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Published Aug 15, 2025 • Last updated 9 hours ago • 3 minute read
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Joly is now signalling that she is charting her own path by supporting a policy that will help get the cost of Canadians’ internet bills down at a time when affordability is a major concern for everyday consumers. Photo by Omar Havana /Getty ImagesArticle content
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s decision to shuffle Mélanie Joly into the industry minister role is paying dividends for Canadian consumers.
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Joly took over as industry minister earlier this year, at a crucial time for the future of internet competition in Canada.
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Former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s long-time industry minister, François-Philippe Champagne, stood in the way of more telecom competition for years.
But Joly is now signalling that she is charting her own path by supporting a policy that will help get the cost of Canadians’ internet bills down at a time when affordability is a major concern for everyday consumers. The CRTC, Canada’s communications regulator, has argued for years that consumers would benefit from more cross-regional competition. Such competition would encourage more of Canada’s major regional internet providers to enter markets in other areas of the country.
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This would help to break Canada’s regional telecom duopolies, which are largely responsible for the fact that Canadians pay some of the highest internet bills among peer countries. The CRTC made a decision to that effect a few years ago: the CRTC ruled that Canada’s big internet companies need to share their fibre networks with other companies, at prices determined by the CRTC.
Even though this decision was made years ago, it wasn’t finalized by the government until last week. The government still needed to decide whether to finalize the CRTC’s decision or reverse course and protect the regional duopoly market that exists in Canada today.
Thankfully, Joly sided with consumers.
“Canadians depend on telecommunications services for every aspect of life,” said Joly in a statement. “By immediately increasing competition and consumer choice, the CRTC’s decision aims to reduce the cost of high-speed internet for Canadians and will contribute toward our broader mandate to bring down costs across the board.”
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“To that end, the government is declining to alter the CRTC’s decision to expand mandatory wholesale access.”
This is a welcome change from the delays of the Champagne years.
Bell, one of Canada’s largest telecom companies, had been lobbying Champagne for years to try to prevent the very decision Joly made last week. Bell is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the current framework that lacks real competition in regional markets.
And it’s quite possible that all of Bell’s lobbying led to years of delays on the part of the Trudeau government to uphold the CRTC’s decision.
Thankfully, Joly made the right call. She says the Carney government is focused on lowering costs for consumers, and by making this decision Joly is helping to do exactly that. Broadband costs in Canada are nearly double the costs in peer countries like France and Germany. That needs to change, and cross-regional competition is the best way to get there.
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As Joly said, upholding the CRTC’s decision “will immediately allow for more competition on existing networks for high-speed internet services across the country.”
In most provinces, only two major internet carriers operate. And when there’s less competition, prices for consumers increase.
Joly’s decision to uphold the CRTC’s call for more competition will bring more companies to different parts of Canada and consumers will have the opportunity to shop around among more internet providers for the best deal. This, in turn, will help to foster competition and bring prices down.
Canadians pay ridiculously high prices for internet access. Consumers should now have reason for optimism that things will start to change in the right direction.
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The Trudeau Liberals had a long track record in government of pursuing policies that raise prices for consumers.
With this decision, Carney and Joly might be starting to signal to Canadians that Canada’s new government does care about keeping costs down.
In the wake of scrapping the consumer carbon tax and ending the Digital Services Tax, this decision on expanding competition in Canada’s telecom space is yet another example of pro-consumer policies coming out of Ottawa over the past number of months.
Let’s hope the momentum keeps going.
— Jay Goldberg is the Canadian Affairs Manager at the Consumer Choice Center, and a guest writer for the Winnipeg Sun.
Have thoughts on what’s going on in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, or across the world? Send us a letter to the editor at wpgsun.letters@kleinmedia.ca.
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