When it comes to advanced 3G wireless we own the podium

Yesterday, I woke up in Stowe Vermont at the end of a nice relaxing ski weekend only to get immediately restressed as I got the skinny (via my Hero) on a Globe editorial lament because Canada is "falling behind" (again) on broadband metrics. Once again the bearer of bad news was the Berkman guys at Harvard. And if Harvard says we suck, far be it for our national newspaper to disagree or check their facts .

What really stressed me was the angst around a lack of 3G leadership. According to the Globe editorial :

• " Canada ranks with Poland, Hungary and Mexico as laggards in the availability of 3G, which allows the distribution of video content over mobile phones and to new devices such as Apple's iPad."

Now for our guys just returning from accolades in Barcelona last week for Canada's 3G leadership this really hurt. Actually we are quite proud of the investments we have made in 3G leadership.

Too bad the guys in the Globe editorial room don't read the full page ads they sell to wireless carriers to promote the flood of new 3G phones coming into Canada.In fact rather than lagging ,we are now leading. There are only 17 advanced 3G (HSPA Plus/21Mps) networks currently operating world wide. And 3 of these are in Canada.And more will be launched in 2010. No other country has 3. Only Finland and Hong Kong have 2 . And, shame,shame, countries like the US, UK, Germany,Italy and France have a collective none .

Hey, Canada is the only country in the world that has 3 different carriers selling the iPhone.

Now arguably we don't have the fastest wireline networks in the world but we lead the G8 in terms of broadband penetration, even before we count wireless broadband penetration. And by next year we will have a new generation of broadband satellite delivering true broadband services.

And let's not get lost in a speed race. Sure it would be nice to say you have 100 Mps but unless you are ripping movie libraries full time, that type of speed is ahead of demand. Speed is important, and we have to continue to invest and upgrade, but at some point speed doesn't matter as much as what you use broadband for.

And Canadians use the Net a lot. According to a Comscore presentation just last Thursday at CFTPA Prime Time, Canada remains a global leader when it comes to using internet video. And another Comscore study notes Canada is a global leader when it comes to online banking.

Now I agree there is still lots more to do, but the clarion call to government to fix what is not broken rings hollow . And it's a waste of time.

Government has a $50 billion deficit .It can't spend in any material fashion . At best it can try to stimulate private sector investment with good policy or undermine it with bad. But ultimately only the private sector can build better networks.

Last year in the middle of the recession TELUS increased capital spending by 10 percent to build a better wireless network.This year we are spending $1.7 billion to drive out hybrid fiber networks that increase broadband speed and support IPTV on the same circuit. Policy talk is nice but real investment trumps talk.

Now maybe we could spend even a bit more if we cut those Globe ads. But even if the Globe never reads their ads, obviously our new wireless broadband customers do. So for now the print guys are safe but they better keep an eye on where our broadband customers are going for news :-)

Is Cabinet about to get knee deep in the big muddy? "L'Affaire Globalive" is a sticky affair indeed.

This is the week Ottawa insiders are predicting that the Priorities and Planning Committee of Cabinet is expected to meet to discuss "L'Affair Globalive" and possibly overturn what is viewed as a fair and legal decision of the CRTC, all without either an actual appeal before it or any public process to justify such a review.

While the newspapers have covered parts of this ongoing saga, this is the kind of story that makes you wish for the days when media budgets were still large enough to do deep investigative journalism. Maybe I am too close to this mess but I think it's a great story. Consider the elements .

• A public policy decision to add more entry in the wireless sector leads to an auction of public airwaves with the rules so distorted that it is estimated that all bidders ultimately paid 40% more for spectrum relative to similar values in the US.
• While everyone was forced to pay more due to poor auction design, incumbents were forced to pay an extra 40% premium relative to new entrants for next generation wireless.
• The auction distortions caused by government fiddling with auction design were so out of whack it is estimated that overpayments exceeded $2 billion. That's $2 billion now lost to support future industry investment or $2 billion that Canada's wireless industry now has to make up by reduced investment, or for some, higher costs of capital.
• It then turned out that one of the most active bidders in the auction, Globalive, a company subsequently found by the CRTC to be controlled by Orascom an Egyptian wireless carrier and multinational, was ineligble to operate as a Canadian carrier (and according to the rules set by Industry Canada therefore ineligble to hold a licence).

