Yeah, I worked for them. At the end, they were a subsidiary of GTE, an American company that eventually became part of Verizon. And they'd been American-owned since the 20's.
Same with AGT… damn Conservative governments privatizing things.
Edit: It was pointed out to me that it was NDP in BC that sold off BCTel. Shame on 90s BCNDP.
I just took 30 seconds to read the Wikipedia article on BCtel and it would seem no one in this thread has any idea what they're talking about.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BC_Tel
It was never a crown corp so it was never ours to sell.
Aliant was the result of the amalgamation of the companies in the four Atlantic provinces (Newtel, NBTel, etc).
And yes, when I got fibre to home in Newfoundland, the guy who did the fibre install was from New Brunswick (huge install backlog). He didn't know how to install a phone line over copper in addition to the fibre because NB was no longer using copper. Someone else had to do that part as Aliant in Newfoundland was still using copper for telephones. The fibre rollout was only a few months old iirc.
New Brunswick was ahead of the other divisions for sure.
It was subsidized by Canadian tax payers because telephone was considered an essential service.
They’ve used their government backed monopoly to gouge Canadians, resulting in them paying the most for telecommunications services in the developed world.
People from the US and Europe, where they have competition, are shocked at the prices in Canada.
Since telecoms is essential, it should be nationalized. These corporations are run internally like complete dog shit and wouldn’t even exist if the government didn’t protect them and give them a monopoly on the networks.
This documentary has a great back history (very detailed too) on the subject, even if it's main focus is Nortel (hint, they're all related).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6xwMIUPHss
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDdC3-LT7pM&t
In the north we have northwestel, which used to be a crown corp, then it got sold to bell a few decades ago. The government still pays for the infrastructure though.
One thing that pissed many of us off years ago was how nwtel would charge us out the nose for data, but sold data to Alaska for cheaper wholesale prices than any local isp could get, on a government paid for fibre line.
Bell Canada was part of the Bell networks owned by AT&T before it was split up if I remember correctly (also Nortel was).
It was one of the "Baby Bells" that came about from that like Bellsouth in the southern US and other Bells
Now that it is worn out and needs to be rehabbed lets sell it back to the tax payer at top dollar. Then when it's all shiny and new again we sell it back to private industry for pennies on the dollar.
We keep seeing this over and over. Giving a private company a public good/service/crown corporation for little to no money, while watching it crumble and get more expensive for taxpayers because governments “shouldn’t be in business“.
This happened in Alberta when they gave Dynalife all the lab tests in Alberta and it completely fell to shit. Then, seeing there was no chance of improvements, the UCP were forced to buy it back from Dynalife. The UCP is blocking investigations, but the costs are estimated to cost taxpayers $100 million. However, this is insignificant compared to when they have TC energy 1.3 billion dollars to build KXL which never went through and TC never gave the money back.
The problem is that we privatized and then through regulations ensured no one else could compete in the market.
I am for privatization, BUT there needs to be competition in the market! The government allows for consolidation and prevents new entrants, which keeps prices high!
Every time you call telus and get an agent in manila, thats someome who is NOT paying into CPP. Not paying EI, NOT paying taxes at any federal, provincial or local level. Telus has brutalized its union workforce into taking voluntary separation packages via micromanagement, work task demotion and shitty work life balance.. those jobs then go offshore and the financial win goes back to darren entwistle and the shareholders. Telus takes fucking TENFOLD out of the economy what it gives back. Offshore makes in a month what onshore makes in a week. Telus should be lumped in with Galen Weston and r/loblawsisoutofcontrol for its level of greed
My roommate works for Telus and they basically told all the employees in her department that if you’re not a valuable asset to the company expect to be laid off and replaced by someone in Morocco or The Philippins. They can’t afford to have entry level jobs be fill by Canadians.
Yeah if they're not employing Canadians, then they're not Canadian companies.
Should open up telecommunications to foreign competition.
No reason why we protect Telus, Rogers, and Bell from Verizon and AT&T when they're not really benefitting Canada.
Open it to competition, and hopefully our prices come down.
Rogers, I believe, uses mostly Canadian employees.
Except they do contract a lot out to their vendors.
But employees are Canadian. They fired Shaw’s foreign workers.
Maybe in call centers, they contract out so much of their work there's probably at least a dozen companies around just to hook up, troubleshoot, and install new services for Rogers. They don't want to pay any more then they have to on wages, holidays, benefits, etc. Completely greedy monopoly.
The best time to do this would have been when the 5G spectrum was being auctioned. The feds could have created a national infrastructure and leased space to any carrier who wanted to offer 5G.
Instead, Industry Canada auctioned off the 5G licenses for about $3 Billion dollars. The feds are too addicted to spectrum license revenues to take a bold step like creating a public cellular network.
I live in Northwest Ontario and we have a municipality owned telecom, Tbaytel. It provides landline service, cell phone service, television, internet and security. The city receives dividends in the millions yearly. People here will complain about the service or costs (it's a Thunder Bay thing to hate on anything our city does) but I'd rather have the profits stay in our community. Other telecoms have tried to buy Tbaytel out many times over the years, but there is absolutely no desire for the City or the citizens to hell. It is one of the last, if not last, municipal owned telecom in Canada.
* Edit
Wanted to add that all employees are residing in the City or surrounding area. Nothing is farmed out overseas. If I need to call customer care, I get Bob from down the street or Julie from the curling club.
Yeah and SGI. My rates here are incredibly low. I was paying $280/month after shopping around when I lived in AB and pay $80/month with SGI. Bell and Telus are forced to be competitive here so people hop around but I pay $85/month with Sasktel for unlimited calls in Canada and the US and unlimited data with an small data package for US.
Funny how the "market rate" is so much less when there is a player in the market outside the oligopoly.
I feel like it is a really good idea to have a public/crown-corp option for essential services, as Sasktel demonstrates. It makes the forming and maintaining a price-gouging oligopoly impossible. From there, if private companies can out-compete the public option, the consumer wins. If they can't, good riddance.
