Rempel claims Liberals lobbied most by wireless industry in first QP as industry critic

Michelle Rempel Garner, Conservative MP for Calgary Nose Hill and her party’s newly minted critic for industry, said Friday that Canada’s wireless rates are “non-competitive,” with consumers paying for more data than both Americans and Europeans. “Over four years, the Liberals have always put Canada’s big wireless companies first, as opposed to lowering costs for Canadians, with innovative spectrum licence designs, or other ways of getting low-cost wireless access for Canadians,” she said during the inaugural question period of the new Parliament. The comments come following the release of comments on the 3.5 GHz spectrum consultation this week. In them, a theme has emerged that suggests an industry divided on the approval of a new set of Tier 5 licensing area to allow smaller companies to bid for spectrum, as well as the issue of spectrum set-asides for smaller telecom companies. Responding to Rempel, returning Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains reiterated the Liberals promise to cut wireless prices by 25 per cent, while also trumpeting his department’s consumer-focused directive to the CRTC, along with the wireless and internet codes of conduct. Speaking to reporters after question period, Rempel said that the 25 per cent price reduction measure is “fairly useless; it’s an arbitrary number that the government has put forward without any details as to achieve it. “This is the most heavily lobbied industry in the country,” she said in response to a question from The Wire Report, adding she did not think consumers or companies in the free market “should have their voices overridden by access to MPs and lobbyists.” Rempel declined to name any specific policy interventions her party is considering, but said that “surely there’s international best practice that we can employ here at home that will allow Canadians’ and consumers’ rights to be protected, as well as to ensure there is free market and competition.” Rempel was announced as the Conservative critic for industry and economic development last week. In October, the Finnish research company Rewheel released a report showing that Canadian wireless prices were more expensive than countries in the European Union. According to the report, in Canada it costs consumers €6.50 for each gigabyte of data on 4G smartphone plans with at least a thousand minutes and 3 Mbps speeds. In the United States, the same gigabyte goes for €4.60. In the 28 states of the European Union, the median price for a gigabyte of data is €1.70. Speaking to reporters outside the house of commons, the new Public Safety Minister Bill Blair declined to say when the government would make a decision on whether or not to allow Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. into Canada’s 5G wireless networks. The former Liberal government adjusted its timing on when the public can expect the decision many times. Responding to a question from this publication, he said that there were considerations beyond simply security concerns in the decision, including the “economic impact and our relationship with our global partners.” “There are a multiplicity of factors that deserve and will receive our full consideration but certainly the security factors are important for our consideration,” Blair said. On Thursday Brian Masse, NDP MP for Windsor and his party’s Innovation critic, gave notice of a motion on a broad range of telecommunications and internet policy, calling for affordable telecommunication services, transparent fee structures, increased privacy protections and judicial oversight of digital surveillance, among other principles. The motion echoes much of what the NDP put forward in 2018. — With reporting by Michael Lee-Murphy at mleemurphy@thewirereport.ca and editing by Ahmad Hathout at ahathout@thewirereport.ca

Rempel claims Liberals lobbied most by wireless industry in first QP as industry critic

News | December 6, 2019

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Rempel claims Liberals lobbied most by wireless industry in first QP as industry critic

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