What starts to turn this into such a good story is that Globalive actually got a licence from Industry Canada even though Industry Canada's own rules clearly prohibited foreign control of Canadian undertakings and even though it had one single shareholder, Orascom, controlling over 80% of Globalive's capital structure as well as controlling much of the Board structure and operational decisions .What is so remarkable is that the structure granted a licence by Industry Canada earlier this year was even more Orascom controlled than the structure the CRTC ultimately had no choice but to turn down in October.

Interestingly most people commenting on the issue of rule of law, including many who wanted Globalive to succeed, agree the CRTC had no choice but to find the Globalive structure violated the law. Moreover there is a very serious issue of precedent with respect to foreign ownership if this decision is overturned.

• This begs the question as to how Industry Canada officials missed the call on this and why?
• It begs a further question as to why this decision is being reviewed in Cabinet, even though there is no formal appeal of the decision before it?
• Even stranger is the question as to why Orascom head Nagib Sawiris was heard at the Morgan Stanley investor conference in Barcelona to say the decision would be overturned and yet again repeat his comments November 16 at a press Conference in Cairo? All this before the Minister had even received comments he had requested from parties as part of his review.

Some answers are maybe not so hard to figure out.

• Industry Canada did not expect it's auction was going to spiral out of control and the total of $4.3 billions that went into the Treasury was not something anyone at Finance or elsewhere were going to sniff at during a recession. That made it easy to claim victory and ignore the fallout for bidders that need to pay up on a $2 billion overpayment.
• This was Globalive's problem. As one of the high bidders in the auction, Globalive faced an upfront bill for over $400 million as a consequence of bad auction planning and the fact that additional private equity had dried up as a result of the recession. Globalive now faced the same overvaluation problem numerous companies across the global economies faced and Cairo needed to keeps its piece protected .
• My guess is Industry Canada decided to see this huge foreign capital outlay as something temporary in order to keep one of the largest new entrants in play. However there is no law that allows for temporary foreign ownership and as the CRTC found, no evidence to justify the level of control Orascom exercised under the law. Thus the hole kept getting dug deeper.

So why the rush to judgement and why the comments from Barcelona and from Cairo. Again not so hard to figure out.

• Government policy has made of a big deal about promoting more competition in wireless and the CRTC which is already in its bad books was seen to have undermined that policy. Sheer nonsense, given new entry will be heavy with other "eligble Canadian alternatives" who played by the rules. But equally guaranteed that some people in power are pissed off with the Commission.
• Industry Canada officials granted a licence to an ineligble company and now face the classic bureaucratic conundrum. If you identify that as a mistake, someone higher up will look for a sacrificial lamb. Ergo why we suspect the Department will recommend overturning the CRTC in the face of overwhelming evidence and fact in law to the contrary.
• And no one likes to be sued. Its hard to believe that the statements from Barcelona and Cairo was not a pretty simple message. "You granted us a licence and we invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Canada .Fix it or face legal action". The issue is did someone tell Orascom not to worry?

In my view these scenarios explain a lot but there are still lots of questions unanswered. like:

• Why is the government convinced that truly eligble bidder companies that constructed their legal affairs according to explicit rules of law and as directed by Industry Canada won't see the Cabinet overturning the CRTC as equally worthy of jusicial response?
• And as a question of ethics, what is it that Cairo brings to the table that gets it a special pass and unfair advantage, based on the CRTC findings, when Canadian companies like Dave, Public Mobile, Eastlink, Quebecor and other bidders did not?
• No matter what the bureaucracy may say to keep the lid on precedents, why would Cabinet support whatever convoluted legal analysis will be required to pretend that overturning the CRTC ruling will not gut our foreign ownership restrictions? Unless of course in a minority environment you might want to loosen the ownership rules.
• But if you really want to loosen the foreign ownership rules why favor Orascom over Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile or Orange. What is unique about the Orascom investors that requires the government to bend the rules on their behalf?
• Orascom is owed no favors from government .They knew the rules and played a different game.Their bad.

Lot's of good questions to answer . Maybe if Cabinet overturns the CRTC this week or next those questions are finally going to get asked, as Canadian media begins to look closely at how Canada's first foreign controlled carrier under "the new rules" got a head start on the rest of the field . And why?