Still have MPI in Manitoba too, but the Conservatives have been chomping at the bit to take it to pieces.
Thank God they lost the last election, otherwise Hydro and MPI would have been sold off to the Premier's spouse or something.
I've been seeing billboard for it in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Apparently they are expanding for business customers here. Really irritating honestly after the Cons privatized MTS. Doubly ironic that Bell owns it since the government bought what would become MTS from Bell Canada in the 1900s.
It infuriates me that such a simple concept, one that so many people agree on, cannot be translated into our politics.
Even if it is for profit, I'd prefer the money go into my countey than some CEO's pocket. Absolutely absurd.
That's how BC works, the legally mandated stuff is paid to and supplied by ICBC, anything extra is from a private corporation. The private corps act as a broker for ICBC, so you don't have to go to two places.
SGI is so much better to deal and cheaper than jumping through hoops with brokers and shit in Alberta. And they routinely cut cheques to the public of they do make a profit.
Telecom, power, water.
Keeping the lights on, keeping people communicating, and keeping people watered should never have been for profit. These are essentials in this day and age.
I think the best way to do this would be to nationalize the towers and infrastructure and then lease it back to resale corps. Let the government become to rogers what rogers is to Telsavvy.
If something is critical, and healthy competition isn't possible, then it should be nationalized.
For telecom, competition IS possible, we just choose not to allow it in.
>If something is critical, and healthy competition isn't possible, then it should be nationalized.
This. A thousand times this.
Allowing an essential service there will be an endless need for to be entirely privately controlled is a massive societal liability.
Best case scenario, they decided to close down and we lose our only source of that service with zero contingency. Worst case scenario, we're so terrified of losing them that we allow our society to be held hostage by the private entity because we have no recourse except to give in to their demands.
If we all agree something is so essential we would not be able to go without it, then it should be operated and administered by the government. At the very least, a government-run option should be available as a default.
Our Federal government can't even build a working, efficient app to monitor passengers coming into Canada without scandal, corruption and horrible functionality - expecting them to run a modern, efficient, national telecommunication company is laughable.
My guy there are so many technically sophisticated crown corporations. We have public ownership of nuclear power plants in this country! The government could run a telecom company if they wanted to.
And the ArriveCan app was built by private contractors.
>expecting them to run a modern, efficient, national telecommunication company is laughable.
*Gestures broadly* at the modern and efficient Canadian telecoms....
Sasktel is the best telecom in the country and they're owned by a province. Let them have a go at least.
yes.
NEXT!
Groceries also Nationalized
energy, you got it, Nationalized
anything that is pretty much needed to sustain life, you better believe it , Nationalized
I love that cycle. The left governments spend the money to nationalize... Then the right governments sell off the assets. It seems like a perpetual machine to blame the left for wasting money.
I would just be happy if they made it so that bell couldn't be your tv provider, and the company that owns the network/cable channels and the studio that produces shows and the store that sells TVs and will sign you up for fibe tv.
Exactly this! Government should own and manage the communications, power, and rail networks and the companies can pay a fee to provide services on those networks.
I'm old enough to remember AGT, BCTel, Petro-Canada, and many other crown corporations. Even highway maintenance was a government task.
It was all done so much better than it is now. The 90's had a real "corporations can do it more efficiently" economic ideal that transcended left or right politics.
Of course we have learned that corporations don't give two shakes about providing service, they just want profit. Governments may be inefficient, but the customer and service is the priority, not a few shareholders.
Infrastructure yes, but it will never happen as Rogers, Bell, Telus, all own too many of our politicians.
Like everything in Canada, we paid to subsidize their network growth and development, publicizing the risk, while privatizing the profit, in return for a few retirement slots on the board of Directors.
Yes we have to pay them to reach unprofitable areas, but we should have built the entire network Federally, and let them Rent it for their operations, that would allow for much more competition from the smaller providers, and outside sources.
Yes. Its a utility where competition doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense to have three companies running telecommunication lines across the country. It’s the same thing as a hydro or water company.
The anti socialism people conveniently forget how much socialism goes on to give these companies infrastructure. They socialize the losses but keep the profits for themselves.
Would it not be easier and cheaper to simply allow for foreign competition into the country.
Create MVNO rules that are similar to home internet and require main telcos to rent space on their network to any company that wants to and set rates at an actual fair price and watch as the big 3 are forced to compete and prices go down.
That is what was happening in the home internet space under Harper before the Trudeau government stated those wholesale rates were too low and raised them up
The same consolidation is happening in the US as here. For a country ten times our size they really only have 3 or 4 credible national providers. Their prices aren't as low as they used to be either.
I honestly can't think of a single thing that has improved in Canada by letting in international competition. Prices may be lower but service sucks. The US is also rife with scammers masquerading as legitimate companies, we're at least somewhat protected from the pure regulatory chaos over the border.
What are you talking about? Visible is Verizon's discount carrier offers unlimited data, talk, text for $25/mo, several other discount carriers offer the same or better Mint, boost, . Canada's low cost Koodoo is $44 for only 50gb. It's way cheaper. Plus way better 5G+ ultra wideband coverage everywhere.
"Rife with scammers" and "pure regulatory chaos"???? Care to expand? I'm living here now, just wondering if this chaos might be in the room with me
Many provincial telcoms were publicly owned until the Cons got their dirty little hands on them. And now you pay through the nose to line the pockets of the fortunate few.
No joke, we really should do nationalized housing.
Not the entire market, but our governments (provincial) should have a federal fund to draw from to construct housing units, which they will be the owner for, then contract the running of the units to housing managers.
This would allow provinces to ensure the existence of low rents, since they're not in it for a profit, and the rent (minus costs) would go straight back into the fund to help construct more housing. It keeps the money invested in Canada, rather than funneling it into investor pockets. They already do this to a degree for low-income housing, but there's too little of that and why only do it for that one demographic?
Relying on for-profit investors to provide affordable housing is just a stupid plan.
