As Cascadia Gateway Corp.’s initiative to expand Vancouver-to-Seattle fibre optic communications capacity illustrates, the digital highway is as important to economic progress as is the traditional asphalt highway.
Global connectivity of everything has heightened the need to invest in roadwork on Canada’s digital highway. Last year’s Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review (BTLR) final report outlines the challenges and solutions ahead on that communications conduit. It notes, for example, that “traditional approaches to regulation are no longer enough.” That should catch the ears of decision-makers down at Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) HQ, where accountability in the new world of communications is less than optimal. And that is a major concern because complex and expensive telecom issues need to be resolved if Canada is to get the pricing and competition equation right. Rogers Communications Inc.’s pending $26 billion purchase of Shaw Communications Inc. is the latest red flag being raised in Western Canada. It will not be the last. The CRTC appears to lack the tools required to establish a business landscape that balances telecom competition and pricing with the incentive for companies to invest in the infrastructure to connect all areas of Canada to the high-speed broadband digital highway. The C.D. Howe Institute Telecommunications Policy Working Group points to the CRTC’s “lack of timely decisions, and poorly specified appeal processes.” It also notes that the CRTC does not have the internal expertise “to understand and analyze many aspects of the telecommunications infrastructure.” That’s a poor starting point for decisions in an arena that is critically important to Canada’s economy. Changes to what the BTLR recommends should be rechristened the Canadian Communications Commission need to be made now so that its decisions benefit both builders and users of Canada’s digital highway.
