Is there a role for the CRTC in regulating AI wholesale?
Every few years, Canadian telecom finds a new frontier onto which old regulatory debates are projected. A recent Cartt.ca op‑ed arguing that carriers must “answer the AI wholesale question” is the latest example. It’s thoughtful on commercial dynamics, but it misfires on the role of the CRTC. AI infrastructure is not telecom infrastructure, and trying to drag it into the regulatory orbit of wholesale fibre or aggregated access misunderstands both the law and the economics.
The op‑ed’s premise is that Bell and Telus are building large AI compute clusters—true—and that smaller firms may want resale access—also true. But the leap comes when it implies that the CRTC should eventually adjudicate questions about GPU allocation, bundling, or resale eligibility. That is where the argument breaks down.
AI compute is not a telecommunications service under the Telecommunications Act. It is not carriage, transmission, or routing of information. It is a cloud‑adjacent, data‑centre‑based computing service. The fact that Bell and TELUS happen to own networks does not magically convert their AI businesses into regulated telecom offerings. If Rogers builds a movie studio, the CRTC does not regulate wholesale access to the cameras. If TELUS builds a health‑tech platform, the CRTC does not regulate wholesale access to the diagnostic algorithms. Vertical adjacency is not jurisdiction.
The op‑ed also treats AI compute as if it were analogous to wholesale broadband. It isn’t. Wholesale telecom regulation exists because networks exhibited certain characteristics associated with duplicating last‑mile access. GPU clusters do not. AI data centres are capital‑intensive, but they are not monopoly bottlenecks. CoreWeave, Hut 8, AWS, Google, and a dozen Canadian data‑centre operators are all building capacity. The market is competitive, global, and expanding. The CRTC intervenes when competition cannot emerge; AI compute is the opposite case.
Even the bundling concern is misplaced. The op‑ed warns that carriers might combine network services with compute in ways that raise competitive questions. But bundling only becomes a regulatory issue when the underlying telecom component is itself subject to tariff or mandated wholesale access. If Bell sells fibre plus GPUs, the fibre portion remains regulated exactly as it is today; the compute portion remains a commercial cloud service. The CRTC does not — and should not — set rules for how private companies package unregulated products.
The op‑ed’s commercial questions are legitimate: Will there be resale? What are the minimum commitments? How will allocation work during peak demand? But these are questions for the marketplace to answer, not the regulator. The CRTC’s involvement would not create clarity; it would create uncertainty, slow investment, and entangle an emerging sector in legacy frameworks.
Canada needs more investment in AI infrastructure, more competition, and more innovation. The fastest way to get there is to let the market work — not to conscript the CRTC into regulating something that is not, by any stretch, a telecom service.