We're still waiting to see if Christian Paradis, the Minister of Industry, will put an end to the Big Telecom’s backroom deal. This is the deal that would allow Rogers to acquire public assets from Shaw, which were intended for independent wireless start-ups. This, of course, would threaten independent ISPs and would minimize your choice as a cell phone user.
Paraphrasing what one of our online supporters, Deva Nadesan writes, “How is this benefiting Canadians when these indies are being set up to fail from the start?”
We agree with you, Deva. A deal like the Shaw-Rogers one would translate to a lack of competition in our cell phone market, less choice for Canadians, and higher prices. Like you, we believe that Canada can do better.
The overwhelming support from Canadians for choice in the cell phone market has put some pressure on Paradis as he recently said, “The intent of the policy was not to have this set-aside spectrum to end (up) in the hands of incumbents.”
Paradis has the power to put an end to this deal, and already over 34,000 Canadians have spoken out through our DemandChoice.ca petition to tell him to take action.
We are still seeking a commitment from Paradis to put an end to the deal. His acknowledgement of the policy abuse by Shaw and Rogers speaks to the power of our voices as a community continuing to demand fairness and choice in our telecommunications market. Let's keep going.
That’s all for today, Canada. Thanks for watching. For the Internet, this is Lindsey and Arielle signing off!