The recent threats by Industry Minister Tony Clement to overturn the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications (CRTC) ruling to increase Internet fees to small service providers, and ultimately consumers, is welcome news.
For years Canadians have been held hostage by these so-called culture agencies, whose sole purpose seems to be to sustain third rate Canadian talent and corporate duopolies like Bell and Rogers at the expense of the consumer.
Canadians already pay some of the highest cell phone and Internet fees in the world, no thanks to the CRTC who would have us pay even more, all under the guise of protecting our fragile Canadian cultural identity from who knows what evil.
As usual, this is more about power and money than freedom of choice.
While the cost to deliver more bandwidth to your computer is around one to 10 cents a gigabyte (GB), the CRTC wants to allow the big telecom companies to charge $1 to $5 per GB.
Many countries such as the U.S., Britain and France have no caps on usage. Canadians pay more after just 25 GB of usage.
As Prime Minister Harper and Minister Clement have realized, Canadians are sick of being treated as second class citizens. As the world moves increasingly online, we want the same services and features as other developed nations, and we don't want some faceless bureaucrat or political hack in Ottawa standing in the way.
Whether it's interfering with our use of the Internet or banning songs on the radio, as was done recently by the Canadian Broadcast Standards, the time has come for the government to seriously look at revamping or even scrapping agencies like the CRTC or the CBSA.
Canada is a mature nation able to hold its own with the best in the world as the recent Olympic Games demonstrated.
It's time Ottawa woke up to that reality.
