A Social History of Canadian Telecommunications

Abstract

To appreciate the implications of recent government and regulatory decisions advancing competition in certain local network and long-distance telecommunications services, new regulatory and pricing mechanisms, and even an entirely new legal framework, it is necessary to recover the historical origins of the regulatory concepts and industry structures that are being deregulated out of existence, or said to be altered by technological circumstances and economic imperatives. The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct the historically specific, mainstay categories of the Canadian telecommunications system, such as private and public ownership, the split jurisdictional legal structure, the regulated natural monopoly concept, and other key regulatory principles. Furthermore, in order that the history of telecommunications policy can be considered on terms not reducible to economic imperatives, technological innovation or a discourse saturated with technical and legal jargon, this study considers the active role of labour unions and other social forces in shaping the early Canadian telecommunications regulatory environment.