Back to All news:

Why Bell, Rogers and TELUS should be excluded from the wholesale internet access regime

By Robert Ghiz, President & CEO, Canadian Telecommunications Association

Canada today faces a generational opportunity to build a stronger, more self-reliant nation. As the federal government sets out to deliver on its mandate to rebuild Canada’s economic foundations, it must ensure that our national strategies treat telecommunications not just as a consumer product, but as strategic infrastructure.

Our digital networks are the backbone of modern Canadian life. They power trade corridors, secure our sovereignty in the North, connect remote communities to opportunity, and enable everything from remote healthcare to next-generation manufacturing. In 2024, the telecommunications sector added over $87 billion to our GDP—more than two-thirds of which came from productivity gains enabled by enhanced connectivity across other industries. Telecom doesn’t just connect Canadian businesses; it multiplies their potential.

That success has been built on a clear policy principle: facilities-based competition. In other words, encouraging providers to invest in building, expanding, and enhancing their own infrastructure, rather than depending on the networks of others.

Which is why Canada must reject policies that incentivize our largest network builders—Bell, Rogers, and TELUS—to reduce their investments in network infrastructure and instead operate as resellers on the networks of other service providers, including small regional providers.

That is exactly what is happening since the CRTC made the three large national service providers eligible to take advantage of the mandated wholesale high-speed access (HSA) regime. This policy tilts the economics of network investment away from building and toward resale. It encourages these large telecommunications companies to lease capacity from their competitors rather than expanding their own networks. Over time, this erodes incentives for long-term capital investment, weakens competition at the infrastructure level, harms smaller regional network operators, and undermines efforts to expand connectivity to underserved rural and remote communities.

Let’s be clear: Canada’s world-class networks exist because Bell, Rogers and TELUS, along with smaller regional service providers, have invested heavily in building them. In 2024 alone, the Canadian telecom sector invested over $12 billion, or 18% of their revenues into capital expenditures—a higher share than counterparts in the U.S., U.K., or Australia. This is particularly impressive given the enormous costs of building networks across Canada’s vast and often difficult geography.

And Canadians are seeing the benefits. According to a recent PwC report, inflation-adjusted prices for mobile and home internet plans have declined by up to 70% and 45%, respectively, since 2020. Coverage is broader. Speeds are faster. New offerings—from digital-only brands to intuitive apps—put more control in the hands of consumers. This didn’t happen through regulation. It happened through competition between builders trying to outdo one another in network performance and customer service.

Extending wholesale mandates to the three large national network operators would reverse that dynamic. It would encourage them to divert investment capital toward wholesale resale models instead of next-generation network buildouts. In an era where resilience, security, and digital sovereignty matter more than ever, this is a strategic mistake Canada cannot afford.

Instead, public policy should focus on enabling more investment. That means standing firm behind facilities-based competition as the cornerstone of Canada’s telecom success by prohibiting Bell, Rogers, and TELUS from operating as resellers on the networks of their competitors under the mandated wholesale HSA regime.

We can’t build a stronger, more connected Canada by encouraging our largest network builders to stop building.

A connected Canada is a competitive Canada. It’s a secure Canada. It’s a unified Canada.

As the federal government charts its course for the next decade, one thing must remain clear: when it comes to broadband, let the builders build.

Robert Ghiz is the president and CEO of the Canadian Telecommunications Association, and was previously premier of Prince Edward Island.

[Op-Ed originally published by The Hill Times, June 11, 2025]