A dangerous precedent

February 3, 2011 in http://www.cbc.ca/


The CRTC must reverse its decision that ends unlimited internet access plans offered by smaller internet providers or the federal government will intervene, Industry Minister Tony Clement says.
Clement told reporters Thursday that he and Prime Minister Stephen Harper sent a clear signal Wednesday night "that we do expect the CRTC to reverse its decision and to basically go back to the drawing board on this issue, and if they do not do this, we wanted to make it clear cabinet would take its responsiblites to do the same."
Clement said he heard from Canadians on the issue.
"It's a huge issue for a country that wants to move forward on the internet for jobs, for creativity, for innovation," he said. "[We] felt the CRTC ruling would have a huge impact on consumers and would hurt small businesses, would hurt innovators and creators."
Clement said that while he understands bandwidth capacity is a problem, usage-based billing "is the wrong way to do it — to force a business model on independent service providers if they do not want to use that business model."Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2011/02/03/crtc-internet-clement.html#ixzz1CzVEyioh

So what's the problem?

A big one. The CRTC is at least, arm's length from government. If the government doesn't like its decisions (or decisions of ANY arm's length group), does it overturn the decision? Pass legislation that nullifies a decision? Legislate the group out of existence?

A common question these days is this: is the government going in the right direction? is it taking Canada down thr right road? The answer is clear: NO. This government is not good for Canada.