Weekly Roundup: CRTC Overhaul Urged and Toronto Eyes Public Grocery Stores
Plus: The Live Nation antitrust trial turns into a circus, airlines target un-competitive routes with price hikes and telecom activation fees finally get banned
The Canadian Internet Society has had it with the nation’s broadcast and telecom regulator. In a white paper issued this week, the organization is calling for a wholesale review and overhaul of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) by the federal government.
“As an institution, the CRTC has failed to develop the technical, economic, and policy expertise necessary to fully understand the internet and how it transforms the legacy industries it was established to regulate,” the paper says. “It does not operate efficiently, transparently, or in a timely manner — essential attributes in rapidly evolving internet-enabled markets.”
The report criticizes the CRTC for being unable to adapt to technological change and reflect consumer interests in its rulings, while also being prone to political interference. The Internet Society, which advocates for affordability, accessibility and security online and which is made up of lawyers, academics and representatives from industry, is urging the government to adopt a suite of 25 recommendations laid out in the paper.
A few of them include:
Reducing the number of commissioners from 13 to nine and ensuring they all have experience in their respective fields – which in telecom would include engineering, economics and competition policy – and paying them at market rates.
Structurally separating the CRTC into broadcast and telecom divisions.
Taking wireless spectrum control including auctions away from Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) and giving it to the CRTC.
Removing cabinet’s ability to change or set aside CRTC decisions.
Requiring senior staff and commissioners to publicly report all private meetings they have with industry representatives.
Undertaking a thorough review and reform of wholesale telecom access policy, including functional separation of large firms “rather than continuing what has become an unproductive stalemate.”
Leonard St. Aubin, a member of the Internet Society’s policy committee and author of the paper, tells Do Not Pass Go that the recommendations were arrived at after a round-table meeting last year of a wide variety of stakeholders. Attendees included representatives from large and small firms, academics, civil society groups and policy experts.
The Society decided to release the paper now because the federal government is still relatively new. Ongoing trade issues with the United States are also adding relevancy and urgency to legislation the CRTC is still working to implement, including the Online Streaming Act and Online News Act.
“It’s time for a change,” St. Aubin says. “Timeliness is everything. With regulatory decisions, if you don’t have a decision, if the decisions take too long, things get overtaken by events and, for the most part, that kind of delay benefits incumbents.”
Neither the CRTC nor ISED, which oversees the regulator, were able to provide comments on the report by publication time.
📱 TELECOM
In a bit of serendipity, the CRTC this week announced it is banning internet and cellphone service fees that act as impediments to customers switching providers, as of June 12. The main applicable fees in this case are activation charges, which have risen repeatedly over the past few years and are generally now $80. As if to underline the Internet Society’s above point on timeliness, the CRTC’s ruling comes nearly 16 months after the regulator launched its investigation into whether such fees were in fact acting as deterrents to switching. A spokesperson for the regulator explains that this week’s announcement is the culmination of consultations on the matter and amendments to the Telecommunications Act that came into force in Oct. 2025. In a briefing with reporters on Thursday afternoon, a CRTC representative could not put a number on how much consumers have paid in activation fees over the past few years or how much the ban might now save them. The representative also could not say that any measures were being put in place to prevent telcos from recouping their lost activation fee revenue in other ways – say, by simply raising monthly service prices: “We can’t control how they’re going to react.” The companies also have all of the usual appeal routes available to them, which includes asking the CRTC itself, or the courts or cabinet, to overturn the ruling.
🕺 ENTERTAINMENT & LEISURE
This past week was the week that the LIVE NATION antitrust case became a circus. It started Monday morning, just one week into the trial, with a surprise settlement announcement by the entertainment giant and the U.S. Department of Justice. The deal, which involves Live Nation paying a fine of $280 million (U.S.) or the equivalent of a few days’ revenue, allowing venues to sell a portion of tickets through providers other than its TICKETMASTER subsidiary, and a handful of other clauses, was likely politically arranged as both the judge and even the DOJ’s own prosecuting attorney were not privy to settlement discussions even happening. U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian blasted the parties for showing “absolute disrespect for the court, the jury and this entire process.” More than two dozen U.S. states – both Democrat and Republican – vowed to continue the case and moved for a mistrial. Meanwhile, more dirty laundry emerged, with employees’ Slack messages revealing contempt for ticket-buying customers, referring to them as “so stupid” and how Live Nation was “robbing them blind.” As one former U.S. antitrust official told NBC News this week, “You really couldn’t send a clearer message that antitrust is dead at the federal level than settling this particular case.”
