Office Document Strategies Blog

Can Government Stop CRTC - Internet Connectivity in Canada Billing?

Posted by HubSpot User Default on Mon, Feb 7, 2011 @ 17:02 PM

The Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has created a hot issue in the media and aroused a lot of outcry over their decision to force Internet Service Providers (ISP) to cap Internet usage, and charge extra billing for Internet ‘overage’.
Internet connectivity in Canada could change as a result.

For a primer on the issue read our previous blog here: Internet Connectivity in Canada - Costs Are Increasing.

Summary from Last Week:

Internet connectivity in Canada
At the end of last week the media gave the somewhat mistaken report that the CRTC ruling had been stopped by the government and many online users had rejoiced saying 'Yeaaa we won!!' and thought it had been quashed for good.    Nope not so fast! At the request of the government, the CRTC will review their recommendation and implementation has been held off from starting from the original planned date of March 1st. The CRTC will instead take 60 days to review their recommendation - it is not clear if its 60 days from announcement (Feb 3rd) or 60 days from the original implementation date of March 1st? But either way they could come back and say,  "Yes we reviewed it like you asked us to, and Yes everything is going ahead as planned."


A video report of the decision to hold off:

The bigger issue:

Does the Tory government even have the right to overrule or stop the CRTC even if they want to, and consumers want them to?

On Friday we heard that a Justice had ruled in Federal Court to strike down a Harper Government Cabinet decision from 2009 to overrule the CRTC decision regarding the entry into the telecommunications market of Wind mobile due to excessive foreign ownership. This now puts Wind Mobile's future in jeopardy.The justice then went on to scold Industry Minister Tony Clement (a former student of his) to remember his legal P's and Q's about what Cabinet could and couldn't do under law.

Read more about the decision and Justice Roger Hughes comments here:

Bottom line: We need to keep the pressure on if we don't want to be paying more for internet usage. As this has a big potential impact on consumers and business it is important we keep following this issue closely. Keep being heard over this issue and contact your member of Parliament and stay involved on line.

What will you do?

How businesses could be affected by this extra billing

Ian Leppert

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Topics: internet connectivity in Canada, Canadian Legislation, cost of internet