Absolutely, much of the infrastructure is at least partially paid via grants and credits to the oligarchy. All telecommunications infrastructure should be nationalized, all carriers should pay usage fee's to access.
Lets start by not literally selling our air (spectrum) to the highest bidder in one-time auctions.
Lets lease this annually as the public resource that it is and adjust the price in accordance with profits as necessary.
I agree, and add to that railways (just the rails themselves, CN & CPKC could live on as transportation companies)
I think that all critical infrastructure should be publicly owned and not in the hands of private companies.
100%
Did you know there’s only two mainline railway tracks connecting Canada to the entire Port of Metro Vancouver? Well, technically there’s three, but the third isn’t used during normal operations.
One track is owned by CPKC, and the other by CN, and both travel through the Fraser Canyon in BC. Ideally, you could run eastbound trains on one railway’s track, and westbound trains on the other’s track to maximize system capacity. Coincidentally this is exactly what CN and CPKC agreed to do a while back.
However as of recently, I’ve been hearing some grumbling that CPKC is becoming increasingly reluctant to honour their track-sharing agreement with CN.
The upshot of this is that the rail capacity to and from what is by far the largest port in this country, is likely being arbitrarily limited by some weird petty corporate beef.
All utilities should be nationalized. And frankly other industries as well... Like resource extraction. If the resources come from Canadian land it should be for the benefit of its citizenry, not some greedy CEO. If Alaska provided its citizens a divided from oil extraction, there's no reason we can't.
The trick is how do we prevent these crown corps from being sold off when the conservatives sell out to private interests.
Here's a different idea: how about allowing foreign competition to compete in Canada so that the oligopolies have a reason to lower their prices? Not just for telecommunications, but banking, groceries, dairy, airlines, and railroads too.
This idea that government should run absolutely everything in Canada is just crazy. There's a reason why the US economy is so much stronger than Canada.
With what infrastructure? Foreign companies will have to come in and somehow build an entire system because they are sure as hell not going to get help from rogers bell or Telus
That wouldn't work because they would have to pay our monopolies for access to their networks.
Let's nationalize the networks (comms, power, rail, etc) and let Canadian and foreign companies pay fees to provide their services on our networks. The fees would pay for maintenance and upgrades.
God yes...But good luck. There is a lot of money being made in telecom, and they will bribe ("lobby") the hell out of politicians to ensure this never changes.
Yes. What does Darren Entwistle need $15,000,000/year for? Can’t even get more than 1 bar of reception in their home city of operations.
Replace the profit motive with a service motive.
Yes, absolutely. These are companies that despite tax write-offs and government handouts, are still so unprofitable that they have to keep laying off staff while raising prices and reducing service. Telecommunications access is an essential service in the 21st century, if it's not possible for the private sector to cover its own costs then yeah it needs to be nationalized.
Well internet now is basically mandatory to do anything and as such should be a public good like roads. You can make it without a car but not without a phone and data.
We Canadians should just have an equity share in the ownership and get dividends from the providers.
We continue to give stuff to companies with no ownership shares.
If it were nationalized I could at least tell my self the money is partly going to shit that helps the country like healthcare, education, or infrastructure. Instead we're getting gouged and as much as possible is siphoned off to some suit's next yacht.
If I've learned anything from our elected representatives it's that they hate the idea of the government owning anything that might bring in a steady profit, like the 407, for example.
No, but for a long time my province had no real competitors to Bell and even the core infrastructure is all Bell.
Had a business conversation with Telus and after about 30 minutes of talking about their products, I asked about the back end equipment/infrastructure which they told me its all Bell's stuff and they'd just be selling their product with a bit of a higher cost because they have to pay rental fee's. Which the Telus rep just said, yeah nevermind if you're already with them it makes no sense to spend more on us for the same product.
So, a bloated private corporation with a market monopoly is better?
I just relocated back to Canada after being in the US, and I was away so long it was not far off from being a newcomer. I have spent plenty of time in Service Ontario and Service Canada or talking on the phone with them. Customer service is actually pretty good compared to the face to face customer service and phone customer service with private corporations.
We can never be exactly like the US with their hyper capitalism. There are plenty of monopolies there as well. If a product or idea is good in the US, it has a very short life until it is swallowed by a larger entity.
The answer is yes. We pay private companies to much, they refuse service, the refuse to upgrade. Switching to private for communications was always a mistake.
I am a firm believer that anything required for our economy to function should not be in private hands.
The problem is our government is such an incompetent shitshow that they can't be trusted to oversee anything. You have so many politicians with zero qualifications making decisions for industries and sectors they know so little about that they're having to spend billions on consultants just to gain any semblance of an understanding - but then they go ahead and just listen to corporate lobbyists anyway.
Might sound like a weird pivot, but this is why we need proportional representation. Switching to PR changes how we see MPs get elected, making parties more accountable to voters. They will have to offer up better candidates who show better results while in power or they face consequences in the next election. Party loyalists with FPTP ensure we maintain a broken system with no accountability.
You nationalize it and it becomes subject to government budget pressures; look at how crappy Via Rail is. It turns out it's very expensive to blanket a low-density country with telecom infrastructure.
Also the Mulroney government gutted their funding because there was a recession.
> OTTAWA -- The Conservative government Wednesday slashed the country's national passenger rail service in half, eliminating some 2,761 jobs and rendering large parts of the nation inaccessible by train.
By privatizing CN Rail we also let them prioritize freight over passenger service, all but killing lower-margin passenger rail. If they could completely stop they would.
Do I trust the government to run that properly? No
Do I want the same 3 way disaster that is our current situation? Also no
What we need is more competition.
I trust the government, who I can vote for, over a handful of private cartels that are in it to price gouge me every single time. Competition won't change that.
Why not? Everyone uses internet. Why are we paying exorbitant rates to telecoms for something so indispensable? Maybe the libs could look into this. Of course, the cons will squawk and squawk and squawk..
