True Patriot Love - January 20, 2026


Why Canadians Pay Sky-High Cell Phone Rates


Episode Stats


Length

32 minutes

Words per minute

182.42769

Word count

5,977

Sentence count

16

Harmful content

Toxicity

4

sentences flagged

Hate speech

4

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode of True Patriot Love, I sit down with Jim Lang to talk about cell phone rates in Canada and why they need to go up. We talk about the impact cell phone prices are having on our quality of life and the need for affordable cell phone services.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 today on true patriot love i'm lucky enough to have jim lang with me and we're gonna talk about
00:00:10.200 cell phone rates so we heard uh the other day and uh through the marketplace the globe and mail did
00:00:18.600 a wonderful article on it jim that sell rates are about to go up again well perfect just what we
00:00:24.420 need the food's going up now great well you know it's interesting so we talk about you know we talk
00:00:31.120 about what we can do for affordability yes for canadians and here we go at the beginning of the
00:00:37.020 year actually at the end of 2025 we started to see increase in sell rates right so now when they say
00:00:44.380 increase in sell rates they show a 15 increase in data charges so data is becoming more expensive
00:00:51.520 so you know i i dug into it and i said okay i always thought sell rates to tell you the truth
00:00:57.380 have been going up constantly for the last five years 10 years i just it just felt like it it just
00:01:03.500 felt like it but it has been so and it's a very complicated for a formula but it slowly has been
00:01:10.240 creeping up they provide these discounts to make it optically look like you're getting a discount
00:01:15.400 but overall it has been going up and there's lots of research on this but i looked at turning what a
00:01:21.300 gigabyte a cost per gigabyte in other parts of the world and i i stayed uh through marketplace the
00:01:29.200 research they've done uh through a cost per gigabyte is seven times more expensive than australia
00:01:35.560 25 25 times more than ireland and france a thousand times more than finland
00:01:43.960 so i know i was in the barcelona subway they had an ad for the local cell phone company and we my
00:01:52.800 family we looked at it and we did the conversion from euro to canadian dollar and we couldn't believe
00:01:58.020 how little they paid for how much data they got yeah and it was like that in any country you travel
00:02:03.020 around europe it's shocking how little they pay yeah well now the interesting part when i dug into it
00:02:09.360 which was uh new to me i never realized and uh when you go through it the capital cost because
00:02:16.180 we're talking a lot about budgets it's budget times municipal yeah uh federal you know just went
00:02:21.120 through their budget so we also contribute highly to the infrastructure of cell in canada but we kind
00:02:28.280 of have to because it's so lacking what's so lacking and it's such a big country but so since
00:02:33.940 2015 the federal government has put in 7.6 billion dollars into cell infrastructure
00:02:40.680 so you know i i have it i have a big uh cell tower going up beside me now oh is that right in
00:02:47.540 mississauga okay yeah and all the all the people in the neighborhood wrote letters and we got this
00:02:52.680 wonderful letter back and it said sorry but uh you know uh trans uh crtc and the telecommunications
00:03:00.580 association we followed all our guidelines and you're getting a cell tower right beside you so
00:03:05.600 100 foot big tower with the light on top uh so we get to stare at every night when we're having our
00:03:10.440 coffee so i said really thank you so you know but that is 7.6 billion dollars we put into it through
00:03:17.840 uh since 2015. on the ontario side we've invested 4 billion and that's that whole quest for internet
00:03:25.940 around ontario it's a big problem still in the province yeah it is my well i have my wife some
00:03:31.940 of my wife's family are farmers and rural dairy farmers in fergus and the cows now have computer
00:03:38.320 chips on their collar and they monitor when they milk and how much they milk but it's all reliant
00:03:43.800 on data because you don't have wi-fi in the in the barn and so a lot of them have switched to starling
00:03:51.140 because they need to get the information to monitor their herds and the profitability of their farms
00:03:57.120 yeah yeah oh i know i've read about it and the interesting thing is we looked at scaven
00:04:01.500 scandinavian companies uh australia uh they have a similar situation but again they pay way less than
00:04:09.800 us and sell costs and and service and and gigabytes so but think about australia most of the population
00:04:15.920 is along the coast and it's a you know it's a big country australia yeah but you think melbourne
