Canada Courts Quash Gov't Decision On Globalive 104
sitkill writes "A Canadian Federal Court ruling has rejected the Tory Cabinet's decision to overturn a CRTC mandate not allowing Globalive (which is more commonly known in Canada as the mobile carrier Wind) to operate in Canada. This is a small vindication to the embattled CRTC, which has been recently in the spotlight for its decision on usage based billing, drawing criticism from the Tory Cabinet. The CEO, Mr. Lacavera, stressed that this would not result in Globalive's Wind Mobile being shut down, simply that it would require another round of wrangling with the regulator over how much foreign influence is acceptable in a Canadian telecommunications company."
confusing multiple negatives (Score:5, Informative)
Can we please unscramble this? I lost count of the negatives. Can Globalive operate in Canada, or not?
Re:confusing multiple negatives (Score:5, Informative)
Globalive cannot operate (the last sentence kind of implied that anyway). Sequence of events.
1. Golbalive wants to operate in Canada.
2. CRTC says "no, you can't".
3. Tory Cabinet says "forget the CRTC, you can operate".
4. Canadian Federal Court says "forget the Tory Cabinet, you can't operate".
I read the decision last night (Score:5, Informative)
(Note: this is based on my memory of reading the decision last night at 4 a.m., and I don't feel like rereading it for a /. comment; some things may be slightly off, and IANAL, but the gist is correct.)
Telecommunications companies in Canada cannot be "influenced" by non-Canadians, which means while non-Canadians can have a stake in a company, it can't be significant (there's no set standard, but think under 10% or 20% and not on the board). (Whether this policy is a good idea is fully debatable, but it's the law.)
Globalive (operating as Wind Mobile) is an upstart Canadian cell phone company run by Canadians (technically, they're old, but new to the cell market); there's no dispute here. However, to bid in the recent spectrum auction, it needed cash. So they called up Orascom, an Egyptian company, to get some financing. But they needed so much money that if they issued equity (shares) Orascom would own more than half of Globalive, breaking the Telecommunications Act. So they decided to borrow the money (debt) from them instead, thereby getting around the rules.
Public Mobile, another upstart Canadian company that also won spectrum in the auction, said this was unfair: they played by the rules and got financing from Canadians, and so took Globalive to the CRTC. The regulator ruled that while "in law" Globalive was certainly Canadian, "in fact" they owed so much money as a part of their overall net worth (~2/3) to Orascom there was no way the latter couldn't have influence on the former, which meant Globalive broke the rules and couldn't even bid in the spectrum auction, let alone operate in Canada.
The Conservative Government, which is generally pro-free market (in favour of foreign investment and competition and against regulators and government, though many have argued their actions haven't matched their ideals (see, e.g. Potash Corp., supply management, etc.)), issued a cabinet decision that overruled their regulator, thereby allowing Globalive to operate (which it did within days). They are allowed to overrule the CRTC, but they can't just say "because I said so": they need to justify their reasons, and the Federal Court can review their decision to see if their reasons are reasonable. (Obviously any decision will be debatable, so there is some standard for reasonableness.) So Public Mobile took the government to court. (For those interested in where our scummy telcos (Bell, Rogers, Telus) lined up, they all, of course, favoured less competition, so wanted to get Globalive out of business regardless of the merits of the case, though only Telus spoke at trial. We know they're hypocrites because their execs have all publicly lobbied for opening up telcos to foreign ownership and financing, while arguing against it here.)
The court ruled that the CRTC was correct in determining that Globalive was influenced by a non-Canadian, and that the government's "reasons" for their decision did not change this.
Basically, there are four basic tenets of telecommunications policy set out in the act, and one of them is the no non-Canadian influence part. The government tried to say that this part was less important than the other three parts, and that this part should only be applied "when possible" (i.e. when it won't conflict with the other parts). The government also seemingly added another tenet, which was that companies should search for technological advancement from outside Canada. And lastly, it said its cabinet decision applied only to Globalive, so wasn't precedent.
The court said while there would be nothing wrong with a policy that had some tenets be more important than others, or one that added other tenets, that's not what the law says, and unless Parliament (legislative branch) changes this, the Cabinet (executive branch) can't issue a decision that isn't grounded in law. The court also said the arbitrariness of the decision (applying only to Globalive) further proved their decision couldn't stand.
So that's where we are. The judge sta
Re:confusing multiple negatives (Score:4, Informative)
Actually,
4. Canadian Federal Court says "The Tory were wrong to say Globalive has domestic ownership". Nothing (yet) on the right to operate.
Decision will probably force the government to finally change the law to open telecommunication ownership to the rest of the world.
Re:Yes! (Score:4, Informative)
More importantly: the CRTC needs to be destroyed with extreme prejudice. They are so utterly transparent in their role as federal shills for the incumbent mega-telcos, largely staffed by ex-board members. Those assclowns should be lined up in front of Ted Rogers' grave and executed by firing squad.
The CRTC is single-handedly responsible for setting Canada back 15 years on the network front. I'm not shitting you, my internet was faster and more reliable, back in 1995 when the first wave of cable modems hit my area. No caps, 10/1.5 mbits, no throttling, no peak-time decimation, no DNS hijacking, and no blocked ports whatsoever. Today you're lucky if you can even websurf without some goddamned P-Cube box giving your packets a colonoscopy. The entire industry has devolved into a nihilistic "fuck the customer" game, thanks to this protectionism under guise of consumer advocacy, and all the propaganda that "average users only need 2gb, everyone above that must be an evil pirate", which of course a lot of (sheepish) people blindly accept as the gospel truth.
Ditch the CRTC, socialize the damn telcos since just about every citizen is paying into the same 3 corporations anyway, and let's get back to being offensively polite before I liquefy Fincklestein's fat head.
Re:Yes! (Score:5, Informative)
The CRTC has been responsible for many things:
- Delaying satellite TV in Canada for several years
- The extreme uptake in satellite piracy in Canada (Badly crafted laws combined with the CRTC's penchant for restricting quality foreign content created a perfect storm for otherwise honest people to pirate American satellite. You can't feel sorry for taking the forbidden fruit, when that forbidden fruit is simply forbidden television)
- Delaying satellite radio in Canada for so long I imagine there are still more grey market accounts than there are legitimate ones, and castrating Canadian satellite radio
- Permitting lock-in from Cable TV companies by not supporting cable card
- Placing honest immigrants in prison for paying for foreign TV (a crime in Canada due to the CRTC)
- Destroying Canada's status as a North American radio powerhouse. Did you know at one point a Canadian radio station controlled the radio market so seriously that Bob Seger wrote a song deriding Canada's stranglehold on the industry (Rosalie)?
- Ruining the quality of Canadian output by not requiring it compete on its own merits. Instead, most all media in Canada is required, by law, to play Canadian content, even if it sucks or is virtually non-existent (eg: Jazz music).
- Adjusting the very laws that destroyed CKLW to suit Bryan Adams, because they felt he deserved more airtime (really!)
- Creating and monitoring the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council who have gone so overbaord, they've required stations here to censor Dire Straits "Money for Nothing", despite that the song is written as a monologue describing the actual views of a real person of rock stars from the 80s.
Those are just some of the things. The CRTC is an anachronism and must be stopped. I'm just so glad Canadians are starting to wake up to this. Give me my DirectTV and Clear Channel, PLEASE!