Former CRTC chairwoman speaks up: government is 'disturbing,' UBB must happen

Former chairwoman of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is speaking out.

Francoise Bertrand, one of the CRTC's chairwoman and now president of the Federation of Quebec Chambers of Commerce, has taken a public stance.

She retains her adamancy that the CRTC remains independent—which is why she finds it "disturbing" that the government countered the organization's decision on usage-based billing. 

Francoise is nearly certain that the governments role in this—pleasing the furious public—was a purely electoral move, a bid to gain potential voters.

But who is in the right when, in a matter of days, 400,000 Canadians ignite a groundbreaking firestorm by signing Vancouver-based OpenMedia's online petition? What if the CRTC simply made a mistake, that UBB too heavily favoured Canadian telcos and not Canadian consumers? Plus, Francoise carries the stench of bias; she sits on the board of Quebecor, a media giant which owns Videotron—an internet provider and owner of network infrastructure that has been knowingly supportive of UBB for years.

The CRTC was forced to delay its decision and it is now under thorough review. A new decision will me made sometime around May.