00:04:21.780 adelaide oh yeah the middle is nothing yeah i mean it's the outback right yeah yeah it's barren
00:04:27.240 it's like a desert yeah yet how come they're able to have in such a big geographical country
00:04:32.260 with a small population such cheaper sell rates well so yeah that's a that's a question a lot of
00:04:39.900 canadians struggle with well it is so last night i'm watching the hockey right so and and what a
00:04:45.760 hockey game the leafs beat the avalanche in overtime with nylander beauty yeah nylander
00:04:50.020 beautiful goal right and i'm watching i think broke a 17 game yes the avalanche being the first
00:04:56.880 place team in the nhl yeah least being well now they've won eight of the last 10 they're in a
00:05:02.080 position for the wild card so they're they're feeling it they're rolling but you know i started
00:05:07.280 kind of so i'm i'm you know sitting there reading the article and i'm uh prepping for the show and i got
00:05:13.020 the uh my younger guy has the leaf game you know streaming on the back and uh of me and i'm listening
00:05:21.000 to a little bit and i'm thinking to myself okay yeah damn rogers right sorry rogers you know i'm 0.59
00:05:27.560 gonna i'm gonna harp on you for a minute but you know bell rogers we only have a couple cell 0.90
00:05:32.360 providers right we had telecommunications we're very limited right so the question right sort of
00:05:39.520 jumps into my mind how much are we paying
00:05:43.860 to sponsor all these teams and so you know and i i know it's a jump and i'm not blaming so before we
00:05:52.680 get in because you and i had this discussion before i'm not blaming the professional teams they just
00:05:57.620 make what they make quite frankly if someone's willing to pay them good for them right why wouldn't
00:06:02.100 you take it yeah so you know if there's a bid and i can you know make more than i should get then
00:06:07.740 have at it right but me as a user doesn't want to pay
00:06:16.440 absorbent and sell rate so i'm i start wondering so then i look into it i said okay you know and
00:06:23.120 there's not uh tried to find the results of our our telecommunications companies it's very hard to find
00:06:28.520 quite frankly i'm sure if i would have dug a little harder i could have found the profitability
00:06:32.140 but i do i did find some interesting stats and quite frankly it looks like our uh telecommunications
00:06:38.520 company bell rogers basically have way better profitability than most of the companies around
00:06:46.460 the world well based on the rates that makes sense doesn't it we're in the higher portal as far
00:06:51.520 as profitability so ebitda for those companies is amazing yeah right you know and when asked
00:06:58.280 they just say well you know we have a very challenging environment here to provide service
00:07:05.260 therefore we need more infrastructure therefore the costs are higher so be it i mean mark carney
00:07:12.720 could fix that in a second all he has to do is say you know what it is time to have open competition
00:07:17.940 for telecommunications cell phone companies in canada vodafone verizon at&t welcome to canada
00:07:26.420 right welcome and see what service they can provide at what price point well there was a guy
00:07:31.600 remember the wind guy yes yeah i can't remember his name it's going to come to me but he he came in a
00:07:37.120 wonderful young guy and he had a lot of fire and he said i'm going to open wind and there were a couple
00:07:42.220 of them came in and they just got bought out disappeared yeah but the bell and rogers control 0.96
00:07:48.120 all the towers in canada they were had they had to rent space on the cell towers yes yes that's the
00:07:55.000 problem they control all the towers all of them but we we just talked about we just put 11.6 billion
00:08:01.840 into the infrastructure you know what if verizon gets a green light to come to canada a company like
00:08:09.840 that they go we'll just make our own infrastructure do you know who we are do you know how much money we
00:08:14.340 have and we'll set up big cell phone services vancouver toronto montreal calgary um the edmonton
00:08:21.060 corridor and some other cities and we'll we don't need your towers right they could do that keep your
00:08:26.320 towers keep your towers keep your own well but shouldn't we be sharing the towers that we've paid
00:08:31.540 for again the government we should be who cut that deal but i don't know think about all the prime
00:08:39.260 ministers and it's all different parties and all different premiers there's no one politician and
00:08:44.760 no one party guilty no no they're all guilty all they have to do is go to the crtc yes which exercises
00:08:50.960 great power over everything else and say you have to share the tower this has to be a public domain
00:08:57.220 for cell service if paul and jim cell phone decide they want to have a startup you have to let them
00:09:03.000 use that tower for their customers but the government won't stop them okay let's pie in the sky
