Let’s start with the most important sentence in the Financial Post article for those of us in the right-thinking common sense freedom-loving set:
Eamon Hoey, a senior partner with Hoey Associates, said the CRTC decision bolsters arguments the regulator should be abolished.
…Which may well be the leading contender for this week’s coveted ProudToBeCanadian.ca Quote Of The Week Award.
No wait! Here’s another contender:
Iain Grant, managing director with Seaboard Group, said the CRTC is demonstrating that its “penchant for insidious meddling has overcome any feeling for industry dynamics or any respect for the power of consumers to make their own decisions.”
Memo to other sensible folk: Say more things like that in public.
But here’s some of the rest of the story which has other good sentences.
‘Economically illiterate’: Bell, Telus denied pricing flexibility they were seeking
Mark Evans and Paul Vieira, Financial Post
Published: Friday, April 07, 2006A much-anticipated decision on how the $10-billion local telephone market will be deregulated was criticized yesterday as telecommunication executives and analysts dismissed it as more evidence the regulator does not grasp the industry’s competitive dynamics.
The most contentious part of the decision is that incumbent carriers such as Bell Canada need to lose 25% market share before they can apply to have a market deregulated, giving them the right to set their own prices. Even if the 25% threshold is reached, a complex and bureaucratic process means it could take as long as two years before the CRTC approves an application for deregulation.
Large carriers such as Bell Canada and Telus Corp., which were hoping to have the same kind of pricing flexibility as cable rivals, were extremely unhappy with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission’s decision.
Lawson Hunter, vice-president of BCE Inc., which owns Bell, said he is “profoundly” disappointed, describing the decision as “economically illiterate” and a stark contrast to the recent Telecom Review Panel recommendations that aggressively pushed local market deregulation.
“It is still very regulatory and involves a very long process even to get [deregulation],” he said. “It is the same old, interventionist, government-knows-best regulation we have come to expect from this commission.”
Bell said an appeal to the federal Cabinet is a “very strong possibility.”
[…]
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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