Beyond the workforce, foreign control over telecom risks national security as well as personal and other confidential information. Public Safety Canada privately warned Industry Canada that their plan to open the sector up to foreign telecom providers poses a "considerable risk" to national security.
Dear Prime Minister Harper,
I am writing to express my opposition to proposed reforms to the Telecommunications Act allowing foreign-controlled corporations to buy telecom companies holding up to 10 percent of the Canadian market.
Canada’s telecom giants want a national set of standards to govern
cellphone contracts, saying emerging provincial legislation amounts to a
patchwork that would not protect consumers in all parts of the country.
BCE Inc., Rogers Communications Inc. and Telus Corp. along with the
Public Interest Advocacy Centre have called on the telecom regulator to
craft a federal consumer protection code that would apply to all mobile
device customers in Canada.
OTTAWA – Canada’s largest telecommunications union has today submitted a brief to the CRTC backing the demand of consumer and public interest groups for a national wireless code to protect consumer interests.
As much as $4 billion is lost to consumers due to a lack of regulation in the telco industry, the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada notes in its submission to the CRTC’s Telecom Notice of Consultation.
OTTAWA—A Canadian union is going to court in an effort to compel the
federal government to rule whether the recently created Postmedia
newspaper group meets Canadian ownership standards and is in Canada’s
national interest.
The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP) has
asked the Federal Court to order Heritage Minister James Moore to probe
the corporate structure of Postmedia, which publishes the National Post
and other urban dailies.
Re: Standing up to corporate gouging -- you will win (Jan. 7). I am all
for standing up to shareholders and getting the best deal for Canadians.
However, the real issue is not a lack of competition.
As of December 2011, Canada had 44 wireless carriers, which on a
per-capita basis, is the most in the world. International pricing
comparisons are inconclusive and potentially misleading when you
consider Canada's geography and the high cost of the infrastructure, the
complexity of consumer pricing plans and the variances in usage patterns.
OTTAWA – The president of Canada’s largest
telecommunications and media union, one of the intervenors in the Globalive
case, says he’s “very alarmed at yesterday’s Federal Court of Appeal ruling
which essentially gives the Harper government ‘carte blanche’ to change the
meaning of legislation.”