00:09:11.740 for a minute let's dream for a minute the market opens up opens up okay what happens to sports
00:09:20.620 so this is interesting because then i started you know i'm you know this leaf game streaming behind me
00:09:26.420 and i'm uh listening to the game you know great end of the game i i don't know about wearing the
00:09:32.780 nordiques that kind of hurt did you love the nordiques uniform on the avalanche baby blue the
00:09:39.040 are you kidding oh so good no but it kind of it hurt me because they were gone oh yeah i just thought
00:09:45.840 it was beautiful yeah yeah them being in the u.s and not so we have seven nhl can we do that's right
00:09:52.140 uh you know we we suffer through that every playoffs so but 25 american teams yes so it's
00:10:03.400 interesting so the tv rights so for the content yes that roger ended up paying in the new deal
00:10:10.860 is absurd right it's insane right and they're locked in for 12 years 12 years for 7.7 million 7.7
00:10:20.960 billion u.s us so paul if anything does happen to an open market sell service no no they're locked
00:10:27.380 in they have to pay that no matter what because the contract's the contract yeah so 7 7.7 over 12
00:10:34.360 years so you know uh six seven seven hundred eight hundred yeah eight hundred right million a year
00:10:44.700 right yeah yeah so now the american contract is 4.4.5 billion uh and it was signed yeah we're seven
00:10:53.360 years it was signed in 2021 so seven years so six seven hundred million yeah so we pay more so for
00:11:01.560 seven teams right and you and i talked about that i know my head the pure math when i do the straight
00:11:06.400 math i go what that doesn't sound really practical so now our telecommunications companies right
00:11:13.280 compared to the u.s companies that bid on the same contract and tv stations and everyone else who
00:11:19.360 bids on warner brothers and all these people who build on all this content were able with uh 10 times
00:11:27.440 the population in the united states we were able to spend more money for tv rights for hockey now i get
00:11:36.320 hockey's popular just a real if i may yeah i'll tell you how popular yeah so not only do you have huge
00:11:42.700 ratings and interest in the stanley cup final yeah then you have the nhl draft a few weeks later
00:11:48.120 and while it's seen in a few markets in the states it's must watch tv you know streaming service content
00:11:56.280 in canada the week after that it's free agency all the big sports networks have free agency shows they
00:12:02.820 go for hours breaking down the deals that's people spend their canada day watching free agency then
00:12:09.780 they spend all their summer at the campground or the cottage looking at their phone to see oh paul
00:12:14.640 bacucci just signed a contract with the red wings yeah and then it gets to the training camp and then
00:12:19.380 it's another and then it's the olympics and then it's the trade deadline day that's the difference is
00:12:25.040 canadians will spend hours consuming not just the games but trades and signings and drafts and everything
00:12:33.600 that goes around it the the interest for hockey and the nhl canada is so great that's why they're
00:12:39.280 able to get that much money it is but the i'm with you but the majority of the revenue comes from
00:12:44.480 seats tickets right yeah 44 tickets and tv tickets and tv the rest is kind of yeah you know apples and
00:12:51.560 oranges it's it's the patches on the jerseys it's the merchandise it's the concessions all that stuff
00:12:57.080 yeah so but but okay i get it i then i say to myself okay the shift in demographics in canada
00:13:07.120 correct so now uh i did a small survey the other day as we were thinking about this show and i went
00:13:12.960 around you know the office area that we have here general people and the people i know in the general
00:13:19.320 area and us and i went around i said if you had a choice
00:13:23.080 higher cell service but you got your sports for free
00:13:31.200 the leafs the raptors you know you can watch it on tv or lower cell service and people had to buy their
00:13:40.820 sports i don't think it works that way paul it doesn't work that way they your cell service has
00:13:47.900 nothing to do with how much you're paying for the sports because it doesn't have to do with the
00:13:52.520 sports but it is the guarantee by having the monopoly that allows you to take the risk of
00:13:59.560 making that large bid to win the sports contract so it pushes the sports contract up
00:14:05.420 which then you can bid and win it so it allows you to and therefore that's the safety net jim
00:14:11.720 but that is the safety net that allows them to do it and and that's what kind of i'm fine with
00:14:17.660 it all i don't have a problem i love all the teams and i i don't i don't uh as i got older i
00:14:23.880 stopped watching a lot of it quite frankly i'm not that interested in sports anymore but uh i was 0.67
