Parliament’s Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology (INDU) has been conducting an investigation into Deregulation in Telecommunications, in the wake of Minister Bernier’s decision to proceed with cabinet’s policy direction to the CRTC and its interventions into a few CRTC Decisions. There are a number of sessions taking place through the month of February.In October, the INDU committee recommending the Minister to delay interventions to the CRTC until the Committee had a chance to conduct more studies.
Yesterday’s National Post had an article about CRTC Vice-Chair Rick French appearing as a witness on Monday. Sheridan Scott, from the Competition Bureau also appeared. There is another meeting scheduled for this afternoon, with witnesses from the cable companies and CLEC community.
With news reports breaking about the government’s position on Net Neutrality, it will be interesting to see if the Committee’s agenda gets side tracked. I published my free-market viewpoint on the story last night. For a contrary view, see Michael Geist.
Playing politics in a minority government is delicate work. If there are to be legislative changes to give effect to the report of the Telecom Policy Review panel, we’ll be watching for a compromise approach to working with the INDU parliamentary committee.