OTTAWA and GATINEAU — The CRTC announced today it is now inviting comments from Canadians about the actions it should take to improve telecommunications services in the Far North, an area it defines as including Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Yukon, 17 communities in northern British Columbia, and Fort Fitzgerald, Alberta.
This marks the second phase of the CRTC’s consultation about the state of telecom services in northern Canada. The first phase was launched in November 2020.
“During the first phase of the consultation, residents of the Far North told us that everyone living in Canada should have affordable access to telecommunications services…
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OTTAWA – Minister of Canadian Heritage Pablo Rodriguez has always emphatically said no, Bill C-11, the Online Streaming Act, does not capture individual creators or user-generated content (UGC).
He said this when he first introduced the bill, and he did so again earlier this week during question period. “Platforms are in, and users are out,” he said.
Section 2.1 does specify that a person using a social media service to upload content online to be viewed by other users of the service does not carry on a broadcasting undertaking for the purpose of the act, unless they are “the provider…
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OTTAWA – Last week, the CRTC posted a part one application from several service providers who came together to ask the Commission to review the wholesale roaming tariff rates of the country’s national wireless carriers (Bell Mobility, Rogers Communications and Telus Communications), calling them “manifestly unjust and unreasonable”.
“This application deals with the flagrant overcharging for wholesale roaming – an essential service that stands as one of the central pillars of the Commission’s policy framework for ensuring sustainable competition in the provision of mobile wireless services in Canada,” reads the application, which was filed by regional competitors Bragg Communications Inc….
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By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – Recently, the federal government posted an appointment opportunity on the Privy Council website for the chairperson of the CRTC and its vice-chairperson.
To the dismay of some, working knowledge of both official languages is not a requirement.
In Ottawa jargon, the post reads: “Proficiency in both official languages would be preferred.”
In question period today, the Bloc Québécois raised the issue: “For them (the Liberals), it is okay to appoint someone who doesn’t speak French to oversee a whole segment of our culture,” said Martin Champoux, the Bloc’s critic for Canadian Heritage, in French, after stating that French…
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By Howard Law
HERITAGE MINISTER PABLO RODRIGUEZ has promised a policy directive to the CRTC with cabinet instructions on implementing Bill C-11.
Point number one in the new directive should be making the certification of Canadian content more relevant to the Canadian experience by including qualitative judgments of national subject matter in the video content. I posted about this recently, as have others. The signal from the minister is that he has an open mind to it.
Point number two is to direct the CRTC to reappraise the existing regulatory supports for the money-losing local news industry.
Point number three is what to do…
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Also disappointed wholesale rates will not be reversed
By Ahmad Hathout
INDEPENDENT INTERNET SERVICE providers said they are “encouraged” by the direction the federal government is taking in its proposal Thursday for a new policy direction to the telecom regulator, despite the government also denying a request to overturn the Internet access costs on which the direction focuses.
“They’re going to have a very clear roadmap for how the government expects them to regulate this industry,” Matt Stein, CEO of Distributel and the Competitive Network Operators of Canada, a trade group for independent ISPs, said in an interview, adding he…
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Not the legacy an outgoing chair would want
By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – The federal government had until tomorrow to respond to the cabinet appeal of the CRTC’s decision on wholesale rates, in which the CRTC voided its own decision and made interim rates (from 2016) permanent and today, on May 26, they issued a proposed policy direction in response to the three appeals from stakeholders.
The language in the backgrounder issued with the proposed policy direction seems to lay severe blame on the CRTC’s recent decisions:
requiring large companies to continue to give access to competitors at regulated rates so…
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The new direction also axes ‘market forces,’ a remnant from the 2006 directive
By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – A new telecommunications policy directive to the CRTC proposed by Innovation Canada today has replaced the 2006 directive that focused on market forces and added an emphasis on improved wholesale rates, but the department at the same time denied a petition to reverse a CRTC decision that did not review lower rates.
There is no mention in the new proposed directive of a requirement for the CRTC to view decisions that allow for market forces to the greatest extent possible, which was central…
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By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – Last week, on May 19, the CRTC issued a decision to reverse a previous decision and cancel penalties worth $250,000 against two companies delivering ads on computers without the consent of their owners, contrary to the Anti-Spam Act.
In 2015, investigators from the Commission identified five IP addresses linked to Datablocks and Sunlight Media Networks “that appeared to be redirecting users to webpages hosting exploit kits.”
“An ‘exploit kit’ is a collection of multiple exploits that affect unsecure software applications. Each exploit kit is customized to search for specific vulnerabilities and execute the corresponding exploit for the…
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OTTAWA – Minister of Canadian Heritage Pablo Rodriguez says he has heard the criticisms of the CRTC, but he still believes the time has come to modernize it, and in doing so, entrust it with regulating online platforms through bills C-11 (the Online Streaming Act) and C-18 (the Online News Act).
“Some argue that the CRTC is not responsive to consumers and creators, that it lacks the expertise and resources to deal with the new legislation,” Rodriguez said during the final keynote speech at the International Institute of Communications Canada’s annual conference yesterday.
Rodriguez acknowledged that essentially, some say…
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