Cell Phones and the Canadian Government

As everyone who knows me is aware, I am not a big fan of cell phones. I am never convinced that anyone is important enough to need to be available 24 hours a day. In fact I think it is probably mentally unhealthy for us be connected all of the time. There is much to be said for down time.

On the other hand I can appreciate that they have their uses. For example when there is an accident, a cell phone ensures that help will get there quickly; when a parent needs to contact their daughter or  son who are out and about - it is reassuring to be able to reach out. But it would seem to me that those events are the exceptions to the rule. I don't need a cell to take pictures, I don't a cell to play Angry Birds and I certainly don't need a cell to send text messages to people.  But what I really don't need is to have my government spend money trying to convince the public that what we have now is bad and that what will be so much better is if there was less regulation and therefore more competition (read present Canadian companies might not be able to compete).

 CBC has reported that our government is paying 9 million dollars for ads such as this one ; to convince us that what we have now is a bad deal in part because we are being charged more than most countries. I always get concerned when the government makes sweeping statements without any documentation. For example according the the Globe and Mail we are paying less than the Americans and more than the British for similar plans. We are apparently somewhere in the middle in terms of costs. If the government is wrong about costs - what other facts are they wrong about?


There might be an argument that more completion lowers the price - I have never heard of such an argument or at least an argument that remained valid a year or two after the big boys came to play, but it is conceivable that such an argument exists.  But I can think of numerous examples where deregulation destroyed competition. The argument that we can get more by paying less is absurd. It is absurd when Rob Ford says it; it is absurd when Jim Flaherty says it. I understand the concept of "economy of scale", but deregulation creates an unequal playing field. And we all know that when there is no completion and no regulation - the costs never remain low.

So if there needs to be cell phones - I can live with that, but please Mr. Harper stop wasting my money convincing me that big business always knows best. 

I have to wonder if giving the 9 million directly to Canadian cell phone users wouldn't be a better use of my money?