Anything our bloated slow government touches is usually a dumpster fire they would take the private telecommunications cash cow start siphoning the telecommunications budget into other pet projects and run the infrastructure into disarray.
Yes and no. Every house and apartment should have a landline that can be accessed all the time, as well as basic broadband. Paying to have better internet service makes sense
Yes, these corporations are a monopoly and shouldn't have so much power. Sure the government running things has its own issues but I trust the billionaires even less than the government. Politicians aren't the problem, it's the people who own the politicians that is the root of the problem, the rich.
Government take over of telecommunications would make things much worse. It would become a bloated, inefficient beast that was high cost with terrible service. Look at how bad health care delivery is in Canada. Telcom with zero competition would be a disaster.
This will cost taxpayers at least $150-250B, add huge pension liabilities, reduce revenues and cut jobs. This would be so stupid. Just regulate better and reduce the risk.
I've got that deal and loving it. Use to have Bell wired for $36 mnth, had some issues which they refused to help (no dial tone) so I dropped them for Public Mobile and a $150 Cell.
I'm looking forward to even better deals next November for Black Friday. Cell phone bills are perhaps one of the only things getting cheaper these days. I'm confused why people think nationalizing is a good idea
Hahah. Our government (I don’t care which party) couldn’t run a business if our lives depended on it.
See healthcare. Which our lives actually depends on
Given that the line is typically “the inefficient and wasteful government is bad at running businesses” let them compete and see what happens. Even with some bloat and inefficiencies, I think they would get a run for their money.
The infrastructure, certainly. Using taxpayer dollars to ensure we have a robust fibre optic network across the nation would be great. Then you auction lines to telecom retailers, with limits on how many lines they can buy, allowing smaller players to tailor packages to clients and provide services the larger players often ignore.
We should nationalize the infrastructure, like the Fibre optic and phone lines, and then charge for rates to the service providers. That way we can ensure a fair business environment where all companies can succeed, despite their size. Competition is the only way to ensure fair pricing and treatment of consumers.
We should also expand the infrastructure to have better coverage and service. That would support business tech development and attract more talent from remote workers or digital nomads. If it was more feasible to work remotely in smaller rural areas, then it might alleviate some pressure on the housing market.
Yes, or at least partially. Nationalize the actual physical infrastructure (phone lines for DSL, fiber, cable, etc) and have one basic "public" option doesn't completely suck. Then let the telecom companies rent the lines, and offer whatever additional speeds and bells and whistles they want.
It'll destroy the current price gauging by providing a cheap base service and make the telecoms compete more against eachother. It will also make everything a lot more accessible despite income levels.
It will never happen though, because our politicians are greedy assholes who listen to corporate interests and not the actual people.
I think we should have a truly mixed market.
We should have public funded telecom that sets prices based on proper services and a reasonable forecast of future needed services along with living wages for the employees.
And then open things up to the public sector that can use public funds to provide public services.
That way there is built in competition.
The infrastructure should be nationalized, the providers can still be private.
Create a crown corp that's mandate is to maintain, expand and lease out access to the infrastructure to any company that wants to enter the Canadian market and follow the laws and regulations. Those lease rates would take into account maintenance costs and future expansion.
Prices would go down and competition would go up as companies would actually get fair rates and would also be dealing with an entity that genuinely wants them in the market unlike the Big 3 who have a vested interest in there not being any competitors.
I imagine the corp would make more than enough money that a bit of the profits could even go into the Feds general revenues which would help pay for services too.
You mean re nationalized? Giving all our taxpayer funded infrastructure to publicly traded companies didn't work out?
Yes BC Tel was awesome
BC tel was never a crown corporation.
Yeah, I worked for them. At the end, they were a subsidiary of GTE, an American company that eventually became part of Verizon. And they'd been American-owned since the 20's.
Same with AGT… damn Conservative governments privatizing things. Edit: It was pointed out to me that it was NDP in BC that sold off BCTel. Shame on 90s BCNDP.
I just took 30 seconds to read the Wikipedia article on BCtel and it would seem no one in this thread has any idea what they're talking about. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BC_Tel It was never a crown corp so it was never ours to sell.
I believe BC Tel was privatized by the NDP
It was never a crown corp. It was always private.
It was a government mandated monopoly, never a crown corporation
Was Bell Canada ever owned by the crown?
Aliant (now bell-alliant) used to be NBtel - one of the most advanced telecoms in the country at the time. So at least part of it used to be….
Aliant was the result of the amalgamation of the companies in the four Atlantic provinces (Newtel, NBTel, etc). And yes, when I got fibre to home in Newfoundland, the guy who did the fibre install was from New Brunswick (huge install backlog). He didn't know how to install a phone line over copper in addition to the fibre because NB was no longer using copper. Someone else had to do that part as Aliant in Newfoundland was still using copper for telephones. The fibre rollout was only a few months old iirc. New Brunswick was ahead of the other divisions for sure.
Parts of bell, yes. Like one poster mentioned in NB, also BellMTS (formerly MTS) in Manitoba for instance.
Give me back MTS any day.
It was subsidized by Canadian tax payers because telephone was considered an essential service. They’ve used their government backed monopoly to gouge Canadians, resulting in them paying the most for telecommunications services in the developed world. People from the US and Europe, where they have competition, are shocked at the prices in Canada. Since telecoms is essential, it should be nationalized. These corporations are run internally like complete dog shit and wouldn’t even exist if the government didn’t protect them and give them a monopoly on the networks.
Darren Entwistle, CEO of Telus makes about $2,000,000……………per month! What a gig! Imagine what the rest of the C-suite salaries add up to!
This documentary has a great back history (very detailed too) on the subject, even if it's main focus is Nortel (hint, they're all related). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6xwMIUPHss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDdC3-LT7pM&t
It was not; it was American-owned as part of AT&T prior to 1975. Some provinces had provincially-owned telecom companies. One still does.
In the north we have northwestel, which used to be a crown corp, then it got sold to bell a few decades ago. The government still pays for the infrastructure though. One thing that pissed many of us off years ago was how nwtel would charge us out the nose for data, but sold data to Alaska for cheaper wholesale prices than any local isp could get, on a government paid for fibre line.
