Legal Research

The Battle at CRTC

By Annette Demers

From OpenMedia.ca :

We have a unique opportunity to stop phone and cable company gouging if we act now.
Thanks to the nearly half-a-million people who signed the Stop The Meter Petition, the CRTC is now reviewing its decision to impose new fees on nearly all Internet users.

Industry Minister Clement told Parliament he will not allow the same decision to be passed by the CRTC, but has not specified whether he will accept a watered-down version of that decision. We know a Big Telecom-friendly compromise is being pushed behind closed doors. If we don’t speak up now we could end up back where we started: gouged.

The easiest and the most effective way you can help right now is by sending comments to the CRTC at http://openmedia.ca/crtc.

We need to get 100,000 letters to the CRTC now so the Commission, Clement, and other key decision makers know that we will accept nothing less than a fundamental change in the way phone and cable companies operate.

Send your letter now.

The CRTC has set up the review of usage-based billing so it avoids touching the root cause of this price gouging. They’re limiting their review so that many Canadians still end up with a pay-metered Internet. We’ve come too far to accept this.

We’re working with some of the best public interest lawyers, citizen groups, content creators, indie ISPs, and online service providers to push the CRTC to address the underlying stranglehold big telecom companies have over communications in Canada.

We need to back up our policy work with an undeniable show of support from the Canadian people. Please help us get to 100,000 letters of support by sending your comment in HERE.

The Internet is a bastion of Canadian culture, democracy, and innovation. Lets not let it slip away.

For the Internet,

The OpenMedia Team
*Please support this campaign by making a small donation to our Stop the Meter Fund at: http://openmedia.ca/drive (this donation will cost you a lot less than monthly usage fees)

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on March 03, 2011 (boomark / email).