The Honourable Vic Toews, Regional Minister for Manitoba and Member of Parliament for Provencher, welcomed the announcement by the Honourable Christian Paradis, Minister of Industry, that the Harper Government will be taking action to provide Canadian families with more choices at low prices for wireless services.
“The Harper Government is committed to ensuring the availability of world-class wireless services for Canadian families,” said Minister Toews. “The changes announced today will support the deployment of next-generation services and will also help to ensure that rural Canadians will have access to the same advanced services as everyone else.”
In terms of competition and pricing, this telecommunications package is the next step.
The Telecommunications Act will be amended to lift foreign investment restrictions for telecom companies that hold less than a 10 percent share of the total Canadian telecommunications market. This will help smaller telecom companies access the capital they need to grow and compete.
The government will be applying caps in the upcoming spectrum auctions to enable both new wireless competitors and incumbent carriers to have access to the spectrum up for auction. We will also apply specific measures in the 700 MHz auction to see that rural Canadians will have access to the same advanced services as everyone else in a timely manner.
We will improve and extend the government’s policy on roaming and tower sharing to further support competition.
Finally, a portion of spectrum will be reserved for public safety users such as police and firefighters across Canada.
