Ever since the imposition of foreign ownership restrictions on all
telecommunications common carriers in
the 1993 Telecommunications Act, the issue has been the subject of much
debate in Canadian society.
In December 2009, the issue of foreign ownership in the
telecommunications industry was brought back to the forefront when the
Government of Canada decided to allow Globalive Wireless to operate as a
telecommunications common carrier in Canada. This determination varied a
decision taken less than two months earlier by the Canadian Radio-television
and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). The question at stake was whether
Globalive Wireless could be considered in law to be Canadian-owned and
controlled, which is a necessary condition to operate as a telecommunications
common carrier in Canada. In this context, in March 2010 the House of Commons
Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology (hereinafter the
Committee) began a review of Canada’s foreign ownership rules and regulations
under the Telecommunications Act, the Radiocommunication Act, and
the Broadcasting Act. Although this review was triggered in part by a
very specific case, the Committee took a broader view of the issue, hearing
from a wide range of stakeholders including unions, artists’ groups,
telecommunications and cable companies, academics, as well as broadcasting
companies and industry associations.
In this study, the Committee takes a somewhat different approach
than with previous reports on this issue in that implications of foreign
ownership restrictions are examined through three lenses: economic
considerations, social and equity dimensions, and Canada’s cultural
sovereignty. Consequently, this report is structured accordingly. The first
section provides a background on foreign ownership restrictions and presents a
brief overview of the Globalive case. The following three sections examine
respectively the
economic, social and culture dimensions of foreign ownership restrictions.
Finally, the last section discusses the implications of technological
convergence for the telecommunications and broadcasting industries, and
provides the Committee’s overall perspective and recommendations.