It is Canada’s last hope for a break in cell phone pricing. We have been betrayed by the Quislings in the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) and the Competition Tribunal and our last hope could end up being the industry minister, François-Philippe Champagne. He might be struggling to stay in control of the situation but we know he is on the side of the customers.
How anyone could think a company so predatory and badly run as Rogers is today should be crowned as dominant supplier of cell phone service in Canada is beyond the understanding of many Canadians. While there was a lot of give and take over the years as the late Ted Rogers built the company, it was the help of many of his political friends that helped his company reach the heights it did. To now give his successor a carte blanche to buy Shaw Communications is an irresponsible action.
It was the then president of the liberal party who called me once and asked me to do some work for free for Ted. I produced a block of programs for him, under primitive conditions, on Canadian politics. He ran those tapes on his cables and then sent them out to other cable companies. Ted knew how to build his position.
But Ted Roger’s son is not the person we respected and encouraged. For him to have the same control of the company, as his father held, is a disservice to the employees who also helped build that company. Ted had a responsibility to plan better. Sure, you can put things off but, sooner or later, reality catches up with all of us.
Champagne said that he has to wait for the appeal by the Competition Bureau to be handled by the courts. It would appear from the legal proceedings that the Competition Bureau is quite serious in saying that the Shaw takeover should be blocked. It is worrying though that Champagne might be putting too much of his hopes on the sale of Freedom Mobile services to Vidéotron in Quebec. To trust that guy with his Péquiste background, who runs Quebecor, to stick to his word for ten years is pushing the envelope.
Not that I think Champagne is naïve. The Shaw family just need to find a better buyer than Rogers.
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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry
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