Ottawa urged to ease the way to deregulation in telecoms sector

[CHIMO]

OTTAWA (CP) - New tax breaks to encourage Internet development, fewer restrictions on foreign ownership and a new consumer ombudsman are just a few of the ideas Ottawa must implement to drag its telecommunications policies into the 21st century.

The panel, which reviewed hundreds of submissions from major industry players, bankers, lawyers and even a few consumers, also urged a review of foreign ownership restrictions - first in telecoms and later in broadcasting.

-Market forces should be relied on "to the maximum extent feasible"; regulations used only when necessary.

-Offer a tax credit to help business more quickly adopt information and communication technologies, vital to boosting productivity.

http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/politics/news/shownews.jsp?content=n0322129A

[Bassic]

1. Yeah, cause we all know tax breaks helps big corporations

to give more money to the rest of us. :sarcasm:

Trickle down my ass...

[MrPrax]

2. Jeez...we didn't see this coming

Deregs in this industry has been the Holy Grail of corp. media and partly why outfits like Global/Canada.com have gone out of their way to 'murdoch' their support for the Tories.

Keep an eye on these small issues...the next one will probably be the bank financial changes (ie bank mergers, uping foreign ownership)...

I think that the liberals especially will rollover on most of this stuff; BQ won't care because they will have separate regs anyhow and I am NOT really sure what the NDP will do.

I suspect that all of the 'brokers' in this will take a temporary 'powder' as the Tories are the best party to ram this stuff through with little harm to their support--the liberals couldn't do this for the industry, without lots of internal opposition.