TELUS cover letter to Minister Clement re Globalive

November 18, 2009
The Honourable Tony Clement
Minister of Industry
C.D. Howe Building
235 Queen Street
Ottawa, ON K1A 0H5

Dear Minister,

Subject: TELUS’ Further Comments In Respect of Globalive – Telecom Notice of Consultation 2009-429

In reply to your correspondence dated November 6, 2009, please find attached TELUS’ further comments in respect of Globalive’s non-compliance with the Canadian ownership and control requirements. There are many compelling reasons why you should not intervene as you are being urged to do by Globalive and Orascom. These reasons are fully discussed in TELUS’ submission, but include the following:
•There is no reason that would justify intervention by the Governor in Council in a legal finding of fact, by an independent tribunal, in an open and public process

•To intervene, as Orascom is urging, would render meaningless Canada’s ownership and control regime governing the Canadian wireless, telecom, cable and broadcasting industries

•Allowing foreign interests to control our telecommunications and broadcasting sectors through the back door is not in the public interest and would create major uncertainty and confusion for all communications companies currently complying with the law

•There is no way to intervene that would not trigger most favoured nation provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the General Agreement on Trade in Services

•Bidders including all new entrants, were put on notice as to the rules for eligibility and bid over $4 billion in the AWS auction and, as you have been advised by other new entrants, it would be patently unfair to now change the rules of the game after the fact

•It is a matter of public record that the CRTC offered to hold its review process at the same time as that of Industry Canada, but Globalive refused that offer. The effect of that refusal lies clearly with Globalive and Orascom

•The CRTC had no choice under the law to find Globalive in non-compliance given 82% of the capital of Globalive is owned by Orascom, in addition to other levers of control unearthed by the CRTC

•Globalive and Orascom were provided a roadmap by the CRTC to comply, but have chosen instead to ask the Governor in Council to exempt them from the laws that govern all other competitors to advantage itself

•Regardless of the choice Globalive makes, the Government’s objective of more competition has been achieved with the licensing of compliant Canadian competitors like Public Mobile, Shaw, Eastlink, Videotron and Dave Wireless

•Globalive is the master of its own destiny and can enter as soon as it meets the same threshold as other new entrants have done.

I trust that these comments are of assistance to you in your review of this matter.
Yours truly,
Michael Hennessy
Senior Vice President
Regulatory & Government Affairs

Local TV and the battle to control Jurassic Park

It's hard to meet anyone on the street that does not suggest that the debate on local TV has gone over-the-top. It's getting hard to disagree, even as a participant in the CRTC debate. When you think of it in terms of time and energy spent as well as resources wasted, this debate is missing the point. Big time.

This has become much like a battle of dinosaurs to see who controls Jurassic Park. The big question now is who cares? Some people very much, but I think most Canadians are ready to hit the off button.

Here is a radical thought. The whole issue about local TV is a red herring and a waste of our time. I grew up in an era when local TV was, well, really local. Local TV was not defined by the news hours but by hours of homegrown local programs, hosted by local personalities.

Most local TV has not been local for ages. Local TV died when big broadcasting consolidated and created national networks. Rational economics drove those decisions at the time but its a little late to pretend to save it now.

That said, local content is alive and well in papers, magazines, radio, community TV and the Internet. On those platforms we are incredibly well served and well connected.

The local TV fight between distributors, yes TELUS is a distributor, and big broadcasters has become a sideshow. Forget this debate for a minute and test the waters.

We should be talking about how all our media systems can be engaged to benefit creators and consumers. About how we can invest in ever improved digital platforms to connect creators and consumers. About how we can leverage the internet to create new market opportunities.

After all the content value chain starts at creation and ends at consumption. It does not work unless those elements are engaged.

So how do we engage? Engagement means developing consensus about building a national digital strategy rather than errecting a protected enclosure to preserve dinosaurs.

A key element of a digital media strategy is resolving creator rights disputes for new media so creators are incented to dedicate resources to new platform development.

Its about digital training so that our creative resources can exploit new technologies.

It means putting more content on-demand so it’s available to consumers anywhere, anytime and on any platform.

And it’s about giving consumers more opportunities to select the channels they want to watch and drop what they don’t value. That's a tough economic debate given the financial realities of the Canadian market but it does not help to ignore the issue. Discretionary consumption is what defines our markets today.

We think value for service should be defined by consumers not regulators.
And everyone should wake up from this noisy debate and start thinking “Internet “ before the next ice age.

I remember local TV and believe me local TV ain't local anymore. But local content is all around us.

Why should Cabinet gut the law to fix a problem of Orascom/Globalive's own making?

November 2009 should go down as a sea change month for wireless and broadband competition in Canada. It sure has been an awesome start to the month for our team at TELUS.

Two new national networks (ours is better of course) that erase the competitive advantage Rogers has had on GSM. New international roaming agreements across 200 countries, competitive supply of iPhones, Android phones and a range of other devices. Massive extension of the new networks deep into rural and remote areas that were previously unserved in terms of broadband coverage.

