Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Manley foresees opening of telecom industry

Canadian Press

TORONTO -- The new Conservative government will likely want to start reforming Canada's telecommunications policy quickly and probably won't see much serious opposition from the Liberals, former Liberal industry minister John Manley says.

Mr. Manley, a former deputy prime minister who also served as minister responsible for telecom policy in the Chrétien government, was commenting yesterday on sweeping recommendations released in Ottawa last week by a special federal panel.

"It's an agenda for a new government which they can adopt if they wish to implement it," Mr. Manley said at a presentation by the law firm McCarthy Tétrault, which was involved in drafting the report.

Mr. Manley said the government will probably use foreign ownership restrictions as a bargaining chip in multinational trade negotiations but won't necessarily wait for those talks to conclude before opening up some parts of the Canadian telecom industry, he said.

The panel's report recommends a two-stage approach to liberalizing rules that limit or prevent Canadian telephone and cable carriers from being controlled by foreign interests. Initially, the rules could be relaxed for the foreign ownership of startup companies and carriers that control less than 10 per cent of the market, he said.

"Seeing foreign ownership as a vehicle for improving the competitive nature of the economy is clearly a gain for Canada, whether we get something from our negotiating partners or not," Mr. Manley said.

"But I think as a first step, the government is going to want to see what they can find by way of tradeoffs in international trade negotiations to try to get there." Mr. Manley said there's been a trend toward greater liberalization in Canada and elsewhere.

In Ottawa, the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers union urged an end to trade talks that would open Canada's telephone industry to foreign ownership.

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Wednesday, March 29, 2006 12:56:00 PM  

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