HALIFAX – Canada’s communications regulatory regime is in desperate need of repair, says a report by The Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS).
In the recently released ‘In The End of that ’70’s Show: Rethinking Canada’s Communications Regulatory Institutions for the 21st Century’, report author and former AIMS research director Ian Munro says technological advances have made the existing regime obsolete.
"Long gone are the days when the telecommunications and broadcasting sectors were distinct entities," Munro said in a statement. "Yet the regulatory regime still treats them as such, which creates inefficient duplication and complete disconnects across government agencies and departments with responsibilities for different aspects of regulating Canada’s communications sector."
In order to improve effectiveness, efficiency and accountability of communications regulation, the report recommends institutional changes such as:
– The CRTC should revamp its licensing process so that licences resemble property rights, and where demand exceeds supply, they should be awarded (and fees set) via a well-structured auction process;
– The CRTC should relinquish its economic regulation role except where retail or wholesale price regulation is required as a result of a Competition Bureau finding that a market is insufficiently competitive;
– The CRTC should relinquish its role in cultural regulation and the era of Canadian content requirements should end;
– The Competition Bureau should become the sole agency responsible for competition policy in communications marketplaces;
– Industry Canada should retreat to a role of setting broad economic policy for the communications sector; and
– The Department of Canadian Heritage should retain its role in setting broad cultural policy, but any failure of the market to provide certain cultural goods and services should be addressed by financing out of general tax revenues rather than by specific levies on communications service providers and/or customers.
"It’s time to get rid of the antiquated rules that control Canada’s communications industry," said incoming AIMS president Charles Cirtwill, in a statement. "The rules were made for an era before iPhones, webcasts, VOIP, and e-communication. It is the Canadian consumer who is paying the price."
AIMS is an independent, non-partisan, social and economic policy think tank based in Halifax.