On November 5th, TELUS launched a network that is clearly top tier in the world. It’s a network that allows Canada to leapfrog to the top of the heap when it comes to broadband wireless infrastructure. Infrastructure that is available on a competitive basis. That's not debatable anymore. Network equipment vendor Huawei in a full page ad last week, described it as "one of the fastest and most advanced cell phone networks on the planet."
How big? Try 1.1 million square kilometers big. That's 4X the size of Rogers 3G network. And its way ahead of the 3G networks in the USA. How did we get there? Competition and a billion dollars of private investment made this happen in the middle of the biggest recession in a generation.

Now that should be cause for celebration for everyone who was concerned that there was not enough competition in the market, or that Canadian broadband infrastructure has been lagging our trading partners, or that subsidies are needed to close the broadband gap. No matter your point of view on that, clearly all those items on that wish list just got checked off. Again as a result of private investment and the need to respond to existing competition.

But in Ottawa, the big noise around broadband and wireless is not the fact we have brand new leading edge networks but rather on the impact of the CRTC's decision that found Globalive, a prospective new wireless entrant, non-compliant with Canada's foreign ownership laws because Orascom a global carrier with 15 times the number of subscribers TELUS has, controls 82 percent of Globalive’s capital structure. This (the CRTC decision) is not really surprising, given that the evidence presented by Globalive itself, in an open and transparent hearing, proved beyond any reasonable doubt that Globalive was way offside. Not a little offside but miles off side. Yet somehow this seems to be everyone's fault but Globalive's.

So ignoring evidence that, with or without Globalive, there will be 4 to 6 competitors operating in most urban markets in 2010 and from 2 to 4 in most rural and remote areas, rhetoric has reached epic heights about a failure of Government policy unless Cabinet turns a blind eye to Globalive's obvious non-compliance. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story! In some quarters, Cabinet is being called upon to overturn a legal decision of the CRTC, even though that would fundamentally undermine the law and gut the ownership rules that apply to every telecom and wireless carrier, broadcaster and cable company now operating in Canada. All to ensure an ineligible foreign carrier, Orascom, can enter the Canadian market with a capital structure not permitted for every other company in Canada. Let’s call it the Globalive “special”.
There is a lot of noise about the loss of a competitive market if Orascom is not allowed to play by its own set of rules. In fact, the front-page story in the National Post on November 5 was not about the launch of new advanced networks that have already brought an end to Rogers GSM monopoly, but about the fall out from Orascom's now obviously ineligible participation in the AWS auction. An auction process that Financial Post editor, Terry Corcoran referred to as a "as a distorted shambles in which prices were grossly exaggerated by Mr. Sawiris' (Orascom's) authorized participation." Authorized but ineligible as it turns out.

The AWS auction has been a sore point with TELUS. NERA estimated those "grossly exaggerated prices" cost the industry over $2 billion in overpayments because of flawed design and cost TELUS an extra $400 million from inflated prices, including from a bidder that had no right, it now seems, to have been in the auction in the first place. To realize we were forced to pay that penalty because, in part, a key bidder was ineligible to participate is a bitter pill to swallow.

How much is $400 million. It’s almost twice as much as the Government of Canada is prepared to allocate to broadband stimulus/expansion for fiber and wireless. $400 million we can't spend to expand fiber in our own IPTV network expansion to compete with cable in the the TV business.

There should be no sympathy for Orascom. It placed a bet it could get into the market with a plan that was offside. It can't claim the CRTC process was a surprise. All bidders knew that the CRTC requirements were part of the compliance regime. It made a risky decision and lost. It can hardly be surprised irrespective of the PR noise it is now pushing out.
Face it, it would be pretty hard to imagine that any Canadian lawyer or bank, faced with a plan where 82 percent of the capital structure was foreign controlled, wouldn't have advised that the Orascom/Globalive game plan was a very high risk proposition. Orascom rolled the dice. In fact most critics of the CRTC decision actually agree the CRTC had no choice under the law but to reach the conclusion it did reach.

But now the CRTC is being painted as a villain for upholding the law, and Cabinet is being asked to essentially ignore the law in order to help Orascom enter a market in a way other foreign carriers are prevented from. I bet Cabinet won't get sucked in. The law is the law. And right now it's a law that every wireless and telecom carrier, cable company and broadcaster is forced to abide by.

