Singh says he would use laws to meet telecom affordability goals

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh said his party could use laws to direct the telecoms industry toward more affordable services following decisions from the CRTC that have been criticized for being anti-consumer and anti-competitive. His comments come at a Tuesday press conference held outside of a Rogers Communications Inc. office in Toronto. During the press conference, Singh returned to NDP campaign items that have been raised throughout the election process, including the cost of cell phone and internet bills throughout Canada. He again promised price caps, mandating mandatory unlimited data plans without data speeds being slowed after certain data usage, and low-cost options. While he did not specify if his party would try to outright order the CRTC to reverse decisions on mobile virtual network operators or wholesale internet access rates as groups such as the Competitive Network Operators of Canada (CNOC) have suggested, Singh said Tuesday the NDP could “put in place laws that indicate where we want to go with things in terms of what our priorities are.” “What we’re proposing to do is to provide low-cost options to Canadians and one of the ways to do that is, the infrastructure that these big telecom companies have, right now a low-cost alternative can’t use it,” Singh told reporters. “We know that just making a change to allow for the low-cost operators to use the existing infrastructure would really open up a lot of low-cost options for Canadians. That’s what we want to see happen. It’s happened in the states and it lowered the cost for people.” Singh once again took aim at Trudeau and the Conservatives for allowing “the big telecom companies to exploit us,” during their previous mandates. “We’re standing in front of Rogers; there’s a Rogers-Shaw merger in the talks, we think that’s going to make things even worse. It’s going to be even more of a monopoly,” Singh said. Singh was the first party leader to explicitly oppose Rogers’ plan to acquire Shaw Communications Inc. Conservative leader Erin O’Toole said last week that his party would stand against mergers that could hurt consumer interests, but did not name the Rogers-Shaw merger. Meanwhile, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau did not directly answer when asked about it by The Wire Report during question period after Wednesday’s second French-language debate. The NDP’s platform costing documents released over the weekend show $750 million in spending on rural internet over five years. When asked by The Wire Report Tuesday to elaborate on what this funding is for, Singh did not specify. Earlier in his press conference, Singh returned to a plan by his party to establish a Crown corporation “to ensure the delivery of quality, affordable telecom service to every community,” as the party states in its platform. “One of the proposals that we put forward is looking at putting in place a publicly-owned Crown corporation to invest in the infrastructure necessary to connect communities that don’t have access to the internet. We know that right now that is a vital infrastructure piece,” he said Tuesday.

Singh says he would use laws to meet telecom affordability goals

Brief | September 14, 2021

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Singh says he would use laws to meet telecom affordability goals

Brief | September 14, 2021

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