The Press Release begins like this:
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission today determined that Globalive Wireless Management (Globalive) does not meet the Canadian ownership requirements set out in the Telecommunications Act. Under the legislation, a telecommunications company is only eligible to operate in Canada if it is not at any time owned and controlled, in law and in fact, by non-Canadians.
If the CRTC decision is in line with current policy then we can’t argue on that point. You are asked to review something against current laws and you make the decision. Straightforward enough isn’t it? To me, it would be straightforward if it wasn’t for three things:
- The Government – Industry Canada previously approved the Globalive spectrum purchase and apparently thought they met the Canadian ownership requirements. Canada’s three beloved carriers (TELUS, Bell and Rogers) did some aggressive lobbying which appears to have worked. As businesses the carriers can do that… what bothers me is two government agencies disagreeing with each other. Industry Canada should have done a better job to begin with and looked at the ownership structure much more carefully.
- The People – If you head over to Globalive’s WIND site – here and you go into the community section you will notice quite a few interesting and perhaps disturbing comments by folks who have been offered jobs. Like many comment boards it is filled with garbage and even some profanity but if you filter that out you will notice that they have hired around 800 people who are worried about their jobs and in fact may be out of a job…
- .…what happens to all the people you hired? Im happy i didn’t quit my current job and decided to quit wind while it was early. I’m sure there’s a lot of people that are mad about this.
- I work in THE call center… We start wind training monday… What happens now? we have a lot of people in limbo over here.
- The delay will cost Orascom millions. All those people they hired, the call center, the shops, the Egyptian owners gotta be [upset] and likely reconsidering their next move.
- Talk to us Tony, please! I know your busy and I know its difficult , but if you can, we want updates soon please.
- I left a secured job and now I don’t know if I get paid for the last 2 weeks.
Perhaps even more disturbing than the comments is that as of right now (time of writing) I do not see any official response or press release by Wind or Globalive. I realize that they are considering different options and that the employees have probably (hopefully) been told something.
- The Consumers – You knew I would at least mention this. At the end of the day it is about looking after #1. Me. You. Canadians. As a Canadian wireless consumer this deprives me of choice. Michael Geist puts it best when he writes:
- It is tempting to blame the CRTC or the incumbent telecom providers (who filed the complaint over the Globalive structure) for this mess, but the real culprit lies with outdated legislation that prioritizes Canadian ownership over a competitive Canadian marketplace. It is the wrong choice. Canadians are desperate for a more competitive wireless marketplace. The issue now falls to Industry Minister Tony Clement, who needs to change the law to facilitate foreign ownership of common carriers – both to facilitate immediate competition and to pave the way for more foreign bidders in the next round of spectrum auctions. The government rightly said it did not matter that a foreign company took control of a former Canadian tech star like Nortel. It should similarly not matter who controls a telecommunications company, particularly in a marketplace starving for competition. The government should amend the law to remove the foreign ownership restrictions now.
Others writing or announcing this:
That’s it folks.
Of course all the major Canadian news outlets are carrying the story and commenting on it.
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Update November 4, 2009: There was some semi-official reaction from the Globalive brass over at their little community site mentioned above. However I still don’t see any official press releases at the Globalive Corporate site. I am sure the battle is being waged in the background somewhere but they should present at least more information to the general public.
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