Will Canada’s government get tough on telecoms?

By The Big Story

Earlier this summer, when the Rogers outage left millions without access to critical services, Canadians began to realize just how vulnerable our cellular networks can be.

It seems as though those in power took notice as well. With a new memorandum of understanding and revisions to the competition act, it looks as if the federal government is trying to ensure the stability of what is, for many, an essential service.

Vass Bednar is the executive director of the Masters of Public Policy in Digital Society program at McMaster University; she joined us to break down the new agreement and discussed other ways in which the government could ensure the strength of our network and ensure that there remains a healthy amount of competition in the Canadian telecom sphere.

“Say there was a large penalty that the firms had to pay. I don’t think that would necessarily make us feel better,” she said. “Because we want to know is that there is that resiliency and redundancy, and ability to cooperate and share information.”

So will new regulations have any teeth? Do they signal a shift in the relationship between the government and telecom companies? And if so, how might that change what services Canadians receive and how much they pay?

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