Montreal’s LA RONDE amusement park has been sold by SIX FLAGS to real estate investment trust EPR PROPERTIES for an undisclosed amount. The Kansas City-based company owns a growing empire of amusement parks, ski resorts and eat-and-play properties, including four Entertainment Centrum locations in Ontario. Originally part of Expo 67, La Ronde had swapped hands before ending up with U.S. amusement park chain Six Flags in 1998.
From amusement parks to nature’s playgrounds, PARKS CANADA has announced it is implementing paid parking at the base of the Sulphur Mountain Gondola, just south of the town of Banff. Starting May 15, drivers will have to pay $17.70 per day at the lots as part of an effort to reduce traffic congestion in the town, with visitors urged to instead use provided shuttle buses. The gondola is owned by PURSUIT ATTRACTIONS, the Denver-based company that has sparked controversy over its monopoly of tourist attractions in the Banff and Jasper national parks.
Video gamers lost it this week on reports that SONY is experimenting with dynamic PlayStation pricing. The tests, which showed online users personalized discounts for more than 150 games based on their purchase history and account activity, took place in parts of Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, but not the U.S. or Japan because of stricter regulations and heightened consumer sensitivity, according to Newsweek. No kidding: “This has got to be illegal,” said one TikTokker, “just because someone buys more games than someone else doesn’t mean that they should be charged more.” To make matters worse for Sony, a U.K. court this week also heard that millions of PlayStation users in the country have been victims of “excessive and unfair” download charges in a continuing class-action case. At issue is a complaint that the company is preventing players from purchasing digital products outside of its own closed ecosystem.
🥊 COMPETITION
Hot off the heels of the news that former COMPETITION COMMISSIONER Matthew Boswell has landed a job at a law firm is the news that the government is now looking for his full-time replacement. The feds have posted the job, which pays between $341,800 and $402,100 a year and counts a law degree and bilingualism as assets. Experience and knowledge of competition law and policy are musts, though. If you’re interested, don’t waste time – applications close on Apr. 8.
On a similar topic, the terms of nearly all of the lay members of the COMPETITION TRIBUNAL are just about up. Four of the five members – including Wiktor Askanas, a business professor at the University of New Brunswick; Binah Nathan, a corporate director; Stephen Law, an economics professor at Mount Allison University; and Ted Horbulyk, an associate professor emeritus of economics at the University of Calgary – are scheduled to have their terms end on Apr. 14. Lay member appointments are made by the federal government based on recommendations by the ISED Minister, who is currently MELANIE JOLY. “All new appointments to the Tribunal will be made under the government’s process for Governor in Council appointments with the goal of ensuring open, competency-based appointments,” an ISED spokesperson says. “Appointments will be made in due course.” The lay members serve alongside judges on the Tribunal, which operates mostly like a court. Stay tuned… we’ll have more on the Competition Tribunal and how it works here shortly.
And speaking of the COMPETITION BUREAU, the enforcement agency announced this week that it had arrived at a settlement with retirement home operator CHARTWELL MASTER CARE regarding the company’s planned acquisition of six properties in the Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont. area. Chartwell is buying six retirement homes from Sifton Properties and, as part of its deal with the Bureau, has agreed to sell its Clair Hills home in Waterloo to a purchaser approved by the commissioner.
🛒 GROCERIES
There’s a new app in town designed to help shoppers save money on groceries by analyzing and comparing prices on items across nearby stores. GOFER.RUN has been developed by One Red Maple Inc., a software development firm based in North Bay, Ont., and doesn’t require the user’s name or email address. Users input their grocery lists and the app tells them where those items can be found at the cheapest prices. Developers say the average family will save about 25 per cent if they buy their products at the right places.
