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The government provided a chart to journalists showing current benchmarks at $50 for a 2 GB plan, $55 for a 4 GB plan, and $60 for a 6 GB plan.

Bains expects all those prices to come down by 25 per cent within two years, but that several options were in play if the telecom companies don’t play ball.

In an interview with the Financial Post, Bains said that the government might move more toward forcing the big wireless carriers to offer wholesale access to their networks for smaller mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs).

“If they are unable to hit those targets, we will move ahead with additional competitive measures like how we deploy future spectrum and how we look at bringing in new entrants, possibly through mobile virtual network operators,” Bains said.

Liberal policy documents released during the election last year suggested a benchmark price for a phone plan with 2 GB of data would be around $75.

Based on those campaign documents, Telus has already been using a “True North Affordability” logo on various phone plans, to indicate they’re already 25 per cent below the campaign target.

The Liberal promise to reduce cell phone bills has received pushback from the big telcos. In the course of early 2020, the big three have warned they will cut their investment spending if the government mandates MVNOs.

Over the course of 2019, Rogers, Bell and Telus all introduced unlimited plans which cost more money, but have a lower per-gigabyte cost, because those plans come with higher data allotments.

Bains said a 25 per cent reduction based on the new benchmarks is what matters now.