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Comment by dghughes | Hacker News Reader

I just can't believe how much relies on just one company Rogers seemingly every debit machine in Canada, anything to do with passports, many doctor's offices.

A similar situation occurred just last April (2021). https://mobilesyrup.com/2021/04/20/nationwide-rogers-outage-...

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Canadian ISPs definitely have a stronghold on the infrastructure. Can't call it a "monopoly" because there are three of them, but a common name given is "Robelus" which is portmanteau of Rogers/Bell/Telus.

I don't have the numbers on how much they spend to lobby the government every year, but I imagine its a staggering sum.

The word you are looking for is “oligopoly”. This is when a small set of firms has a monopoly on something.

That's a good word, but if I were to be honest, I think a better word might be "cartel" ....I looked up oligopoly and it seems like it implies no collusion..... However, when I think about the large telecoms, I feel like they are colluding with (each other, surely, but also) the government.

Investopedia were pretty sure they were:

https://web.archive.org/web/20171230012928/https://www.inves...

A 'Canada' should be another word for an oligopolistic (maybe that's a word?) state.

Mobile carriers - 4 control 98+ % of the market

Internet - 4 control likely 90+ % of the internet market

Banks - 5 control 90+ % of retail banking. The rest? Credit Unions who have themselves mostly merged into https://www.central1.com/

Insurance - 6 control 89%

Media - 4 control 70%

Grocer - 5 control 60%

Movie theaters - 2 control 99%

Links:

[0] https://financialpost.com/fp-finance/megadeals-fuelling-unpr...

[1] https://financialpost.com/investing/how-canadas-oligopolies-...

What percentage of mobile phones in the us are not Apple or Samsung? How much wailing and gnashing of teeth would occur if Apple screws up an iOS upgrade that can’t easily be undone? Or just repeats what rogers and Facebook have done re dns?

Glass houses, eh?

Revolut neo bank (GB) tried to enter the canadian market in November 2019. It was in beta mode for one and half year, then it has quit the canadian market!

Why? because they failed obtaining a bank licence!

It is very hard for a new bank to come to Canada. They have to "partner" with one of the 5 existing oligarch banks! Imagine.. as a business, you have to "partner" with a competing bank in order to operate!

Meawhile, Revolut has successfully opened in 10 other countries at the same time..

Tourists and strangers don't really catch how the canadian market is ruled by oligarch / oligopoly so few players/businesses.

There is NO COMPETITION here! Welcome to CanaRussia!

Sources: https://portfolioplus.com/what-happened-to-revolut-canada-wh... https://www.fintechfutures.com/2021/03/revolut-exits-canada-...

After a banking charter is given, the Canadian PM gets put on their board (after the PM leaves politics).

Definitely no quid pro quo there.

Canada is a country of oligopolies - everywhere from the products you can buy to the Federal Liberal Party's Trudeau Foundation being the receiving end for paid political favours.

It is hard to think of areas where there is actual competition in Canada, because there are so few.

Media? None, the Federal Liberals fund the approved media and leave the unapproved to fend for itself or die. The approved media is then highly encouraged (unofficially) to tow the Party line and back up anything Trudeau says - especially when it's a fabrication.

Banks? Highly controlled via charters, although actual regulation would make a 1970s Cayman's banker blush.

Food? There is a literal milk cartel. There are three major grocers - all highly vertically integrated. One was just on the news a few years ago for price-fixing bread, and also received untold millions for a refrigeration overhaul from the Federal Government.

Telecom? See the outage.

Law enforcement? The RCMP (Canadian CIA) was recently caught editorializing a report to suit a gun bill Trudeau's Liberals had been waiting for a reason to pass. The Federal Government was also crucial in telling the RCMP what to report and when. In any first world country this would be scandalous and met with a wave of resignations. In Canada, it's a Trudeau Tuesday.

The media is not at the whim of the Trudeau govt. There’s the National Post and Rebel media. CBC itself has been highly critical of the govt if you care to watch it. Then there’s CTV and Global News. And I recall a number of newspapers and radio stations are owned by conservative interests.

They don’t like to bring it up, but they all owe a lot of their existence to government regulation (can content requirements), media production funds ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Media_Fund ), other grants and tax credits: https://www.canadaland.com/qcjo-news-media-bailout-explainer...

Respectfully, this just sounds like the screed of somebody who doesn’t like Trudeau/liberals for political reasons not like an unbiased, cogent analysis of Canadian policy. Though I guess not always a lot of blue sky between those two. But I have a feeling you didn’t like liberals before Trudeau, and nothing was going to change your mind.

I think it's closer to:

CIA -> CSIS (intelligence)

FBI -> RCMP (federal police)

HN, please correct me if I'm wrong!

As I understand it your correct. Parent comment is wrong on a lot of things.

I am Canadian and you are correct. OP lost me at "CIA" as well. Canada has a "spy agency" and it is CSIS as you state.

I don't think many Canadians would think of the RCMP as "federal police" but more "national police" because their have odd responsibilities:

" The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) is Canada's national police force. The RCMP is the only police force in the world that acts as a federal, provincial and municipal force. "

Close, except for an important nuance: CSIS is primarily for domestic intelligence and security and doesn’t do much foreign work. From what I understand, the CIA isn’t supposed to work domestically; for CSIS, working domestically is in their charter.

From what I recall, CSIS was established after the FLQ Crisis in the 1970s, when the government realized that having a single organization responsible for clandestine domestic intelligence and law enforcement was an idea that was rife with abuse.

CSIS does foreign work. They are responsible for anything related to national security. Internal and external.

From Wiki:

“There is no restriction in the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act on where CSIS may collect "security intelligence" or information relating to threats to the security of Canada.[31] The agency may collect information on threats to Canada or Canadians from anywhere in the world. While CSIS is often viewed as a defensive security intelligence agency, it is not a strictly domestic agency. CSIS officers work partly domestically and often internationally in their efforts to monitor and counter threats to Canadian security”

Ahhh, I was out of date:

> Previous law stated that CSIS was only allowed to collect this intelligence within Canada but due to an updated law in 2016 they are now allowed to collect that intelligence abroad as well.

The majority of Canadian media is right leaning.

And not sure why you seem so set on blaming the liberals and JT because basically nothing changed when JT took power except a different set/type of scandals and legal weed.

Wow the hatred people have for Trudeau. I'm pretty sure whatever is wrong with Canada's telecommunications industry started long before he was involved in politics.

This is a very common problem with politics in canada these days.

Whatever "current event" has a negative outcome, attribute it to the politician you currently don't like.

Post office in the high-arctic is closing, must be "politician i don't like's" fault.

Never mind basic logic as you posted, these are not new problems. JT hasn't done anything to address the issues, nor did his predecessors.

Our CRTC is effectively useless so little will change until CRTC is overhauled.

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