In the wake of the Verizon wireless debacle, here’s a crazily radical idea: Why not create a Crown corporation that could compete with telecom oligarchs Bell, Telus and Rogers in order to push rates down?

In fact, this idea is neither crazy nor radical. Nor is it even new. The provincial Crown corporation SaskTel offers land-line and wireless service in Saskatchewan.

According to that province’s conservative government, the publicly-owned telecom provides “high quality, accessible and affordable services.”

Telus itself used to be a Crown corporation known as Alberta Government Telephones until, over the strenuous opposition of New Democrats, the province’s Progressive Conservatives privatized it in 1990.

Overall, Canada has had a long and generally fruitful history with public enterprise. Air Canada arguably provided better service before it was privatized in the late 1980s. Ontario Power Generation, despite its faults, still produces the cheapest and most reliable electricity in the province.

Until Petro-Canada was privatized, the government-owned company really did give Canadians a window into the oil industry. While public broadcaster CBC has deteriorated under the weight of government-imposed cutbacks, we are still better off with it than without it.

Wireless seems an obvious place in which to have a public presence. The radio-wave spectrum, a chunk of which is to be auctioned off by government in January, is a public asset. Why not keep at least a portion of that asset in public hands?

And yet almost no one has even suggested such an idea. The New Democrats used to promote limited public ownership. But they very carefully don’t talk about setting up a new public enterprise that might help to fix the wireless mess.

As they do with so much else, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals have said nothing at all.

The only organization that I’ve found calling for a Crown corporation in the wireless field is the union now known as Unifor, which represents telecom workers.

It’s a suggestion so at odds with the current free-market zeitgeist that it has gone virtually unreported.

And yet it makes more sense than the Harper government’s position.

Ottawa is faced with a real political problem. The big three telecoms are viewed as price gougers by wireless customers, most of whom want lower rates.

Ottawa’s initial solution was to replace a three-member oligopoly focused on private profit with a four-member version devoted to the same goal.

To that end, it offered inducements aimed in part at encouraging U.S. giant Verizon to enter the Canadian market.

The Canadian oligarchs responded by wrapping themselves in the flag, taking out full-page ads and posing as injured innocents.

In the end, the giant U.S. telecom declined Ottawa’s blandishments — throwing the Harper government’s entire wireless strategy into chaos.

For wireless customers, this is no great loss. History suggests that after an initial shakeup, the newly expanded oligopoly would have found a way to keep its profits — and rates — high.

But there is still a need to keep the current oligarchs honest. Clearly, regulation on its own doesn’t work. Federal regulators have allowed the telecoms — particularly Bell and Rogers — to have their way on rates and expand into areas such as television and radio that give them far too much market clout.

But a strong publicly-owned competitor could work, particularly if it were armed with a mandate to provide quality services at low cost.

I don’t expect the Harper Conservatives to push such an idea. It runs counter to their strongest prejudices. Nor do I expect much from the ever-so-cautious Liberals.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

I was a tiny bit surprised by the NDP’s reluctance to promote public enterprise.

Full disclosure: I own five shares of Bell, am a member of Unifor, get my wireless service from Rogers, have a rotary dial phone and was once a customer of Alberta Government Telephones.

Thomas Walkom's column appears Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.

Read more about: