New Cabinet features members knowledgeable about telecom concerns

The advent of a new government in Ottawa brings several new Cabinet members who are knowledgeable about the telecom sector and the problems it faces. But the likelihood of an election in the spring negates any real possibility of concrete action on the sector in the short term.Several of the new appointees to Prime Minister Paul Martin’s Cabinet are plugged into communications issues. Reg Alcock, the new president of the Treasury Board, is a longtime champion of the government online (GOL) initiative and has adopted high-tech in his dealings with his Winnipeg constituency (NL, May 22/01). He believes it is up to politicians, rather than bureaucrats, to drive GOL. However, as part of the reorganization of government announced on the day of the new Cabinet’s swearing-in, jurisdiction for GOL was transferred from Treasury Board to Public Works and Government Services. Vancouver’s Stephen Owen, who is highly regarded in government circles, now holds that portfolio. Another change sees Jim Peterson take over as minister of a strengthened Department of International Trade. Part of the ministry’s mandate will be the issue of foreign ownership limits in the telecom sector. That pleases one telco executive in the capital. "I think it’s a good idea to move issues around investment to the department of trade," Chris Peirce, senior VP of regulatory and government affairs for Allstream Corp., tells Network Letter. "We’ll have to see what that means but I take that as a positive sign."One surprising development was the appointment of Lucienne Robillard as minister of Industry, replacing Allan Rock. It is widely believed that Robillard will only serve in Cabinet until the election is called, vacating her Montreal riding for another star candidate, perhaps former Liberal and BQ MP Jean Lapierre. One parliamentary observer remarked to NL, "She’s just doing her victory lap before her retirement." Wait until election Peirce shares the view that this is only an interim government, with the real work waiting until after voters have their say."It’s important not to see the landscape as it is as necessarily the landscape as it will be following the next federal election. So we’ll have to see what happens in post-April or May if as expected there’s an election," he says. "I wouldn’t expect anything really seminal until post-election." One prediction that did not come true – at least immediately – with the changing of the guard in Ottawa was the re-emergence of a Department of Communications (DoC) that would combine the telecom and broadcasting functions of Industry Canada and Canadian Heritage. That suits some industry members just fine. At the meeting of the Canadian chapter of the International Institute of Communications in Ottawa earlier this month, a session was held on the most effective structure for those departments and related agencies such as the CRTC, the Competition Bureau and the Copyright Board of Canada. The panelists unanimously agreed that having more than one department allowed for greater discussion. "The key is to get the policy structure right first," Lawson Hunter, executive VP of BCE Inc., maintained. "That will drive the structure."He prefers having an Industry ministry that will consider the ICT sector as part of a larger economic pie. That will contribute to open debate that should result in better policy decisions, he added. Phyllis Yaffe, CEO of Alliance Atlantis Broadcasting, reminded delegates about the battles to give cultural industries more attention. She worries a rejuvenated DoC would pay too much attention to technical issues in broadcasting and telecom. "I’m old enough to remember when the Department of Communications covered both and I’m old enough to remember arguing that cultural industries needed their own ministry," she stated. "I don’t know if I want to go back." Discussion turned to suggestions that the CRTC should be made smaller, following the model of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in Washington. One telecom analyst on the panel shot down that idea."The CRTC and the FCC don’t do the same thing," Ian Angus of Angus TeleManagement Group Inc. said. "Any numeric comparison is just wrong." In the United States, telecom is subject to the jurisdiction of the FCC and of 50 state commissions. While the FCC has fewer commissioners than the CRTC, it hands off many of the decision-making powers to staff. Angus expects CRTC bureaucrats would be expected to pick up the slack caused if the number of commissioners were reduced. The topic of foreign ownership in the telecom sector will not be resolved until after the next election. By the time the next Cabinet is sworn in, it will be close to a year since the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology released its recommendations for a liberalized investment regime (NL, May 6/03). That doesn’t bother Peirce. Action needed by 2004 "Our realistic expectation would be this is an issue that can be dealt with this next calendar year, in 2004, and when the government said they would return with solutions by the spring of next year, we took that as a good sign that they were committed to take action next year. If action is taken in 2004, that’s timely enough," he tells NL. "Government action is always slower than one would like. If we were to wander our way through 2004 without clear direction, I think that would be problematic." Five members of the Industry committee have been promoted, either to Cabinet ministers or to parliamentary secretaries. Martin has promised that the secretaries will have greater clout than they did in the Chrétien government and has made them members of the Privy Council so they may have access to secret government documents. Peirce, who worked for new Finance minister Ralph Goodale in the early 1990s, likes the makeup of the new government. "It’s a Cabinet that as you look around it has a real capacity and I hope appetite to see the importance of the industry and take positive steps forward. You’ve got people like Joe Volpe who sat on the Industry committee, Tony Valeri who clearly comes out of finance with to my mind a clear grounding on where the economy should be going," the Allstream executive opines, also praising deputy PM Anne McLellan, Goodale and Alcock.

New Cabinet features members knowledgeable about telecom concerns

News | 12/22/2003 5:00 am EST

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