In the wake of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s speech at the Conference Board of Canada event yesterday, I am just getting around to posting some thoughts about some of the submissions to the Competition Policy Review Panel.
I was somewhat intrigued to see that the CRTC submitted a paper with 5 recommendations, starting off with one that sought to replace the Broadcast Act and Telecom Act, with a new converged Communications Act:
There should be a single Act governing broadcasting, telecommunications and radiocommunication.
The CRTC added 4 more recommendations: streamlining regulations while moving to ex-post regulation but first ensuring the Commission has powers to impose monetary penalties; move spectrum licensing for telecom away from Industry Canada [a recommendation I endorsed last month]; a merger review process with clear and distinct roles for the CRTC and Competition Bureau; maintaining foreign ownership restrictions for both content providers and carriers.
I found it to be particularly interesting that the Commission intervened in the consultation, rather than waiting to simply administer whatever rules are set forth by the government on the other side of the river.
A lively discussion could arise from at least one part of the submission:
The economics of Internet production do not favour local content. As localism is eroded, the maintenance of Canadian capacity in the form of Canadian-owned and –controlled companies will become more critical. A branch plant economy for cultural production and distribution is difficult to envisage. Multi-national enterprises would have little incentive to create uniquely national content.
There is a lot of material in this little paragraph. I wonder if this could be an exercise for my grad students this weekend. Hmmm.
We’ll see if these points attract debate later this year; the CRTC’s workplan calls for hearings in 2008 on the impacts of New Media on the Broadcasting and Telecommunications system.