-council-responding-to-petitions-to-the-governor-in-council-concerning-telecom-order-crtc-2019-288.html) contained elements so supportive of the incumbents that lawyers for the incumbents immediately raced to the FCA with a request that the Court reopen the record and take the contents of the order and the Minister's statement into consideration in its deliberations.

I was very surprised to hear that a boot-licking entity like the CRTC had even dared to suggest that  'unreasonable' broadband prices are being charged. I am not surprised to find that Trudeau's puppeteers wait until the middle of the covid crisis to jerk his hand to signing the refutation of the CRTC's suggestion.

[WestCanMan]

To be honest, I see a lot of memes and hear complaints that wireless costs 4x as much in Canada as everywhere else. IMO it's to be expected.

We have 40M people spread out over 10M sq km. Providing coverage to 10M sq km with only 40M residents = 4 people per sq km. 

I can easily see the difference between coverage in Canada and coverage in Japan. I don't expect to pay the same price that they do. They have 200 people per sq km. They have 50x as many people per service area.

How fair is it for companies to build infrastructure to cover most of Canada, and then compete with companies that don't build anything, and just operate in urban areas?

I hate Trudeau more than you hate disease and suffering, but I'm on side with people who say that Canada's wireless should be much more expensive than everyone else's. 

[cannuck]

While it is very true that we have an expensive geo-political landscape to negotiate in order to provide wireless service, I seem to remember that there was once a direct line to the PMO through Chretien's son.  I am sure that still exists and is being exercised regularly.   From a partisan perspective: just remember who let Wind in without the CRTC BS and dramatically dropped cell phone costs across Canada - and that same massive drop in revenue did not seem to bankrupt a single provider.