canadiancomment

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Robbed Again

It's bad enough when the government manages to burn through our hard-earned tax dollars at an amazing rate but now it's allowing private business to due the same with un-earned dollars:
The CRTC said yesterday that Canadian telephone customers have been overbilled to the tune of $652.7-million over the past few years, but the money will not be going back to them.

The federal regulator ruled instead that telecommunications companies such as Bell Canada and Telus Corp. should use most of the money -- equivalent to about $50 a customer -- to expand offerings in underserved markets, primarily rural and remote communities.

...

CRTC chair Charles Dalfen told reporters yesterday that expanding broadband services, also known as high-speed Internet, is an important social and economic goal.

It has been a federal government priority for at least five years, although Ottawa has yet to allocate enough money to provide access in most rural and remote communities. "We think this is in the broader interests of the consumers," Mr. Dalfen said.

So here we have a government (old Liberal government to be specific) that has a priority to expand broadband access in rural communities but instead of ponying up the cash to do it the CRTC gets private business to do it's dirty work for it.

Could this be any more unbelievable? When exactly did Canadians give $650-million to the CRTC to piss away?

And on a different but related topic, why exactly is broadband access considered an important social goal? Since when did our government decide that online porn and gambling should become national priorities? Is this other one of those Liberal schemes (i.e. handouts) that are supposed to define us as Canadians?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This might not be the right place to ask, but this is the only other Canadian blog that I read. Does anyone know what happened to rightthinkingpeople.blogspot.com? It seems to have been replaced by a brand new blog that has nothing to do with the previous one.

Anonymous said...

The CRTC has no right to redirect money that does not belong to them. Officialdom in bureaucracy seems to think it can unless a hellofaracket reaches your MP's in Ottawa by phone, fax or mail (incidentally all mail sent to your MP via Canada post does not require a stamp). Your written protest speaks loudest and that is exactly what you should do. Write to your MP with a copy to the CRTC and the PM of Canada to reverse said decision and mail out rebate checks to individuals.
Not taking action at the first sign of abuse is what causes billion dollar losses to the tax payers like the gun registration fiasco. By the way, how much money was returned to the public purse on that one?
Get mad, people!
Write to your MP and explain the consequences may be voting for, say, the greens. Believe me, nothing is more fearful to liberals or conservatives than losing to the green team.
Out with the old and in with the new, conserve, recycle and eliminate the national debt.



























A new broom sweeps clean!

Anonymous said...

This is obviously outdated however my point is - Why do we need a CRTC anyway? If there was no CRTC we could show our displeasure with Telus, Bell etc. by dropping them. You know - free enterprise style.
In the west we have very few choices for our cell phone, satelite t.v., phone line, power etc. The CRTC is outdated and should be scrapped. Of coarse that is not likely to happen given that we cannot scrap a useless multi-billion dollar gun registry because it would me job losses in N.B.