OTTAWA – In a press conference on Monday, the NDP presented a document it obtained which it says shows the governing Conservatives are pushing ahead with plans to strip foreign ownership limitations on broadcast and telecom companies.
The document will be tabled as Canada’s official position at General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS) discussions which opened in Geneva Monday. It commits Canada to strip foreign ownership limitations in telecom — with profound implications for telephone, cable and ultimately broadcast services. This position also runs counter to present Canadian law, says the NDP.
NDP Heritage Critic Charlie Angus (Timmins-James Bay) "says the drive for radical deregulation echoes positions lobbied for by the right-wing Montreal Economic Institute while Bernier served as its Executive Vice-President," says the party’s press release.
“The Conservatives are clearly moving on an agenda to strip Canadian ownership of our telecom and cable systems. It will be a bad deal for consumers. It will be a bad deal for Canadian industry, and it will be especially bad for our cultural industries.”
In the document, Canada joins a group of GATS signatories asking that foreign ownership rules over the telecommunications industry be eliminated in countries governed by the international agreement. The release says that removing these restrictions "will threaten the viability of domestic content quotas for music and television."
“It’s a joke to suggest we can strip foreign ownership limitations on television and radio while asking for firewall protection for our beleaguered cultural industries. If we go down this road we will see the inevitable gutting of Canadian broadcast law.”
Also in the press release, NDP Industry critic Brian Masse said the convergence of telephone, cable, broadcast and movie distribution services means moving to deregulate one segment will have profound implications throughout the industry.
“The convergence of the telecom and broadcast has made it impossible to relax the ownership rules for cable without having serious implications for the broadcast elements of these corporations,” said Masse. “Before any moves are made to pursue such an agenda, this issue must be brought forward to Parliament and the Canadian public.”
As for the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers union, it weighed in, too, saying the federal government must immediately put an end to "secret trade talks" which open the domestic telephone industry to foreign ownership.
"This sector is of fundamental importance to sustaining and expanding both national and regional economic development. Who in their right mind would want to turn it over to foreign interests?" said Brian Payne, president of the union
"If our trade bureaucrats at the GATS talks have decided on their own to use telecommunications as a bargaining chip, they are doing so contrary to existing Canadian law and should be ordered to stop. If they are doing it under orders from their political masters, that is even worse," said Payne. "If the Government thinks it doesn’t have enough votes in Parliament, it should not be attempting to change legislation through the back door.
"Technological convergence and cross ownership have rendered telecommunications and broadcasting one industry. Lifting foreign ownership restrictions on one segment will lead to foreign control of both. And if that happens, nothing less than Canada’s cultural sovereignty is at risk along with literally thousands of well paying jobs," added Payne.