00:14:29.100 sorry jim i was as a younger man but you know what it i just wore out from all the bullshit but 0.85
00:14:35.920 but at the end of the day where i'm at now and i think where i'd have to say 0.68
00:14:41.740 maybe a half of canadians right now would want to see us to a point where people want to consume it
00:14:48.780 pay for it and then allow us to have some more competition in the telecommunication cell area
00:14:57.060 allow it and then let the market because right now with the way the market's formed it's not a true
00:15:03.080 market and that that that's nothing to do with the nhl or it's not their fault no it's not their
00:15:07.880 fault but what that would do is probably not allow an 11 billion dollar contract to be led again i got
00:15:14.960 news for you paul amazon canada amazon prime or netflix yes if they rogers or bell doesn't bid
00:15:21.540 they're pulling in so much money now they're taking over sports broadcasting around the world
00:15:26.840 so you won't have hockey night canada on cbc it'll be on netflix or amazon prime but that's good
00:15:32.820 but that's what i'm saying sure but that's what i'm we're making the same argument i'm saying
00:15:37.800 let it go now because if i want to consume it on one of those networks i can consume it on my own now
00:15:45.560 right right i can pay for that package i can pay for that so now i'm not look i look if i'd love to
00:15:53.680 pay lower cell service i've been trying to pay lower cell service since i got a cell phone
00:15:57.440 right but the government won't allow a true open competition but that that's where we're at now so
00:16:03.800 until the until the government and the crtc decide we will have true competition true open market
00:16:11.460 competition and see what what happens it's a moot point like i i mean paul i'm with you but until that
00:16:20.680 time happens bell and rogers will continue to charge what they charge make what they make and
00:16:26.260 they'll they've got all their powerful lobbyists in ottawa and throughout the prevent provinces and
00:16:32.580 don't kid yourself they have a very powerful lobby group oh and within the crtc yes and even though
00:16:38.240 they talk a good game they still get their way every year yeah when have they not got their way
00:16:43.860 when it comes to cell service when i agree i don't know i i agree i'm not the only time i can
00:16:52.200 think is the crtc ordered bell and rogers to actively advertise the basic basic cable because
00:17:00.380 it was there for your tv package but it was buried on their websites right but now you have to if you
00:17:06.380 called inquire they have to offer it to you that's only because they were ordered to by the crtc but
00:17:12.000 when it comes to cell service they have a myriad of different packages but at the end of the day
00:17:16.800 we as you say we're paying way more than other countries and the government allows it but but
00:17:21.900 pure tv rights okay let's talk about that for a minute okay so as we and you know you get your tv
00:17:27.520 package and you pay for your bundle right yeah your bundle costs more if it includes sports and
00:17:33.400 the course or whatever right i get that there's not that many people so that's kind of dwindling over
00:17:38.920 time i think we all agree the amount of people watching tv is decreasing like regular tv regular
00:17:44.980 tv it's it's almost the like basically one of the only things you're watching right now you'll watch
00:17:50.540 the olympics coming up in a few weeks in milano and cortina regular tv you'll watch well i guess the
00:17:57.940 blue jays are sports and i guess is that regular tv no not really that's a cable channel yep and i know
00:18:03.780 bell slash tsn ctv they put the super bowl in ctv right so that's going to be like there's only a
00:18:11.020 handful of things now in the calendar year where you watch quote unquote mainstream tv and it's not
00:18:16.560 not a streaming type situation right which is great so let's go full bore right okay and then bring in
00:18:26.280 some what i'm saying is now that i think the crt has a good opportunity to open up the market now i think
00:18:32.900 there was a i think there probably was at some point to get the infrastructure built a good reason
00:18:38.500 to do that right it was a more complicated market a smaller market and that's where i got you know
00:18:43.660 i think the reason it was formed and and why they did that was because given the size of our country
00:18:49.760 and the infrastructure so i do agree that with that argument 20 years ago so not anymore 20 years ago
00:18:56.940 no no not anymore but now i think we're at that point where we can say let's bring in some
00:19:02.420 competition let's open up create some more jobs create some more infrastructure uh different
00:19:08.780 infrastructure in the country and you think about cell service in the united states because you live
00:19:12.960 there yeah in the west coast they have a predominant uh server yeah predominant cell phone service in the
