Social Policy in Ontario

There are few sectors that are as important or as wealthy as the telecom industry. Its leaders — Rogers, Shaw, Vidéotron, Cogeco and Eastlink — control almost all the technological market for wireless network services, among other things. Recent government efforts to open up the market to smaller and independent operators have been met with staunch opposition. The telecoms’ challenge to these efforts is now at the Supreme Court level.

To date, this pushback has been unsuccessful in both political and judicial forums. The Federal Court of Appeal considered their claim to be of “dubious merit” under the relevant administrative law doctrines. However, while their chances of obtaining leave to the Supreme Court are slim, it is the telecoms’ supporting rhetoric as to why leave should be granted that is most disturbing.

Apart from some strained legal arguments about cabinet impropriety, they basically argue that the status quo is in the best interest of all Canadians, not only themselves. In short, they insist that, without a reversal in regulatory policy of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, “the future of the internet in Canada could well be adversely affected to the detriment of all Canadians.”

This seems a stretch at best. Telecom giants control and profit significantly from Wi-Fi; Canadians pay more for wireless services than anyone else in the world and, as a result, Canadian companies make more per user than any others in the world. It is not at all clear, therefore, that “all Canadians” will be ill-served by a breakup of the existing and effective oligopoly. The rationale of the government intervention is to ensure that “all Canadians” can access a decent level of Wi-Fi service.

For example, I live part of the time only 40 minutes (or less on a good traffic day) outside the Greater Toronto Area. Although the service in the GTA is world-class, the Wi-Fi service at my home is pitiful. None of the telecom giants offer service there, as the infrastructure is too poor. Not only that, but efforts at hotspot streaming from and Zoom sessions on my phone are also too spotty and inconsistent to be reliable. It is also an expensive way to cope.

Satellite service is available, but that is also fickle and more expensive than in the GTA. So to argue that “all Canadians” would be better off if the telecom giants could keep on keeping on is entirely unconvincing. If the big companies are not prepared to extend their services even such a short distance outside the GTA, there is no reason at all why other smaller and independent operators should not be allowed to step in and fill the gap — even through the telecom giants’ networks.

In their brief to the Supreme Court, the telecoms add rhetorical insult to this sizable injury. They are brazen enough to suggest that those who might be adversely affected by changes include “the most vulnerable among us who already suffer due to the digital divide.” The lumping together of mega-corporations and the “adversely affected” into a generic “us” is nothing less than offensive.

If there is a “digital divide” (and there surely is), this has been brought about and sustained by the telecom companies themselves. Those who fall on the wrong side of the digital divide do so because telecom giants put heavy profits well above general access; they have created the very situation that they claim government intervention would exacerbate, not improve.

As access to internet services becomes less of a luxury and more a necessity, telecom giants need to be brought to heel. The privilege that they have been accorded to date in providing these highly lucrative services must come with greater responsibility to ensure all Canadians obtain reliable and sufficient Wi-Fi access. Tech companies should exist as much to serve us as to profit from us.

Government must move toward a vigorous telecommunications policy and practice that puts their money where their mouth is. Righteous pronouncements about “Wi-Fi access as a social right” will mean little if there is not on-the-ground implementation. If it is as bad as it is 40 minutes outside Toronto, what can it be like elsewhere? The answer is plain — northern communities or rural Eastern Canada have little or no access.

Canadians are no doubt looking with interest at the fate of Big Tech in the United States. But they would be well-advised to pay greater heed to what is going on in our own backyard. Canada needs to recognize that public goods — or, at least semipublic goods — are as or more important than corporate gains.