Editor: I can’t believe Prime Minister Stephen Harper is gifting away Canadian assets and tax dollars and seems to think this is good for Canadians.
Worse, from the comments I’ve seen posted in response to media articles, it seems many members of the public agree.
The issue isn’t allowing or not allowing Verizon to compete in Canada. Yes, they should be allowed to come in. The issue is under what terms.
Harper’s statement means he’s planning to give a behemoth, which is four times the size of Bell, Rogers, and Telus combined. the same benefits the government had set aside to help new entrants.
These are:
1 – The ability to buy two of the four available blocks of wireless spectrum when the incumbents are each only allowed to bid on one.
2 – The ability to buy the smaller wireless carriers like Wind and Mobilicity, while the incumbents are now prohibited from doing so.
3 – The ability to simply use the networks our Canadian companies invested billions of dolars in, and took 30 years to build.
Who cares, you think? We all should care.
Harper says he wants competition, but this policy effectively means no competition for Verizon in the spectrum auction or in bidding on the smaller carriers, so they can buy both on the cheap.
That means we the taxpayers get shafted on the first (the money from the auction goes into the same government coffers our tax dollars do), the investors of the smaller carriers get shafted on the second, and we all get shafted as our mutual funds and pensions take a beating on the third (perhaps you didn’t know that a large portion of Canada’s pension funds and mutual funds are heavily invested in Canadian telecom firms).
Verizon has the dollars to compete on the first two and win, and certainly has the dollars to build its own network, which would create jobs and economic benefits in Canada. We shouldn’t be giving these assets away, but getting full dollar value for them.
Open the door to Verizon and foreign competition, but don’t give away the furniture in the process.
I have sent a letter to my MP, Mark Warawa, with further details on these concerns. I have asked for his help to change the aforementioned policies.
I appreciate your help in sharing this information, as it seems most people think the incumbent wireless carriers are opposing Verizon’s entry into Canada, rather than these policies.
We all need to stand up and let our government know that we want competition, but on an even playing field and with full respect to the value of our Canadian assets.
Angelika Vance,
Langley
