Sometimes it must feel like the CRTC is just spinning their wheels – we’re running the engine but not getting anywhere.
Monday’s Globe and Mail reports that “The federal government is planning a series of steps that would require the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC, to roll back key decisions it has made implementing the controversial Online Streaming Act.”
For the past few years, a substantial amount of effort at the regulator has been focused on implementing the “modernization” of Canada’s Broadcasting Act driven by the Online Streaming Act.
Three years ago, I observed that the Online Streaming Act was driving the CRTC to budget a 40% increase in staff levels with a 60% higher cost. As it has for the past few years, the CRTC’s 2026-27 Departmental Plan identifies “Modernizing Canada’s broadcasting framework” at the top of its list of key priorities.
How many staff years of effort – by the Commission and by participants in these multi-year regulatory proceedings – are being squandered by this latest government policy flip-flop?
As I flipped through CRTC Departmental Plans, I noticed that the plans for the past 4 years have been signed by 4 different Cabinet Ministers responsible for the Commission:
The lack of stability from the policy leadership doesn’t help.
Similar observations can be made on another key file. While “Modernizing Canada’s broadcasting framework” is first on the list of key CRTC priorities, “Promoting competition and investment for Internet and cellphone services” is next. I have written extensively on the investment part of that priority.
A CRTC letter last Friday serves as an exhibit for spinning their wheels on the competition side. The CRTC file 1011-NOC2023-0056 has housed follow-up to its 2023 “Review of the wholesale high-speed access service framework”. Three years into the process, the Commission realized that it is working from stale data:
Commission staff notes that the Cable Carriers submitted their initial Phase II cost studies between June 2023 and April 2024. However, Commission staff is concerned that the costing information currently on record may no longer reflect the prospective incremental costs of providing these services. Consequently, to ensure that final rates are just and reasonable and reflect the current technological and economic environment, the Cable Carriers are directed to file new Phase II cost studies, including all associated tables, using a five-year study period starting 1 January 2026 and incorporating the most recent available data for equipment costs, labour rates, and network demand.
These new studies need to be filed by September 3.
Once again, I think we need to ask how many cycles have been burned – the CRTC staff and industry participants – by working with the cost studies now ruled to be out of date. What does this mean for the entire wholesale framework?
The 2026-27 Departmental Plan indicates total expenses for the CRTC are forecasted to be $123.6M, up roughly 50% from the $81.6M from the 2022-23 Plan, with staff levels growing from 547 to 740 over that same period.
There is a real cost to running the engine and spinning those wheels. Sometimes, I just shake my head and wonder how much tread is left on these old tires.