Things in the News

Andrew Willis had a piece in the Globe and Mail on Monday (September 14, 2026) that is very worthwhile reading for observers of the industry. It refers to remarks reportedly made by Michael Huber of Quadrangle Group at this week's (invitation-only) Investment Summit being hosted by the Prime Minister and highly touted by the federal government. People might remember Quadrangle as one of the backers of Mobilicity that was briefly a new entrant wireless competitor. Mobilicity, along with a number of other prospective competitors, ultimately failed, insofar as they were acquired by larger incumbent rivals or cable conglomerates seeking to add wireless to their service bundles.

What Huber is reported to have said should be sobering for anyone, but in particular, the government and regulators. He said, "The message the government is sending is Canada is a place that fails to respect the rule of law". I found his point not only provocative, but one I shared myself at the time as the representative for the leading rival bidder for Mobilicity's most valuable asset - its spectrum. The industry had been rife with rumours that certain representations had been made by government officials in an all out effort to attract capital to Canada to bankroll an elusive 4th wireless carrier. The government's prior efforts to establish a 4th carrier had been repeatedly unsuccessful.

Mr. Huber's comments were made in Toronto in the midst of the Prime Minister's Investment Summit, where he is pitching global private equity on Canada as a safe and profitable market for investment. His comments also come after Quadrangle, and its partner in the Mobilicity venture, Obelysk Media Inc., won a critical ruling in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice which determined that the government had negligently induced Quadrangle and Obelysk to enter in the first place and that changes in the rules and the regulatory process itself had caused the private equity investors to lose upwards of 350 million dollars. In arriving at his decision,Willis writes that the Justice used words such as, "wholly improper, capricious, arbitrary, contrived, and highly irregular to describe the actions of telecom regulators and the Harper government". In any event, all of this is somewhat embarrassing for the government given its timing and no doubt is intended to be, on the part of Quadrangle and Obelysk.

The shifting sands of government rules and policies ultimately led to the transfer of Mobilicity's business and assets to a bidder other than the highest one, in a flurry of spectrum swaps and collateral transfers. Some may say that Mr. Huber's comments are those of a bitter bidder, but having been involved with this transaction at the time that would be inaccurate, as there most certainly were elements that took it out of the realm of the ordinary. It speaks to the conduct of successive governments which have attempted to micromanage outcomes in the sector and along the way left a trail of wasted capital that could have been more efficiently and profitably redeployed. Government efforts to craft an industry out of a whole cloth of populist preferences has been a failure.

On an optimistic note, there is always time to step back and rationally assess the challenges and opportunities in front of policymakers, if they have the humility to admit that they have been wrong. In that sense, hopefully the Prime Minister and his officials are not in Toronto making promises they cannot keep or side deals that tip the scale one way or another to suit to partisan predilection of the day. Hopefully, they are there communicating that Canada is a good and worthwhile place to invest. Hopefully, they are reassuring global investors that Canada respects the rule of law and that investing here is a safe bet in an increasingly turbulent world. Stories like the Willis piece are warnings to investors that that is not always the case.

The CRTC makes it easier to shop for internet?

In a decision last week, the CRTC tells us they are working to empower us in our dealings with our telecom providers. In the latest in a series of decisions, the CRTC has been told to implement changes to the Telecommunications Act that were enacted in 2024. The changes made in 2024 were very specific and granular and the intent was/is to help Canadians make informed decisions when subscribing to fixed broadband services. I want to be abundantly clear, the CRTC is innocent here; it is simply doing what it has been told to do by Parliament and the government.

I will focus only on one aspect of last week's decision, the issue of "typical download and upload speeds". Apparently, Canadian consumers have been labouring under the misconception of what the meaning is of "up to speeds" in buying their fixed broadband services for too long. We quickly learn that the answer to this conundrum is to move to "typical" as the more informative choice. Some may accuse me of cynicism, but "up to" to me meant a set speed or something less, most of the time, but not necessarily all of the time. The solution to the "up to" quandary we are told is to use "typical" in place of "up to" despite TELUS and the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecom-Television Services rightly noting that "typical" isn't a cut and dried term either, and probably could be improved with some further definition.

The Commission considered a definition of "typical" that would require the promised speed 95% of the time, but worried that an internet service would be compliant if it fell below the threshold with "severe" slowdowns (however those might be defined) 5% of the time. In paragraph 30 of the decision the Commission resolves this by determining that "...the Commission is of the view that a simpler threshold-based definition, where the typical speed is the speed ISPs must deliver to customers at all times, would be easier to understand and enforce". What? Apparently, "typical" means "...a firm commitment from ISPs on a realistic speed customers should expect to experience". The Commission seems to understand this makes no sense and next throws up its hands and explains that internet service providers can decide what service levels they commit to deliver. In order to further assist consumers, the Commission next acknowledges that networks have peak periods and therefore, for enforcement and compliance purposes, a standard of service that guarantees 95% of the promised speed in peak hours (7 pm - 11 pm) and 100% of the promised speed outside of peak hours. It turns out "all times" doesn't really mean all at all. I hope the reader will feel appropriately edified by this change to their internet contracts.

I will end this post by recounting a conversation that occurred with an executive of a foreign telecommunications carrier who had been approached by Canadian government officials about investing in Canada. The executive's response was that, "the U.S. firm would never consider investing in Canada unless there were considerable inducements to doing so, because of the "crazy" (lightly edited for a family audience) regulatory system up there". Stay tuned on the Quadrangle/Obelysk file.

I believe the Prime Minister and his team may have a challenge ahead of them in convincing some elements of the capital markets that Canada is indeed a safe and relatively profitable destination for investment given regulatory concerns, but I sincerely wish them the best of luck in convincing foreign investors in the digital space otherwise.