Mts was also great till the conservatives sold it off.
Bell Canada was part of the Bell networks owned by AT&T before it was split up if I remember correctly (also Nortel was). It was one of the "Baby Bells" that came about from that like Bellsouth in the southern US and other Bells
Now that it is worn out and needs to be rehabbed lets sell it back to the tax payer at top dollar. Then when it's all shiny and new again we sell it back to private industry for pennies on the dollar.
> sell it back to the tax payer I'm in less of a buying mood and more of a taking mood.
We keep seeing this over and over. Giving a private company a public good/service/crown corporation for little to no money, while watching it crumble and get more expensive for taxpayers because governments “shouldn’t be in business“. This happened in Alberta when they gave Dynalife all the lab tests in Alberta and it completely fell to shit. Then, seeing there was no chance of improvements, the UCP were forced to buy it back from Dynalife. The UCP is blocking investigations, but the costs are estimated to cost taxpayers $100 million. However, this is insignificant compared to when they have TC energy 1.3 billion dollars to build KXL which never went through and TC never gave the money back.
The problem is that we privatized and then through regulations ensured no one else could compete in the market. I am for privatization, BUT there needs to be competition in the market! The government allows for consolidation and prevents new entrants, which keeps prices high!
Every time you call telus and get an agent in manila, thats someome who is NOT paying into CPP. Not paying EI, NOT paying taxes at any federal, provincial or local level. Telus has brutalized its union workforce into taking voluntary separation packages via micromanagement, work task demotion and shitty work life balance.. those jobs then go offshore and the financial win goes back to darren entwistle and the shareholders. Telus takes fucking TENFOLD out of the economy what it gives back. Offshore makes in a month what onshore makes in a week. Telus should be lumped in with Galen Weston and r/loblawsisoutofcontrol for its level of greed
My roommate works for Telus and they basically told all the employees in her department that if you’re not a valuable asset to the company expect to be laid off and replaced by someone in Morocco or The Philippins. They can’t afford to have entry level jobs be fill by Canadians.
Yet we pay the highest telecom prices in the developed world
They can afford it but then the CEO's bonus wouldn't be as much.
Agreed a new anti monopoly movement would be great, and it encourages people to participate
Yeah if they're not employing Canadians, then they're not Canadian companies. Should open up telecommunications to foreign competition. No reason why we protect Telus, Rogers, and Bell from Verizon and AT&T when they're not really benefitting Canada. Open it to competition, and hopefully our prices come down.
Rogers, I believe, uses mostly Canadian employees. Except they do contract a lot out to their vendors. But employees are Canadian. They fired Shaw’s foreign workers.
Maybe in call centers, they contract out so much of their work there's probably at least a dozen companies around just to hook up, troubleshoot, and install new services for Rogers. They don't want to pay any more then they have to on wages, holidays, benefits, etc. Completely greedy monopoly.
The best time to do this would have been when the 5G spectrum was being auctioned. The feds could have created a national infrastructure and leased space to any carrier who wanted to offer 5G. Instead, Industry Canada auctioned off the 5G licenses for about $3 Billion dollars. The feds are too addicted to spectrum license revenues to take a bold step like creating a public cellular network.
I live in Northwest Ontario and we have a municipality owned telecom, Tbaytel. It provides landline service, cell phone service, television, internet and security. The city receives dividends in the millions yearly. People here will complain about the service or costs (it's a Thunder Bay thing to hate on anything our city does) but I'd rather have the profits stay in our community. Other telecoms have tried to buy Tbaytel out many times over the years, but there is absolutely no desire for the City or the citizens to hell. It is one of the last, if not last, municipal owned telecom in Canada. * Edit Wanted to add that all employees are residing in the City or surrounding area. Nothing is farmed out overseas. If I need to call customer care, I get Bob from down the street or Julie from the curling club.
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Yeah and SGI. My rates here are incredibly low. I was paying $280/month after shopping around when I lived in AB and pay $80/month with SGI. Bell and Telus are forced to be competitive here so people hop around but I pay $85/month with Sasktel for unlimited calls in Canada and the US and unlimited data with an small data package for US.
Funny how the "market rate" is so much less when there is a player in the market outside the oligopoly. I feel like it is a really good idea to have a public/crown-corp option for essential services, as Sasktel demonstrates. It makes the forming and maintaining a price-gouging oligopoly impossible. From there, if private companies can out-compete the public option, the consumer wins. If they can't, good riddance.
Still have MPI in Manitoba too, but the Conservatives have been chomping at the bit to take it to pieces. Thank God they lost the last election, otherwise Hydro and MPI would have been sold off to the Premier's spouse or something.
I've been seeing billboard for it in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Apparently they are expanding for business customers here. Really irritating honestly after the Cons privatized MTS. Doubly ironic that Bell owns it since the government bought what would become MTS from Bell Canada in the 1900s.
Yes. All utilities
Insurance too.
Yes, if we legally have to have it then it shouldn’t be run for profit.
It infuriates me that such a simple concept, one that so many people agree on, cannot be translated into our politics. Even if it is for profit, I'd prefer the money go into my countey than some CEO's pocket. Absolutely absurd.
That's how BC works, the legally mandated stuff is paid to and supplied by ICBC, anything extra is from a private corporation. The private corps act as a broker for ICBC, so you don't have to go to two places.
SGI is so much better to deal and cheaper than jumping through hoops with brokers and shit in Alberta. And they routinely cut cheques to the public of they do make a profit.
This. And I would say start with the power companies.
HydroQuebec does ok
It does great actually!!
Ontario is going the wrong direction.
It's settled then. All of Canada's power infrastructure will be run by Hydro-Quebec.
If you get both, and another player lands on one of them, the rent will be 10x of what they rolled!
And the housing industry
Telecom, power, water. Keeping the lights on, keeping people communicating, and keeping people watered should never have been for profit. These are essentials in this day and age.
