New EU-Canada trade leak reveals telecommunications chapter

OTTAWA--As the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) enters its third round of negotiations this week, a new coalition of Canadian public interest groups and unions has released a leaked negotiating text that proposes changes for Canada’s telecommunications sector, including a Canadian proposal to open the door to European investment. “Each Party shall ensure that enterprises of the other Party have access to and use of any public telecommunications transport network or service offered within or across its borders, including private leased circuits,” Canada proposes in the draft text, dated Jan. 13, 2010. Previous leaks have shown that amendments to the Copyright Act could result from the negotiations. But yesterday’s leak is the first of its kind relating to telecommunications. “We’re concerned that there is no public debate about major policy changes like foreign ownership of cultural industries,” Alain Pineau, national director of the Canadian Conference of the Arts, said at press conference on Parliament Hill Monday. Pineau is a member of a new coalition called the Trade Justice Network, which opposes many of the trade deal proposals. “The opening up of foreign ownership in telecom is something that we are very concerned with in the cultural sector,” Pineau said. “The CETA negotiations are poised to remove Canadian control of telecommunications,” the Trade Justice Network added in a statement on its website. “In the trade agreement under discussion, the Harper government has proposed that EU companies be allowed access to all Canadian telecommunications networks and services.” The House industry committee is currently studying the liberalization of Canada’s foreign ownership restrictions following the Conservative government’s throne speech pledge to open the doors to foreign investment in the telecom sector. The Canadian Conference of the Arts and the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA) have argued at the industry committee hearings that foreign ownership in telecommunications would negatively impact Canada’s cultural sovereignty. “Look at what happened at the film industry,” Pineau told The Wire Report. “We lost control of our distribution system back in the 1920s. About 98 per cent of the movies we watch now on our screens are American.” The Conservative government says that any agreement developed through the CETA negotiation process must satisfy Canadian interests. The government says an "ambitious" agreement with the EU could boost the Canadian economy by $12 billion. Canadian and European diplomats are meeting for a third round of CETA negotiations this week in Ottawa. In Article 33 of the CETA document, the EU proposes a free-market solution to negotiating interconnection rates between carriers. “Any supplier authorised to provide telecommunications services shall have the right to negotiate interconnection with other providers of publicly available telecommunications networks and services. Interconnection should in principle be agreed on the basis of commercial negotiation between the companies concerned,” the EU proposes in the document. “The Europeans are saying, in effect, that it’s almost a Bernier-type approach to rely on market forces and negotiate the interconnection rates,” Mark Goldberg, a telecommunications consultant at Mark H. Goldberg & Associates, told The Wire Report. Bernier, the former Conservative industry minister from 2006 to 2007, was known for favouring a laissez-faire approach to the sector. Goldberg said he isn’t sure whether liberalized approach to interconnection rates would have implications for the Canadian telecom market because there are a number of wholesale tariffs in place that are not negotiable. Michael Hennessy, senior vice-president of regulatory and government affairs with Telus Corp., told The Wire Report he took note of Article 31 of the document, which covers spectrum licence fees. The EU proposes that spectrum licence fees should not exceed the administrative costs normally involved in the management, control and enforcement of those licences. “I read that as suggesting that the EU doesn’t think that you should pay for anything but the cost of administrating spectrum,” Hennessy said. “Nobody but the Canadians seem to think it’s a good idea when you’re trying to lower prices to increase licence fees.” jmigneault@thewirereport.ca

New EU-Canada trade leak reveals telecommunications chapter

News | April 20, 2010

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