OTTAWA – Canada’s largest telecommunications union said today it “stridently opposes” the federal government’s wireless policy that appears to favour New York-based Verizon Communications to enter Canada’s telecom market and potentially dominate its airwaves.
“Granting one of the biggest companies in the world special rights to public airwaves (spectrum), to buy small players and to existing companies' networks may be the most ill-conceived policy the Harper government has come up with,” said David Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP), in a media release.
“In its ideological crusade to open the telecommunications sector up to foreign ownership the Conservatives are ‘gaming the rules’ in favour of a major US-based multinational," said Coles.
Rather than allowing a foreign wireless carrier Verizon into the country’s telecom market, which Coles says would be “bad for Canada's workers, security and culture,” the union president suggested the federal government introduce pricing regulations and contract rules.
The bidding process for the 700 MHz spectrum is scheduled to begin September 17, which is Industry Canada’s deadline for down payments from buyers for the January 2014 auction. The current auction rules would give a “new entrant” such as Verizon the option to buy two of the four prime spectrum blocks up for auction whereas the incumbents would only be allowed to purchase one each.
