The IT Nerd

For those of you who don’t live in a parliamentary democracy, let me explain what a Throne Speech is. When the Prime Minister of the country opens a new session of parliament, the Queen or her representative (in Canada, that’s the Governor General), reads a speech that outlines the objectives of the government in general. That’s the Throne Speech Sort of like the State Of The Union Address in the United States, except that it isn’t done every year. It’s done usually when a new government takes power, or when all the objectives of the previous session of parliament have been met.

Today’s Throne Speech had three things that will be of interest to those who read this blog. Here’s the highlights:

• The government will be working to reduce roaming charges within Canada for cell phone users. Clearly this is aimed at those on Wind, Mobilicity, and Public Mobile because if you’re on one of those carriers, you have a smaller home location where you can call on their network. Outside that, you’re likely using one of the big three to make calls and that can be pricey. Here’s my problem with this, it won’t benefit the majority of Canadians seeing as most Canadians who have a cell phone are customers of the big 3 and they have national networks from coast to coast to coast. Thus there’s no roaming for those customers. Now if the government wanted to lower the roaming rates outside of Canada, then that would matter. This doesn’t. Another point, in my opinion you solve problems like this not though legislation, but through competition. Thus this is the wrong approach.
• The government will force cable companies to unbundle TV channels. So instead of being forced to pick a package of channels with ones that you don’t want, you can pick what you want. I really am not a fan of this. Don’t get me wrong, I hate to pick cable packages as I perceive that I am being forced to pick channels I don’t want. But I am not convinced that forcing cable companies to unbundle channels is the way to go. Channels like HBO and channels like that which have little advertising wouldn’t last ten seconds in an unbundled world. Thus they’re bundled with other channels so that they get some revenue. Now if they did survive being unbundled, you’ll pay more to get HBO and channels like it to make up for the fact that they’re not bundled with other channels. Is there a problem here? Perhaps. But I don’t think you solve this problem in this manner.
• The government will introduce cyberbullying legislation that prevents non-consensual distribution of “intimate images.” This is a good idea. Seeing as there’s been some high profile cyberbullying incidents in the last year or two, we need to do something to protect our kids. If the government can pull this off (and I can’t see why it can’t) then it will be a good thing as long as it has teeth.

So my Canadian readers, what do you think of these items in the Throne Speech. Post a comment and share your thoughts.

This entry was posted on October 16, 2013 at 8:29 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Canada. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.