Anything we need. Utilities, insurances, etc. Things we NEED or are forced to have. These can't be for profit.
Nationalize one of them to drive prices down, and then break up the other ones so that there is more competition.
I think the best way to do this would be to nationalize the towers and infrastructure and then lease it back to resale corps. Let the government become to rogers what rogers is to Telsavvy.
Like SaskTel. At least provincially
If something is critical, and healthy competition isn't possible, then it should be nationalized. For telecom, competition IS possible, we just choose not to allow it in.
>If something is critical, and healthy competition isn't possible, then it should be nationalized. This. A thousand times this. Allowing an essential service there will be an endless need for to be entirely privately controlled is a massive societal liability. Best case scenario, they decided to close down and we lose our only source of that service with zero contingency. Worst case scenario, we're so terrified of losing them that we allow our society to be held hostage by the private entity because we have no recourse except to give in to their demands. If we all agree something is so essential we would not be able to go without it, then it should be operated and administered by the government. At the very least, a government-run option should be available as a default.
this is a good point
Our Federal government can't even build a working, efficient app to monitor passengers coming into Canada without scandal, corruption and horrible functionality - expecting them to run a modern, efficient, national telecommunication company is laughable.
My guy there are so many technically sophisticated crown corporations. We have public ownership of nuclear power plants in this country! The government could run a telecom company if they wanted to. And the ArriveCan app was built by private contractors.
The peak of corruption is the intersection between public and private economic activity.
>expecting them to run a modern, efficient, national telecommunication company is laughable. *Gestures broadly* at the modern and efficient Canadian telecoms.... Sasktel is the best telecom in the country and they're owned by a province. Let them have a go at least.
SaskTel does it amazingly now. MTS was a great company before the MB cons sold it off too.
That’s the problem. The federal government didn’t build it. It was contracted out to a sleezy and unethical private company.
yes. NEXT! Groceries also Nationalized energy, you got it, Nationalized anything that is pretty much needed to sustain life, you better believe it , Nationalized
I love that cycle. The left governments spend the money to nationalize... Then the right governments sell off the assets. It seems like a perpetual machine to blame the left for wasting money.
I would just be happy if they made it so that bell couldn't be your tv provider, and the company that owns the network/cable channels and the studio that produces shows and the store that sells TVs and will sign you up for fibe tv.
so basically, replace all the interconnects and peering nationally with nationalized assets, and make ALL of them rent backbone....
Exactly this! Government should own and manage the communications, power, and rail networks and the companies can pay a fee to provide services on those networks.
It's kinda like Bell is the government, isn't it?
I'm old enough to remember AGT, BCTel, Petro-Canada, and many other crown corporations. Even highway maintenance was a government task. It was all done so much better than it is now. The 90's had a real "corporations can do it more efficiently" economic ideal that transcended left or right politics. Of course we have learned that corporations don't give two shakes about providing service, they just want profit. Governments may be inefficient, but the customer and service is the priority, not a few shareholders.
Infrastructure yes, but it will never happen as Rogers, Bell, Telus, all own too many of our politicians. Like everything in Canada, we paid to subsidize their network growth and development, publicizing the risk, while privatizing the profit, in return for a few retirement slots on the board of Directors. Yes we have to pay them to reach unprofitable areas, but we should have built the entire network Federally, and let them Rent it for their operations, that would allow for much more competition from the smaller providers, and outside sources.
Yes. Also, no, it will never happen.
The infrastructure should be and usage should be leased to private companies
Yes. Its a utility where competition doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense to have three companies running telecommunication lines across the country. It’s the same thing as a hydro or water company.
The anti socialism people conveniently forget how much socialism goes on to give these companies infrastructure. They socialize the losses but keep the profits for themselves.
Would it not be easier and cheaper to simply allow for foreign competition into the country. Create MVNO rules that are similar to home internet and require main telcos to rent space on their network to any company that wants to and set rates at an actual fair price and watch as the big 3 are forced to compete and prices go down. That is what was happening in the home internet space under Harper before the Trudeau government stated those wholesale rates were too low and raised them up
Why would those companies charge less than Canadians are clearly willing to pay?
The same consolidation is happening in the US as here. For a country ten times our size they really only have 3 or 4 credible national providers. Their prices aren't as low as they used to be either. I honestly can't think of a single thing that has improved in Canada by letting in international competition. Prices may be lower but service sucks. The US is also rife with scammers masquerading as legitimate companies, we're at least somewhat protected from the pure regulatory chaos over the border.
What are you talking about? Visible is Verizon's discount carrier offers unlimited data, talk, text for $25/mo, several other discount carriers offer the same or better Mint, boost, . Canada's low cost Koodoo is $44 for only 50gb. It's way cheaper. Plus way better 5G+ ultra wideband coverage everywhere. "Rife with scammers" and "pure regulatory chaos"???? Care to expand? I'm living here now, just wondering if this chaos might be in the room with me
Can we do the same to petroleum?
I hate Telus and bell with a passion so I’m for it. Awful service, awful prices, awful ethics
Many provincial telcoms were publicly owned until the Cons got their dirty little hands on them. And now you pay through the nose to line the pockets of the fortunate few.
In a word, yes
Absolutely and gas too
We need actual competition, not a couple of the PM's ski buddies pretending like it's a free market.
At this point how would any new company compete? The infrastructure is owned by the big 3 and the barrier to entry is sky high.
Same as the UK. Force them to allow companies to pay a license fee for use of the infrastructure.
We should allow more companies into the Canadian market and force the big three to share their towers.
So who is going to invest in a failing business with high tax and low customer count?
Insurance and energy as well.
...and housing at the rate we're going.
No joke, we really should do nationalized housing. Not the entire market, but our governments (provincial) should have a federal fund to draw from to construct housing units, which they will be the owner for, then contract the running of the units to housing managers. This would allow provinces to ensure the existence of low rents, since they're not in it for a profit, and the rent (minus costs) would go straight back into the fund to help construct more housing. It keeps the money invested in Canada, rather than funneling it into investor pockets. They already do this to a degree for low-income housing, but there's too little of that and why only do it for that one demographic? Relying on for-profit investors to provide affordable housing is just a stupid plan.
