The Economist had an article about the court ruling on the Globalive – Wind Mobile case entitled “Three is the magic number,” claiming that Canada’s big three incumbents, “fearful of losing their monopoly—and fat profit margins” are “using their formidable resources to uphold the letter of the law.”
The article should cause Canadians to pause and reflect. In the eyes of The Economist, our courts are a sham.
There is a paragraph that implies our courts are susceptible to lobbying, rather than act based on the evidence set in front of them.
Because Orascom, an Egyptian company, owns 65% of its shares, the court concluded that it breaks antiquated foreign-ownership rules requiring all operators to be Canadian-controlled.
The ruling came after intense lobbying by Canada’s “big three” operators, Bell Canada, Rogers Communications and Telus.
Regardless of your views on the case, on the ownership rules, on mobile competition, do any of us really believe that the court ruling came after intense lobbying by the big three? In fact, wasn’t it intense lobbying by Globalive that led to Cabinet overturning the CRTC? So much for the effectiveness of any lobbying by the incumbents!
The article is filled with so many flaws, such as wireless penetration rates, not the least of which is its conclusion:
The big three, fearful of losing their monopoly—and fat profit margins—don’t see it that way.They are using their formidable resources to uphold the letter of the law. That may yet backfire. Some are suggesting that Mr Clement simply amend the Telecommunications Act, rendering their objections worthless.
I always get a kick out of the Yogi Berra-esque use of the term “monopoly” in describing our market structure. I thought a magazine called “The Economist” would be staffed by writers who are more careful when using economics terminology. In any case, at least some of the incumbents have asked for the amendments to The Telecom Act, so it is hard to see how any lobbying on the matter would be worthless. As for upholding the letter of the law, I think that is what most of us would want of our court system, not having one industry participant being granted favours outside the law.
It is an unsigned piece – which means it is either an official perspective of the editors at The Economist, or perhaps the author was just too embarrassed to admit it.
Historically, all articles published by the Economist do not have a byline (there is a grey area with online only content, including blogs, but that’s a whole other story altogether). While I understand the need to end the post on a clever kicker, it is unfair to bash the Economist on an editorial policy that has been set in stone for decades.
In addition to Mark’s observations, I would add that The Economist’s writer seems to have overlooked the non-trivial fact that it was Globalive’s new entrant competitor Public Mobile that raised the issue in court, not the “big three”.