Moreover, if Cabinet were to overturn the CRTC and allow Globalive to operate with control of 82% of its capital structure held by one foreign carrier, it would automatically trigger MFN clauses in NAFTA and violate other commitments made by Canada under the GATS. The CRTC would be forced to allow companies like Viacom or Disney similar rights in broadcasting because the criteria it rejected would now guide all future proceedings.
Effectively to make Orascom Canadian, Cabinet would have to gut all laws regarding foreign ownership in the communications sector, turning every carrier’s business strategy on its head. That's not about to happen. Orascom's problems are of it's own making and these are problems it could fix without standing the rule of law on it's head. It's not going to happen because it does not need to happen to ensure competition.

Clearly competition is operating with all engines firing. First, lets go back to the GSM monopoly Rogers has. It’s dead and buried as a result of competitive investment that had to be made irrespective of the auction. Open access? Can you say Android? Network supply? Start with the TELUS and Bell builds that cover around 90 percent of the population on HSPA and HSPA plus and that's global superiority that is top tier. Add Rogers HSPA and HSPA plus network across Canada and coverage with the fastest and most innovative networks on a competitive supply basis is a fait accompli. That's three national networks all on the latest HSPA technologies.

Now add Videotron in Quebec and you have even more competitors there. MTS Allstream and SaskTel already dominate in terms of market share in Manitoba and Saskatchewan so add even more competition there as well. (p.s. how did the auction policy ever decide that the dominant carriers in these two provinces were new entrants?)

Assume Shaw and Eastlink will move in the west and Atlantic Canada. Both have spectrum and Shaw just launched a $600 million debt offering. Remember too that under the auction rules cable companies get preferential treatment as new entrants. Under the policy cable companies get government help to compete. I am not making this up. It’d be nice if TELUS got the same deal in TV but those are the auction rules.

But what about real "new entrants" you might ask? Well the other new entrants are not going to be hurt if Orascom refuses to abide by the rules and goes home. In fact they become the big winners. According to a recent report by The Convergence Consulting Group, if Globalive does not enter then new entrants like Dave and Public Mobile probably add another 900,000 subscribers.

So even without Globalive we can expect at least 3 incumbent national carriers, new cable entrants in addition to Rogers across most regional markets and new national players like Dave and Public Mobile. That suggests 4 to 6 competitors in every major market in Canada and from 2 to 4 in rural areas. All without any need to gut our laws to fix Orascom's obviously offside business case.

This month while countries like Australia are pouring billions into broadband subsidies, private investment may have just closed 40% of Canada's broadband gap and is extending wireless broadband on a competitive basis to over 90 percent of Canadians. All with private money and all compliant with Canadian laws. That's a remarkable achievement. So here's the big question for Ottawa before it takes a step that is as irrevocable as it is unnecessary. Does anyone really believe Orascom/Globalive would ever had gone deep into our rural areas or is it just another urban play? Testifying before a Senate Committee, a Globalive executive tried to deflect the question by saying that service in those areas is very challenging economically. Really? Putting aside that astonishing statement of the obvious, if there are going to be 4 to 6 competitors in every urban market, is it worth breaking the rules for Orascom in a way that changes the game for scores of Canadian companies that have abided by the law?

This is a matter of law not policy and if policy dictates a change in the law that's up to Parliament to enact.

Taxpayer subsidies for broadband and other big lies

Recently the campaign to save the Internet(didn't know it was in trouble)has ramped up into high gear in terms of rhetoric. According to critics of recent shifts towards a more commercially-based wholesale regime in Canada, "monopoly" telephone companies like TELUS and Bell are trying to kill competition by preventing access to networks built at the expense of the taxpayer. Now to anyone with any sense of regulatory history this is bull. No wait, bull is to small a concept to describe for such blatant and deceptive sophistry. Moose pooh, or MP for short is a better description for sure. Moose pooh is like bull but bigger and more substantial.

A little history here. Bell has always been a shareholder-owned and operated company. TELUS is a combination of AGT,BC Tel, Quebec Tel and Clearnet (with a dollop of Ed Tel thrown in). BC Tel and Clearnet were shareholder owned. While AGT was publically owned a generation back, it was privatized in 1990 well before the creation of the world wide web or the launch of DSL service . MTS Allstream a promoter of the taxpayer MP story, was also once the child of public enterprises (the state-owned Manitoba Telephone system and CN Rail part of the CNCP consortia that morphed into Unitel,ATT Canada and Allstream). However no one today is suggesting that MTS is a taxpayer funded entity.