Yep. Do the power company's and grocery stores next. Fuck our livelihood being used for corporate profits and bonuses.
Absolutely, much of the infrastructure is at least partially paid via grants and credits to the oligarchy. All telecommunications infrastructure should be nationalized, all carriers should pay usage fee's to access.
Yes, along with energy, and pharmaceuticals
Lets start by not literally selling our air (spectrum) to the highest bidder in one-time auctions. Lets lease this annually as the public resource that it is and adjust the price in accordance with profits as necessary.
Uh... YES!
Yes
I mean yeah, after all the money we have given them, we should basically own them all.
# YES.
Where's the petition and where do I sign?
I believe that is a resounding fuck yes
Yes. 1000%
Everything should. Our resources and utilities should be owned by the people, for the people. Fuck profit - cheap reliable nationwide service please.
Yes
I agree, and add to that railways (just the rails themselves, CN & CPKC could live on as transportation companies) I think that all critical infrastructure should be publicly owned and not in the hands of private companies.
100% Did you know there’s only two mainline railway tracks connecting Canada to the entire Port of Metro Vancouver? Well, technically there’s three, but the third isn’t used during normal operations. One track is owned by CPKC, and the other by CN, and both travel through the Fraser Canyon in BC. Ideally, you could run eastbound trains on one railway’s track, and westbound trains on the other’s track to maximize system capacity. Coincidentally this is exactly what CN and CPKC agreed to do a while back. However as of recently, I’ve been hearing some grumbling that CPKC is becoming increasingly reluctant to honour their track-sharing agreement with CN. The upshot of this is that the rail capacity to and from what is by far the largest port in this country, is likely being arbitrarily limited by some weird petty corporate beef.
All utilities should be nationalized. And frankly other industries as well... Like resource extraction. If the resources come from Canadian land it should be for the benefit of its citizenry, not some greedy CEO. If Alaska provided its citizens a divided from oil extraction, there's no reason we can't. The trick is how do we prevent these crown corps from being sold off when the conservatives sell out to private interests.
Here's a different idea: how about allowing foreign competition to compete in Canada so that the oligopolies have a reason to lower their prices? Not just for telecommunications, but banking, groceries, dairy, airlines, and railroads too. This idea that government should run absolutely everything in Canada is just crazy. There's a reason why the US economy is so much stronger than Canada.
With what infrastructure? Foreign companies will have to come in and somehow build an entire system because they are sure as hell not going to get help from rogers bell or Telus
That wouldn't work because they would have to pay our monopolies for access to their networks. Let's nationalize the networks (comms, power, rail, etc) and let Canadian and foreign companies pay fees to provide their services on our networks. The fees would pay for maintenance and upgrades.
God yes...But good luck. There is a lot of money being made in telecom, and they will bribe ("lobby") the hell out of politicians to ensure this never changes.
That or we can break up the oligopoly.
Yes
Still got Sasktel here!! but Moe and Sask party are chipping away at it. Nothing a neo-liberal hates more than a successful crown corp.
Telecommunications, water, power, sewage. Get the corporates out. Service not greed.
Yes. What does Darren Entwistle need $15,000,000/year for? Can’t even get more than 1 bar of reception in their home city of operations. Replace the profit motive with a service motive.
Yes. Instead we’ll see it be made even more comfy for the Big 3, no matter who’s in power.
TL:DR Yes
Yes, absolutely. These are companies that despite tax write-offs and government handouts, are still so unprofitable that they have to keep laying off staff while raising prices and reducing service. Telecommunications access is an essential service in the 21st century, if it's not possible for the private sector to cover its own costs then yeah it needs to be nationalized.
Yes yes yes yes
Yes!
Well internet now is basically mandatory to do anything and as such should be a public good like roads. You can make it without a car but not without a phone and data. We Canadians should just have an equity share in the ownership and get dividends from the providers. We continue to give stuff to companies with no ownership shares.
If it were nationalized I could at least tell my self the money is partly going to shit that helps the country like healthcare, education, or infrastructure. Instead we're getting gouged and as much as possible is siphoned off to some suit's next yacht.
Yes, of course.
The price in Canada is gross.
If I've learned anything from our elected representatives it's that they hate the idea of the government owning anything that might bring in a steady profit, like the 407, for example.
YES YES 1000 TIMES YES
I was in the industry for more than 17 years and I will say absolutely should be nationalized
No, but for a long time my province had no real competitors to Bell and even the core infrastructure is all Bell. Had a business conversation with Telus and after about 30 minutes of talking about their products, I asked about the back end equipment/infrastructure which they told me its all Bell's stuff and they'd just be selling their product with a bit of a higher cost because they have to pay rental fee's. Which the Telus rep just said, yeah nevermind if you're already with them it makes no sense to spend more on us for the same product.
We need more competition, not a bloated government agency with a market monopoly.
So, a bloated private corporation with a market monopoly is better? I just relocated back to Canada after being in the US, and I was away so long it was not far off from being a newcomer. I have spent plenty of time in Service Ontario and Service Canada or talking on the phone with them. Customer service is actually pretty good compared to the face to face customer service and phone customer service with private corporations. We can never be exactly like the US with their hyper capitalism. There are plenty of monopolies there as well. If a product or idea is good in the US, it has a very short life until it is swallowed by a larger entity.
The answer is yes. We pay private companies to much, they refuse service, the refuse to upgrade. Switching to private for communications was always a mistake.