00:19:18.880 northeast and the east coast so you could have conceivably the new york boston uh cell phone company
00:19:25.140 extend to the maritimes in the midwest up into ontario and the california one go up into bc that
00:19:31.160 that could easily do that exactly which would open up the market yeah reduce the reduce our costs
00:19:36.580 for communication let sports go off on its own now let sports and then quite frankly they can figure out
00:19:44.160 their own packages and we're not kind of we're not co-mingling them anymore sports is on their own
00:19:52.680 though paul like you have to understand but think about your tv package of bell and rogers you don't
00:19:56.620 you don't want it is to it expects you're not paying for it is to a point right but it's easier
00:20:03.700 for me to bid on something if i know i have a safety net of something else so you know it's an entrepreneur
00:20:09.380 takes a risk he goes into business he puts his own capital he puts his own security in and he goes
00:20:16.260 if i have such a great contract in a monopoly position i can take the risk to do things which then i can
00:20:22.120 bid on contracts at a higher level right if you open up the market you allow that telecommunications
00:20:30.300 industry to level off on its own so we won't see increases sports can go off on its own i think at
00:20:36.720 this point sports sports we can say good luck you know let everyone bid it whether it's netflix or
00:20:42.480 whoever comes in or another uh streaming service whoever comes in and wants to take a run at it
00:20:49.140 and you know good for them because they're on their own right i mean we have they've created
00:20:53.520 their own mark that's something where they haven't been propped up we haven't propped up those networks
00:20:58.560 right where those streaming service we haven't we haven't given them the monopoly of streaming services
00:21:03.520 again that goes back to the government again so i'm edward rogers and i'm rogers i spent hundreds
00:21:10.820 of millions of dollars renovating rogers center to turn it into a beautiful baseball only stadium right i mean
00:21:16.940 that was out of their pockets yeah they decided to take a big gamble and bid on that nhl deal and pay
00:21:24.740 more than the previous deal to secure the rights so yeah we may pay more fees for our cell phone than
00:21:30.940 other countries but we'll have to give a little credit to edward rogers and rogers management for
00:21:36.420 having the guts to go all in on this no no and listen i i don't want to get hurt quite frankly i want
00:21:42.440 everyone to do okay but i think there's a point of disconnect i think there's a point of we we did
00:21:49.000 all that built the stadiums bought the teams did the tv contracts okay fine there's a point where we
00:21:55.500 kind of detach well the market will decide from now on well the yeah the blue jays fans tune in to record
00:22:04.240 numbers for the blue jays playoff run which is good for them that's how they make money and if toronto or
00:22:10.440 edmonton go on a deep playoff run and they have big ratings to the playoffs well then that's the
00:22:14.640 country consuming the product and they're making the profits and if they want to go on rogers or
00:22:19.020 whatever streaming service it's on who's bid for it and watch it on there and love it i'm all for it
00:22:25.160 i'm all for it i think it's it it's on its own at that point and then and and i think now that the
00:22:32.320 infrastructure is built the infrastructure we've paid for the so you know part of it is as a community
00:22:37.540 we've paid for the infrastructure of our own cell service but at the same time you're saying that
00:22:42.780 i own a company and i have five different businesses yes and one is more profitable than
00:22:48.860 the other and i take some of the profit from that one company to bid on the something else from the
00:22:53.440 other company that's done all the time and that's what rogers did with the money for their tv contract
00:22:58.080 and i'm okay with it if they want to do that down the road once we open up the market and we allow
00:23:03.940 other cell providers and i'm okay with it the deal's locked in paul so so i mean no right now
00:23:10.320 they gotta pay that money till the end of the deal the tv deal's locked in but maybe there is a
00:23:15.540 transition point here that's what i'm saying okay like if we get to the next of the end of the contract
00:23:20.120 the end of the contract say we get to the end of the 12 years by the end of the 12 years paul
00:23:24.180 the the world will change the media world will be will be so different i'm raising young adults
00:23:30.320 who watch everything streaming who don't watch regular tv the other thing is most younger you
00:23:39.260 know let's say people uh 20 years younger than us or 40 40 years younger than us right they're not