In point of fact the investment that now supports the Internet for all the major local exchange carriers (outside of Saskatchewan) has been built on the regulated backs of shareholders first under rate of return regulation and subsequently price caps. Cable Internet was built with much less regulation .It is simply beyond myth to suggest, as some do, that taxpayers subsidized investment under ROR. Rather under ROR shareholders of telephone companies were provided a opportunity to earn a reasonable return on investment. The quid pro quo was that prices were kept artificially low to ensure universally affordable local phone service. The local telephone company was never the recipient of subsidy ,rather the local phone customer was heavily subsidized by the phone company in order to achieve universality objectives.

Rate of return was replaced by price caps in the late 1990s, but even before that the CRTC had imposed a split rate base regime in 1995 that moved most competitive investment, including DSL investment out of the regulated rate base. Price caps subsequently insulated subscribers even further from the risk of new investment to shareholders. Even so all that initial DSL investment has been and will remain subject to access tariffs, regardless of what happens around next-generation networks.

The other myth, is the myth of monopoly and the inability of other carriers to invest. First cable not telephone companies are the market share leaders in Internet access based on billions of dollars of infrastructure investment in a more deregulated environment. It is economically inaccurate to call the market share follower a monopoly. Second in addition to cable, a company like TELUS is facing new competition in the retail internet space in three areas. First the Inukshuk, Rogers and Bell fixed wireless play is making inroads at 2.5 and 2.6 Ghz. Second new wireless HSPA networks are being rolled out that will deliver downstream retail speeds comparable to some wireline internet today. Third satellite internet has proved to be another downstram alternative for consumers in rural and remote markets. Again this competition is enabled by billions of dollars of new investment.

Perhaps the most telling evidence of competition and investment is demonstrated by investments made by TELUS beyond the borders of Alberta and BC. By continuing to invest in facilities outside of its heritage borders, TELUS has been executing a national growth strategy that has led to it winning major contracts from the Governments of Ontario, Quebec and Canada away from Bell and other carriers.

Competition is real and investing in the future works. Rhetoric can buy time from government to live under a regulated umbrella (maybe) but it won't support a sustainable business strategy in the face of very real competition.

Bizarre letter raises concerns for safety of banker at CRTC hearings

Just when we thought that the endless regulatory summer from Hull could not get any weirder, lawyers for an alleged (by them) Canadian wireless carrier filed a request for a secret appearance by a secret banker or other financial institution (hmm who could that be we ask?) with secure access to in-camera CRTC hearings so that other Canadian carriers could not be in a position to identify and subsequently do bad things to said secret banker or perhaps his or her friends and family assuming that such friends and family exist.

In summary, the lawyers for the alleged (by us) foreign carrier requests a ruling from the Commission that it will not disclose any information regarding the name or other identifying characteristics of the Bank or other financial institution that may appear at the hearing on this matter to deal with evidence of ******’s (we have removed Globalive’ s name to protect their identity)past, current and projected financing plans and that the CRTC provide secure access to the hearing room for the bank or other financial institution so that representatives of the incumbent wireless carriers or the public cannot ascertain the identity of the bank or other financial institution.

Your erstwhile blogger, having a rather checkered and unfortunately non-anonymous career in regulatory matters, can remember no request quite so bizarre or unprecedented. Not to say that these things never happen in Canada. Why it was only back in 1958 that former Soviet spy Igor Gouzenko appeared on Front Page Challenge wearing his trademark hood to protect him from KGB hit squads.

Whendogsrunfree recommends watching the clip of Igor’s appearance to get a feel for what the CRTC in camera panel hearing may look like. I think you will agree that Fred Davis made a wonderful Chair for that panel. http://archives.cbc.ca/politics/national_security/topics/72/.

While it is a given that in some countries wearing hoods in public is a good idea for reasons of personal safety, Canadians have generally shunned this practice and even our American cousins tend to look askance at the few remaining relics of the past who see hoods and sheets as some sort of fashion statement.

Now I don’t disagree that TELUS will take a hard position on matters of law and principle (like we think as a matter of law and principle that a foreign entity holding 65% equity and 98% debt of a company makes that company foreign), we don’t tend to act like the KGB when it comes to problem solving and as far as we know have never forced our competitors or critics a state of paranoia that requires a hood (although it has been rumored but not ascertained that Michael Geist is prone to Ray Ban’s when near an angry crowd of TELUS employees).

As for the need to protect bankers from the public we can only suggest that after the financial collapse of the last year that they might want to consider the Igor look regardless of the CRTC ruling on this nutty request.