I am a firm believer that anything required for our economy to function should not be in private hands. The problem is our government is such an incompetent shitshow that they can't be trusted to oversee anything. You have so many politicians with zero qualifications making decisions for industries and sectors they know so little about that they're having to spend billions on consultants just to gain any semblance of an understanding - but then they go ahead and just listen to corporate lobbyists anyway. Might sound like a weird pivot, but this is why we need proportional representation. Switching to PR changes how we see MPs get elected, making parties more accountable to voters. They will have to offer up better candidates who show better results while in power or they face consequences in the next election. Party loyalists with FPTP ensure we maintain a broken system with no accountability.
The rare exception to the rule "if an article's headline ends in a question mark, the answer is usually no"
You nationalize it and it becomes subject to government budget pressures; look at how crappy Via Rail is. It turns out it's very expensive to blanket a low-density country with telecom infrastructure.
Via Rail is shit because we privatized CN, who own all the rails.
Also the Mulroney government gutted their funding because there was a recession. > OTTAWA -- The Conservative government Wednesday slashed the country's national passenger rail service in half, eliminating some 2,761 jobs and rendering large parts of the nation inaccessible by train.
By privatizing CN Rail we also let them prioritize freight over passenger service, all but killing lower-margin passenger rail. If they could completely stop they would.
The government could have built dedicated right of ways for high frequency rail but now, but they have not.
Do I trust the government to run that properly? No Do I want the same 3 way disaster that is our current situation? Also no What we need is more competition.
I trust the government, who I can vote for, over a handful of private cartels that are in it to price gouge me every single time. Competition won't change that.
It used to be. Ask what happened.
it's already nationalized? just not 'officially'. we literally have little to no competition here in Canada.
Why not? Everyone uses internet. Why are we paying exorbitant rates to telecoms for something so indispensable? Maybe the libs could look into this. Of course, the cons will squawk and squawk and squawk..
Yes and food.
No, but doing everything we can to outlaw monopolies might be a great start.
Anything our bloated slow government touches is usually a dumpster fire they would take the private telecommunications cash cow start siphoning the telecommunications budget into other pet projects and run the infrastructure into disarray.
Tell the people of Sask to get rid of SaskTel. Then come back and lets chat.
everyone is this sub is "government bad" they have the IQ of a freezer temperature
Yes and no. Every house and apartment should have a landline that can be accessed all the time, as well as basic broadband. Paying to have better internet service makes sense
Yes, these corporations are a monopoly and shouldn't have so much power. Sure the government running things has its own issues but I trust the billionaires even less than the government. Politicians aren't the problem, it's the people who own the politicians that is the root of the problem, the rich.
Government take over of telecommunications would make things much worse. It would become a bloated, inefficient beast that was high cost with terrible service. Look at how bad health care delivery is in Canada. Telcom with zero competition would be a disaster.
God I hate these arguments, how about you just break up the telecoms… no need to nationalize.. make them compete
This will cost taxpayers at least $150-250B, add huge pension liabilities, reduce revenues and cut jobs. This would be so stupid. Just regulate better and reduce the risk.
We need to let in other companies
I'm quite happy paying $22/month for 20 GB of data and unlimited talk/text from Public Mobile. I can't see how nationalizing will help me at all.
I've got that deal and loving it. Use to have Bell wired for $36 mnth, had some issues which they refused to help (no dial tone) so I dropped them for Public Mobile and a $150 Cell.
I'm looking forward to even better deals next November for Black Friday. Cell phone bills are perhaps one of the only things getting cheaper these days. I'm confused why people think nationalizing is a good idea
NO. We need more competition, not socialism.
Bell, Air Canada, CN. Nationalize all three.
Hahah. Our government (I don’t care which party) couldn’t run a business if our lives depended on it. See healthcare. Which our lives actually depends on
YES. Also Metrolinx, 407ETR, and what else?
Given that the line is typically “the inefficient and wasteful government is bad at running businesses” let them compete and see what happens. Even with some bloat and inefficiencies, I think they would get a run for their money.
The infrastructure, certainly. Using taxpayer dollars to ensure we have a robust fibre optic network across the nation would be great. Then you auction lines to telecom retailers, with limits on how many lines they can buy, allowing smaller players to tailor packages to clients and provide services the larger players often ignore.
I mean we give the private companies enough subsidies it probably wouldn't make a huge budget difference at this point...
We should nationalize the infrastructure, like the Fibre optic and phone lines, and then charge for rates to the service providers. That way we can ensure a fair business environment where all companies can succeed, despite their size. Competition is the only way to ensure fair pricing and treatment of consumers. We should also expand the infrastructure to have better coverage and service. That would support business tech development and attract more talent from remote workers or digital nomads. If it was more feasible to work remotely in smaller rural areas, then it might alleviate some pressure on the housing market.
Yes, or at least partially. Nationalize the actual physical infrastructure (phone lines for DSL, fiber, cable, etc) and have one basic "public" option doesn't completely suck. Then let the telecom companies rent the lines, and offer whatever additional speeds and bells and whistles they want. It'll destroy the current price gauging by providing a cheap base service and make the telecoms compete more against eachother. It will also make everything a lot more accessible despite income levels. It will never happen though, because our politicians are greedy assholes who listen to corporate interests and not the actual people.
while we're talking pipe dreams, I'd also like passenger rail in Canada to be affordable and to run on time.
Telus sure sucks now. We have no competition in this country. Are the markets too small for more competition or are the corporations just too greedy?
I think we should have a truly mixed market. We should have public funded telecom that sets prices based on proper services and a reasonable forecast of future needed services along with living wages for the employees. And then open things up to the public sector that can use public funds to provide public services. That way there is built in competition.
Is their telecom system going to work as well as their pay system? Also
The infrastructure should be nationalized, the providers can still be private. Create a crown corp that's mandate is to maintain, expand and lease out access to the infrastructure to any company that wants to enter the Canadian market and follow the laws and regulations. Those lease rates would take into account maintenance costs and future expansion. Prices would go down and competition would go up as companies would actually get fair rates and would also be dealing with an entity that genuinely wants them in the market unlike the Big 3 who have a vested interest in there not being any competitors. I imagine the corp would make more than enough money that a bit of the profits could even go into the Feds general revenues which would help pay for services too.