00:23:45.700 watching full games anymore like my like my son doesn't watch my son watches highlights off his
00:23:51.860 phone uh you know as he's studying they'll watch the the women's gold medal olympic hockey game
00:23:58.220 they'll watch you know that they'll pick the highlights they'll watch a super bowl at a super
00:24:04.300 bowl party they'll get together yeah in a backyard for a backyard uh someone's got their screen set up
00:24:10.520 for a stanley cup game and they have the viewing parties it's it's more of a selective event i think
00:24:17.400 that it was where you just habitually came home had dinner sat down and put the tv on yeah every
00:24:23.480 wednesday and saturday night right we were in front we watched the leaf game right and we loved it and
00:24:28.220 we we enjoyed it we you know when the blue jays played we watched the blue jays exactly i get it
00:24:32.700 but it's not consumed that way anymore no quite frankly so i i think we can i i think it's a good
00:24:38.820 time to start the conversation that's the show today now that it's not trying to harm it's not
00:24:43.520 trying to harm anyone i'm not trying to say stop tomorrow what i'm trying to say is okay we realize
00:24:48.580 it now we have enough runway for this contract to move its way through so and when we get through
00:24:55.200 the transition i'm not i'm not particularly happy to pay more for cell service i'd be truthful with
00:25:01.180 it because uh having spent a lot of time living in the u.s uh i was shocked when i came back to
00:25:07.660 you know it always always put me on my arse well if you travel to europe anywhere right like when i
00:25:13.280 came back but but i understand i understand the infrastructure i understand all the reasons yeah 0.73
00:25:18.240 yeah yeah but now i'm like okay the reasons have been used over and over and over again it's now time
00:25:25.080 to put a trans let's call it an off-boarding program let's call it an off-boarding program 1.00
00:25:29.760 where we detach right so the you know there's no when others enter the market you we won't be harmed
00:25:39.080 because they have done i agree you know ted rogers and and you know bell and all these they've done a
00:25:45.220 terrific job on supporting the telecommunications network huge huge but it's time now to start to
00:25:52.600 let some other people into the market to get our it's we're no longer because we're so dependent on it
00:25:58.840 before you know we still had the the line the landline and we had the ability to communicate
00:26:04.500 differently now we're solely on our phones so it's time to look paul i meant drop off i know that'll
00:26:13.960 change sports it will okay but you know what they'll adapt they'll adapt they'll find another way to
00:26:19.640 create revenue to keep they'll adapt they'll be fine yeah but until the government stops creating
00:26:25.480 excuses because there's always a reason why we're gonna it's what's that the corporate speak
00:26:30.940 we're looking into this we're investigating this we're something we're tabling at a future
00:26:35.720 and then someone else has voted in as prime minister and then it gets put in the back burner
00:26:41.280 and there's something else that comes up it's covid it's wacko donald trump it's 51st state it's
00:26:47.160 invading venezuela there's always something to distract from what the goal is and until a government
00:26:52.880 leader stands up and says we are going to open up cell service to competition and say even if it's two
00:26:59.520 more companies limited that's two more companies than we have now then maybe that changes the fee
00:27:04.600 yeah well and i definitely think it has to happen now but it is a it is a plan that transitions us to
00:27:11.900 it well here's another question for you with the feelings that canadians have about america with the
00:27:18.220 fact that travel continues to plummet month after month how many canadians i'm being honest yeah would
00:27:24.640 say i'm with an american cell phone company i don't think it can be an american cell phone company
00:27:30.920 right and to your point of one coming through california yeah yeah i get that that's a good
00:27:36.420 point but i don't think it can so it's so say vodafone it wasn't uh the gentleman who came sorry
00:27:41.340 i'm having a uh memory lapse but the one gentleman who came and tried to open a company it wasn't wind
00:27:46.820 it was the other company um he was from egypt yeah okay middle east yeah and he came and he
00:27:54.100 tried to start up and he got bought out quickly right yeah and it was kind of i think his um his
00:27:59.800 exiting comments was this was a kind of a worthless endeavor because i never had a shot anyways so they
00:28:04.780 they bought him out they stroked a check for i think 30 something million he left kind of covered
00:28:09.340 his costs and a little bit of money and went to buy so if the government opens it up and gives
00:28:13.800 whomever comes in a legitimate reason to compete and a level playing field so it's fair to them
