Blais pans, prophesizes in end-of-term speech

CRTC Chairman Jean-Pierre Blais used what may prove to be his final address as head of the telecom regulator to issue recriminations for past practice and predictions for the future of the country’s cultural industries and the CRTC itself. “I will not apologize for speaking the truth to power. That’s my job. I am fastidiously predictable in my approach and my policy thinking. If you missed it, you have been looking too nostalgically in the rear view mirror,” Blais told the audience at the Banff World Media Festival in Alberta Tuesday morning, according to a copy of his remarks. The speech came as Blais’ five-year tenure draws to a close, and he said that over the years, there has been too much of a focus on maintaining the status quo. “Thinking in government and indeed in industry — in this room — is still flawed. It’s focused all too much on traditional divisions between broadcasting and telecommunications,” he said. “I’m deeply concerned by the fact that some people in industry and in government continue to bang their heads against the wall and argue on the margins of traditional institutions when we’re in the midst of a sea change.” Blais called out the core of the Banff event’s audience for a lack of participation in recent proceedings, such as the ones that led to December’s basic telecom services decision or the rules surrounding differential pricing practices, like zero rating. “How many people from the cultural sector — from the entities you all represent — attended any of these public hearings or participated in the proceedings? Not many,” he said. “It’s hard to ignite broadcasters’ passions for something as apparently dry as access to broadband. Pity.” The outgoing chairman also fired shots at critics of the CRTC’s recent licence renewal decision, which included a standardization of expenditure requirements for Canadian programming. “It’s disheartening to me to see that the same people who portend nothing short of ‘the devastation of Canadian domestic production’ as a result of CRTC policies are also conspicuously silent on matters that cast the CRTC in a more favourable light,” Blais said, citing the regulator’s take on Sirius XM Canada Holdings Inc.’s privatization plan. In granting approval, the CRTC also required the company to pay out nearly $29 million to music development organizations. Looking ahead to the CRTC’s next five years, Blais said he foresees both the end of print journalism and Canadian music quotas on the radio and that there could be a need for the regulator to step in to increase wireless competition. Despite a tradition of network sharing that makes the country’s networks more efficient than those of its southern counterpart, Blais said that “due to several factors, including the high cost of competitive entry and because all network components are utilized, we have yet to see a level of competition that puts downward pressure on retail rates.” Achieving that pressure could be done through one of three CRTC interventions, “none of which is ideal,” Blais said — regulating retail prices, mandating wholesale access for mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), and reviewing the “impact network sharing among facilities-based providers has on competition.” He noted that Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains, in announcing his direction for the CRTC to reconsider its decision on wholesale roaming by wireless providers last week, “has implicitly opened the door to the abandonment of facilities-based competition.” Last year, the CRTC denied a request to review MVNO wholesale access rules, saying the potential investments MVNOs could make were outweighed by the "hundreds of millions of dollars" invested by new wireless entrants and existing regional carriers. The regulator also said that the question of “whether it is appropriate for the Commission to mandate a wholesale service, and … whether continued forbearance from the regulation of a wholesale service remains appropriate are two separate issues with different legal bases.” Blais also took aim at the government, calling for increased CRTC independence and harkening back to cabinet ministers making public statements on issues before the CRTC during a public proceeding. He said he wanted to see longer terms for commissioners — seven years, as opposed to the current five — and noted though that he’s had 16 commissioner colleagues since 2012, “too few of them women,” there hasn’t been anyone appointed to a permanent full-time spot on the board since the fall of 2015. “This is just bad governance,” he said. The government currently has to fill four positions at the CRTC, including the chair. — With reporting by Charelle Evelyn at cevelyn@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

Blais pans, prophesizes in end-of-term speech

Broadcast | June 13, 2017

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Blais pans, prophesizes in end-of-term speech

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