Wind Mobile’s future is fragile as battle continues with Globalive, Government, CRTC

The Honourable Tony Clement, Minister of Industry, and Steven Blaney, Member of Parliament for Lévis-Bellechasse, today issued a statement regarding the Federal Court ruling on Globalive:

On Friday, February 4, 2011, the Federal Court overturned the Governor-in-Council’s 2009 decision to vary the CRTC’s determination regarding Globalive, which allowed the company to launch its Wind Mobile wireless brand in the Canadian marketplace.

Today, I would like to confirm that the Harper Government will be appealing the Court’s ruling. We believe that our decision was the right one for Canadian consumers and we will vigorously defend it. Globalive is a Canadian company and meets the Canadian ownership and control requirements under the Telecommunications Act. Globalive should therefore be able to continue to offer service in the wireless telecommunications market.

The policy of our government is to encourage choice and competition in wireless and Internet markets. Ours was the government that set aside spectrum during the 2008 auction to allow new entrants to compete. New entrants mean more competition, lower prices and better quality services for Canadians.

The government notes that, since 2006, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commissions has issues roughly 2,200 decisions in the telecom space. During this period of time, only 13 of those decisions, or 0.6 percent, have been formally reviewed by the Governor in Council. Of those 13, the Government has upheld seven of, varied three, and referred three back to the CRTC for reconsideration.

In December of 2009, Tony Clement dclared that Glovalive “is a Canadian company that meets Canadian ownership and control requirements. Our goal has always been greater competition in the telecommunications industry, which leads to lower prices, better service and more choice for consumers and business.”

But a couple of weeks ago Justice Roger Hughes of the Federal Court stated Tony’s decision to let Globalive operate Wind Mobile “was based on errors of law and must be quashed”.

This battle, as with most involving law and politics (and especially both) will take a good while to resolve. But up until a final decision is finally reached, Wind Mobile has quite the dark cloud looming above its head.