00:28:21.540 yeah and they're not an american-based company because right now let's be honest uh and with
00:28:27.140 everything going on with ice with venezuela with the talk about greenland i i don't know many
00:28:31.960 canadians will they'll say i'd rather pay extra bell and rogers because it's canadian no no i'm with
00:28:37.600 you i i agree i don't think it can be an american company so then we'd have to open it up to some
00:28:42.440 european company but european companies you know to your point uh soccer and uh telecommunications
00:28:48.520 companies huge is huge massive they know how so they can come in yeah and they can figure out a
00:28:53.860 network and they can figure out how to support our our we can achieve both i agree we can't achieve
00:28:59.680 both tomorrow but we can achieve both with some runway that doesn't harm anyone and leave us uh
00:29:05.580 leave existing companies at risk and at the end of the day the average canadian pays less for cell
00:29:10.680 service and all our favorite sports teams continue to exist but but then okay so now
00:29:16.400 infrastructure let's talk about that for a minute so this is an interesting thing in the budget and
00:29:21.420 everywhere we look then we have to stop because if the market's going to open up and people are going
00:29:28.460 to come in and there's going to be competition for cell service then the infrastructure has to be
00:29:32.580 covered exclusively by those companies so that has to be built into the costing of the
00:29:39.920 so you have to share the existing infrastructure that the you know as we talked about the 11.6
00:29:47.580 billion dollars we have to share what we have in place and then quite frankly we have to figure out
00:29:52.700 how to um offload out of the government coffers further infrastructure into telecommunications
00:30:00.060 i think infrastructure in any sense is good for the country and the more telecommunication we have
00:30:06.760 especially in small town rural canada from coast to coast is a necessity for the country there there are so
00:30:14.060 many times people are driving in this country and they see on their their their dashboard they have no
00:30:20.020 cell service but that'll be the so that's the great thing about competition it'll spur those to
00:30:25.680 find those populations to get them on their network and fill up the gaps and find ways uh through
00:30:31.500 technology to serve them so i think that's the benefit of bringing people in and having them look
00:30:37.200 at it differently so that'll be satiated by bringing more people into the market so they get
00:30:43.080 offloaded government budgets basically reduce our cell service numbers go down and quite frankly
00:30:49.720 those who want to consume sports they go off and consume sports and whatever fashion manner they
00:30:55.060 want most people they're buying the sports app they are they're doing it now they're doing it now they're
00:30:59.340 just they're they'll do it out of whatever new price model right gets adjusted out of the change
00:31:05.440 yeah but now's the time to do it and i i don't know why quite frankly you know when i saw the article
00:31:11.640 the other day and i'm reading through it you know shout out to the globe mail guys it was a great
00:31:15.640 article um you know i i'm thinking to myself why are we still having this conversation right this
00:31:22.260 conversation to me is like um you know 20 years old clean water and uh first nations prop you know
00:31:29.260 lands way up north i'm like why are we still having this conversation like we have to now transition
00:31:34.900 and figure out a plan to get there so and if mark carney his whole world tour is on right now
00:31:41.220 is to double what he said double investment from other countries other than america isn't that a
00:31:47.420 perfect way to get the ball rolling oh yeah and they'd love to come in right great experience well
00:31:53.940 and we have the experience canadians we're in the we're in the market there's thousands of people in
00:31:59.360 the telecommunications good marriage of the two right yeah we have experience here already people can
00:32:04.760 come in with their networks and off we go yeah and right now all the stats are showing canadians
00:32:10.040 when it comes to travel or avoiding the u.s like the plague where are they traveling most to the
00:32:15.000 warm areas in the caribbean or europe yeah they're already traveling in europe in bigger numbers than
00:32:20.280 we've seen in recent years and it will change it's going to change more and more as time goes on
00:32:25.260 because that relationship is going to stay that way at least for the next three years so is it ever
00:32:31.100 yeah good talk thanks jim go leafs go yeah go leafs go so stay tuned we're going to do more shows on
00:32:37.060 of course telecommunications as we move forward and uh subscribe watch and like and get the app
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