OTTAWA – Count the Green Party firmly on the slow and steady side of telecom regulation reform.
“A few monopolistic telecommunications firms will make out like bandits, while consumers will lose with worsening service and higher prices,” said party president Elizabeth May in a release sent Thursday – after Industry Minister Maxime Bernier’s policy directive to the CRTC overruling its local forbearance decision went into force.
Bernier "has disregarded the wishes of both the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission and a Parliamentary committee," notes the Green Party release.
“Analysts are already predicting that a market with only a few major competitors will not generate sufficient competition to pass any savings on to consumers. Mr. Bernier should have respected the expertise of the CRTC in this case," added May.
As former associate general counsel to the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, Green Party leader Elizabeth May has a background in telecommunications and consumer law. She also served as a lawyer for the National Anti-Poverty Organization in the mid-1980s during Bell rate hearings before the CRTC.