The idea of PUBLIC GROCERY STORES is officially on the table in TORONTO, with city councillor Anthony Perruzza suggesting as much this week. Perruzza wants the city to open and operate four stores, one in each community council district, to help combat skyrocketing food prices. Council is expected to consider the test idea – which was the topic of a recent podcast episode here at Do Not Pass Go – at its next meeting, on Mar. 25.
🏦 BANKS
Caps on not-sufficient-funds (NSF) fees are in place, with banks now limited to $10 – down from the $45 to $48 that many were charging – when customer accounts aren’t able to cover debit transactions. Banks are also prohibited from charging more than one NSF fee every two business days on the the same account. ACORN CANADA, an advocacy group for low and moderate-income earners, are fans of the new rules. “Our pockets are smiling! This is a major victory showing organizing works when we act collectively,” said ACORN Canada national president Alejandra Ruiz Vargas in a statement. The group believes the cap will save Canadians $4.1 billion over the next decade.
Count retirees among those who are also displeased with Canada’s big banks. The CANADIAN ASSOCIATION OF RETIRED PERSONS (CARP) has filed a complaint with the Competition Bureau, alleging that sales practices used by branch employees are anti-competitive and harmful to consumers. The Big Five go out of their way to sell only their own products to the group’s members, rather than informing them of the wider slate of available investment options. “This structure essentially kills any competition once investors enter their local branches,” a representative tells The Globe and Mail. In response, the Canadian Bankers Association says it welcomes the opportunity for further dialogue with CARP.
✈️ AIRLINES
In a great example of saying the quiet part out loud, AIR TRANSAT chief financial officer Jean-Francois Pruneau this week inadvertently nailed the problem with Canada’s airlines while discussing price increases on flights due to the Iran war. On the company’s quarterly earnings calls, he mentioned that Transat will be raising prices to respond to skyrocketing jet fuel prices, though he may have been a little too candid about it: “What we’re also doing is currently raising fares on peak travel dates and routes where we see less competition, where we have more flexibility.”
The Canadian Transportation Agency has hit WESTJET with a $70,000 fine for failing to provide passengers on a cancelled Calgary-to-Nanaimo flight last year with “food and drink in reasonable quantities.” Air passenger rights activist Gabor Lukacs told CTV News that, not only was the fine too small, the CTA was also announcing it to distract from the fact that it has not taken action in the more serious case of WestJet recently stranding passengers in Mexico. “Where are the consequences for that?” he said.
Speaking of GABOR LUKACS, he’s the guest on this week’s episode of the Do Not Pass Go podcast. If you haven’t listened yet, be sure to check it out to hear the amazing story about how he fled familial abuse in Hungary and got his PhD in math while still in his teens, before fighting Canada’s airlines dozens of times in court – and winning:
🚨 COMING UP
Acquisitions by big companies and private equity roll-ups are an ongoing threat to further concentration in the Canadian economy, which is why the emergence of a brand new option – employee-owned businesses – is a welcome development. On Monday, Social Capital Partners chair JON SHELL joins the Do Not Pass Go podcast to explain the benefits and downsides of employee-owned trusts, and why the federal government needs to take action now to ensure that they remain an option for business owners.
It is quite easy to point out the most egregious customer lock in's for the poor customer.
We need to also look for innovative ways to spark better value for customers and works for the providers. Providers need to be graded on customer satisfaction in big letters. Maybe customer complaints need to be published?
Without workable solutions we will continue to be unhappy consumers.
The Canadian Internet Society recommends dropping CRTC commissioners from 13 to nine with field-specific skills. Their paper calls this key to fixing expertise gaps. I checked the Public Accounts Committee Report No. 3 on ourcommons.ca. It flags slow broadband fund approvals and pushes for faster action. This overhaul talk could finally deliver for everyday users facing high bills. https://www.ourcommons.ca/documentviewer/en/45-1/PACP/report-3