By Christopher Guly
OTTAWA – The CRTC requires a reassessment of its role as a telecom regulator following its decision last week to reverse its 2019 decision to set lower wholesale broadband rates for third-party internet access providers, NDP telecommunications critic Brian Masse told Cartt.ca during a news conference on Tuesday.
“There is such a variance amongst the predictabilities necessary for a modern administrator that it requires a review,” he said. “The leadership has undermined itself.”
However, the Windsor West MP stopped short of joining several independent ISPs who called for Scott’s removal as CRTC chief.
“He’s put himself in this position with regards to some of his personal comments,” Masse said to Cartt.ca.
During a virtual appearance at the Canadian Club in Toronto last month, Scott said that while wireless and internet prices would decrease in the short term if service providers paid to use other company’s networks, it’s an unprofitable business model in the long term since prices would eventually rise when lower-cost resellers don’t survive.
The CRTC chair said that Canada’s policy leans towards sustainable competition among telecom companies who own and operate their own networks. “In general, I would say facilities-based competition is more robust and sustained. That’s my personal view,” he said.
Masse also accused Scott of “questioning the capabilities of CRTC professionals” who evaluated all of the parties’ positions in reaching the 2019 decision, and then reversing that “on his own or with a small group.”
In Masse’s opinion, the CRTC’s recent decision both “abandons consumers” who will be left paying higher rates for high-speed internet connections when such access during the pandemic should be considered an essential service – and “abandons competition,” by making it more difficult for independent ISPs to enter the market.
The NDP has called on the federal cabinet to overturn the CRTC’s recent decision and restore the commission’s 2019 order. TekSavvy has already filed an appeal asking for the same.
At his Tuesday press conference in Ottawa, Masse also accused the federal cabinet of “undermining” the CRTC’s 2019 decision (thanks to its August 2020 order-in-council which didn’t send the decision back, but also didn’t endorse it), and he called on the government to now refund the independent ISPs at the wholesale price the CRTC set in 2019, “with a focus on refunding consumers or [as] investments to connectivity for Canadians.”
The New Democrats also want the government to immediately regulate wholesale internet prices so that they are frozen at the 2019 rate, said Masse, noting broadband prices have already increased since the CRTC’s May 27 decision.
In a news release, the NDP said that during the pandemic, the profit margin for carriers have increased by 42% in the wireless sector and by 44% in the broadband sector. The party also accused the federal Liberals of breaking their 2019 election promise to reduce wireless prices by 25%, even though, when it comes to the limited packages the government is monitoring, prices are falling.
During Question Period in the House of Commons on Monday, Pierre Poilievre, the Official Opposition shadow minister for jobs and industry, raised that campaign commitment, against the backdrop of “the exceptionally high prices that Canadians already pay for connectivity that is much less expensive in other OECD countries.”
Poilievre, the Conservative MP for the Ottawa riding of Carleton, asked Innovation, Science and Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne whether it was time to change the “uncompetitive oligopoly” of the large telecoms and “provide more competition and choice to consumers?”
In response, Champagne said the government “has been relentless in promoting competition to lower prices while working to improve the quality and increase the coverage of telecom services in Canada and would continue “working with service providers and industry partners to drive investment and make telecommunication services more affordable and accessible for all Canadians.”
Masse said the Liberals “don’t understand the average citizen’s frustration and concerns over pricing and connectivity.”
“I don’t think that they personally have those experiences strong enough in their lives that they realize what takes place in a household when you have kids struggling to be online, have families working at home online – and have connectivity issues that you can’t get service or there are different packages – and the games that go on by some of the major incumbents trying to win customers.”
