OTTAWA – Industry Minister James Moore took the Big Three to task in a new statement posted to his website Tuesday evening, calling the telcos’ PR campaign pressing Ottawa to change its wireless policy a “dishonest attempt” to sway public opinion through “misleading campaigns.”
“I think Canadians know very well what is at stake and they know dishonest attempts to skew debates via misleading campaigns when they see them,” Moore said in his online statement.
Moore’s open letter was in response to criticisms of the government’s “handling of the Verizon file” levelled by Anthony Fell, a BCE board member, in a letter published in the Financial Post Tuesday.
In his letter, Fell accused the Ministry of arrogance and Minister Moore of making major decisions about telecom policy without sufficient analysis of the issues or consultation with industry stakeholders.
Fell also described the government’s wireless policy and spectrum auction rules as highly biased toward Verizon if it were to enter the Canadian market, and that they “have all the hallmarks of a political populist initiative to capitalize on a mis-informed public view that the Canadian cellular market is uncompetitive and Canadian cellphone charges are much higher in Canada than in the U.S.”
Moore responded by saying, “I can assure Mr. Fell that our policies were quite deliberate, based on a great deal of consultation with all players – including Canada’s wireless companies – and will serve Canadians well.
“Our policy is designed to benefit Canadian consumers, first and foremost – and our policy will achieve this goal.”
