Michael Geist’s latest column is a solid walk-through of Canada’s decades-long attempt to inject competition into telecom markets through regulation. His history is correct: the CRTC’s access mandates, first applied to Bell in the 1970s, have evolved into today’s last-mile fibre access debates. But the piece reflects a technocrat’s reflex, the assumption that competition can only be manufactured by Ottawa and refereed by the CRTC. The result is a framework that tinkers endlessly with wholesale rates and access rules, while leaving untouched the deeper structural problem: Canada still walls itself off from full, open competition, especially from foreign players.
Protectionism masquerading as sovereignty
For decades, Canada has treated telecom as a quasi-sovereign industry, a “strategic asset” best protected from foreign ownership. This nationalist insulation has been justified in the name of cultural policy, economic sovereignty, or “ensuring Canadian control.” The price for this protectionism is paid every month on Canadians’ phone and internet bills.
From a reasonable perspective, the facts are unavoidable: 
- Canada’s ownership restrictions keep out potential new entrants with global scale, notably U.S. carriers like Verizon or T-Mobile, that could shake up the oligopoly pricing model overnight.
- The “cultural” justification is increasingly obsolete. The internet, streaming, and over-the-top services have already erased the idea of a protected Canadian broadcasting bubble.
- In an interconnected world, real sovereignty comes from economic competitiveness, not insulating underperforming incumbents.
The American elephant in the room
Geist’s analysis stops at the edge of the domestic policy sandbox. He does not ask the uncomfortable but necessary question: why shouldn’t Canadians have the option to buy their wireless or home internet service directly from an American or other foreign carrier operating here?
In 2013, Verizon briefly considered entering Canada’s wireless market. The mere rumour sent Canadian carrier shares tumbling and triggered a lobbying blitz to keep them out. The incumbents understood perfectly well that real competition, not CRTC-managed imitation, would mean lower prices and better service. Ottawa’s protectionist rules made sure it never happened.
If the goal is “maximizing competition regardless of the provider,” as Geist concludes, then logically that principle should apply to foreign providers as well. A free market doesn’t stop at the border.
Regulatory micromanagement versus market dynamism
Geist correctly points out that Bell, Rogers, and others cry wolf over investment every time the CRTC changes the rules. He also notes that Ottawa’s passivity during the acquisition wave wiped out many independents. But in our view, we see this not as a reason for more rule-tweaking, but as a case study in how managed competition breeds fragility.
If Canada truly wants lower rates and faster service it should remove foreign ownership caps on telecom carriers, streamline municipal and provincial rights-of-way rules so building new networks is actually feasible, and allow facilities-based entry by global players who can deploy at scale, bringing both capital and competitive discipline.
That would do more to discipline prices than another decade of wholesale tariff arguments at the CRTC.
The interconnection reality
In a global economy, networks are not national fortresses. Canadian data, voice, and video already traverse U.S. infrastructure daily. Our cloud services run on American hyperscalers. Our devices are designed in California and assembled in Asia. Trying to wall off telecom carriers while the entire ecosystem is globally integrated is incoherent policy.
A modern, pro-competition framework should start from the reality that interconnectedness is a strength, not a vulnerability. Consumers benefit when providers must compete not only with each other but with the best in the world.
The real sovereignty test
The protectionist “elbows up” argument holds that foreign ownership would “surrender control” over a strategic sector. But the truth is that sovereignty is already constrained by our reliance on foreign technology, standards, and capital markets. The real measure of sovereignty is whether Canadians can get world-class services at world-competitive prices. If our own protected incumbents cannot deliver that, the patriotic thing is to open the door to those who can.
Beyond the CRTC sandbox
Geist has provided a helpful briefing on the latest twist in Canada’s long telecom saga, but it stays in the comfort zone of domestic regulatory debate. We choose to see that the bigger reform is to end Canada’s telecom protectionism and open the market to genuine facilities-based competition from anywhere in the world.
The last fifty years of CRTC-managed competition have left Canadians paying some of the highest rates on the planet. It is time to test something radical in Ottawa terms but commonplace globally: let the best providers win, whether their head office is in Toronto, Vancouver, or New York. Canadians deserve nothing less.
