OTTAWA – The federal government should open up broadcasting to market forces if it does the same for telecommunications, Cogeco Cable says.
The cableco says it welcomes the telecom policy review panel report issued Wednesday that recommends the feds reduce government and regulatory interference in telecommunications as much as possible. But that should extend to broadcasting, Cogeco says. While the panel’s mandate did not include examining broadcasting, its report did strongly urge the government to conduct a similar review of the broadcasting industry.
Cogeco agrees. “The report of the policy review panel is thought-provoking. However, it does not provide the assurance that all sectors of the information and communications technologies, in terms of both the means of communication and access to the full range of content and services, will be equally made subject to market forces according to the demands of Canadian consumers,” said Yves Mayrand, Vice President, Corporate Affairs of Cogeco Cable. “For us, it is fundamentally important that market forces and the reduction of government interference should extend not only to traditional telecommunications services such as telephony but also to the full range of services offered by wireline and wireless networks,” Mayrand said in a statement.
Cogeco said the report’s recommendation banning appeals to the federal cabinet of CRTC decisions, used by incumbent phone companies (and other industry players, such as broadcasters), is “useful.”
If the government adopts the panel’s suggested deregulation moves for telecom, it could result in a “truly competitive industry,” the Cogeco statement said.
However, the company is “not convinced” that new regulatory bodies, such as the Telecommunications Competition Tribunal suggested by the report, be established. The government must also clarify what it means by “significant market power,” a term the report used to describe incumbent providers in areas where there are fewer services to consumers, and where the panel wants more consumer protection and less deregulation.
In an interview with cartt.ca late yesterday, Vidéotron’s director of regulatory affairs, Dennis Beland, said he hadn’t had time to review the panel report (a whopping 400 pages). “It definitely seems to be a pretty impressive body of work but I can’t really give you any reaction beyond that.”
