There's one part of Canada that pays about half of what everyone else pays for cellular service - thats Saskatchewan. Because Saskatchewan has a government-run cell carrier, SaskTel.
Canada just needs a federal crown corporation to offer cell service.
We also have a provincial auto insurer, SGI. The prices for car insurance in Alberta or Ontario are ludicrous in comparison. The power and natural gas crowns are decent, as far as I can tell.
https://twitter.com/wingkarli/status/1582019472315289601 > Canada is just five big banks, two grocery chains, and three telecom giants in a puffer down jacket.
I'm not sure if federal crowns would be any better, but some competition would be a start.
Alberta of course massively wealthy due to the fortunes springing up out of the ground, and over the years has been able to draw Canadians from all sorts of places at times where their own home province was relatively economically depressed.
Alberta also has a conservative political culture and some unique ideas around how to organize things that were particularly different from, as you said, the "let's work together" approach of Sask under visionary leader Tommy Douglas and those that followed that social democratic road map.
So I think you had a combination of Sask folks going to Alberta to work in the oil sands and picking up the politics and coming back with it, and the centralized conservative media touting Albertan success across the border as a road map for Saskachewan success.
Of course the reality is that Alberta's success likely has a lot a lot less to do with their political policy choices, and a hell of a lot more to do with the fact that they get absolutely ginormous oil royalties that funds their every budget wish.
Saskachewan trying to replicate what Alberta has via the policy side, without the resource royalty side, well they're not going to see the same outcomes.
I think this also reflected in their bimodal provincial politics. Unlike other province, there's just two teams, and they're the polar opposites (provincial NDP squarely on the left, UCP on the very-right for folks from outside Canada).
Canada Post Corporation exists, yet sending and receiving letters/parcels is expensive, slow, and often inconvenient throughout Canada.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation exists, yet the Canadian news and media landscape is severely lacking in quality (and in my experience, CBC typically has the lowest-quality content).
VIA Rail Canada Inc. exists, yet passenger rail travel is expensive, slow, inconvenient, and quite limited throughout Canada.
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation exists, yet housing is incredibly expensive throughout Canada.
Yet another federal Crown corporation isn't the answer.
Very inexpensive and accessible, and private alternatives exist. Canada Post actually does a great job all things considered. Do you really think you can get a letter to Nunavut for $1.07 faster by private courier?
Canada Post topped Canada's Most Trusted Brands list in 2020. [2]
> The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation exists, yet the Canadian news and media landscape is severely lacking in quality (and in my experience, CBC typically has the lowest-quality content).
Completely disagree on that one, and entirely opinion.
> VIA Rail Canada Inc. exists, yet passenger rail travel is expensive, slow, inconvenient, and quite limited throughout Canada.
It's actually very inexpensive - you can get from Ottawa to Toronto for like $100 CAD round trip - but yes slower than it could be, because the government chose not to invest in it. However, it has recently, and HFR along the corridor is going to be a material improvement.
As is they are much cheaper than driving, faster than driving, waaaay cheaper than flying and sometimes faster.
That said they made the list of Canada's Most Trusted Brands in the Travel category in 2022 so obviously not everyone agrees. [1]
> Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation exists, yet housing is incredibly expensive throughout Canada.
The job of CMHC is not to make housing affordable. That's the job of municipalities and zoning rules. The job of CMHC is to finance homes which they do a fantastic job of.
This doesn't make any more sense than blaming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for the high rent prices in San Francisco.
Really doesn't make sense to judge them on something that isn't their job.
> Yet another federal Crown corporation isn't the answer.
So why does Saskatchewan have cell service that costs half what everyone else is paying? Sounds like it might be.
What I would say is just like SaskTel in Saskatchewan, if you don't want to use it, don't sign up. But for me, I'd be onboard in a heartbeat and you'd love them too as they pushed down the cost of cellular service even if you chose not to. Rogers, Bell and Telus plans are similarly way cheaper in Saskatchewan because they have to actually compete for once.
[1] https://www.uvic.ca/gustavson/brandtrust/assets/docs/final--...
[2] https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/our-company/ab...
The alternatives to CBC is like CKNW 980 24/7 news radio that is of the "news entertainment" style of news; the sort purely designed to generate impressions by making you angry. noooo thx.
Canada Post is great, but it’s not cheap for anything except sending a letter.
If you're looking at shipping by say USPS, then International shipping rates are determined under the United Nations Universal Postal Union. [1]
Until like 2020 it would have cost you far less to send a package from China to the US than from the US to somewhere else in the US.
Comparing the cost of domestic to foreign international shipping prices is not reflective of anything, unfortunately.
I would strongly urge you to look again at the cost of FedEx/UPS/DHL shipments into Canada. If you're looking to send a parcel, by ground, you need to add at least like $25 for brokerage. If you're shipping express, you're paying at least $70 for the package, but at least it includes brokerage.
I think this is probably just not accurate.
I just priced a 5lb FedEx Small Box going from SF to Vancouver (800mi/1287km) and it came in at $180USD/244CAD for the cheapest option.
Shipping the same box by Canada Post from Ottawa to Winnipeg (1000mi-ish) came in at $47CAD for the same service tier. $58 to Vancouver.
Ground came in at $24 which is less than the brokerage charge alone would be going international.
> Canada Post is great, but it’s not cheap for anything except sending a letter.
That's probably because Canada is bigger than the United States in land mass and has the population of California. That makes it, therefore, expensive to ship things.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Univers...
UPS and Purolator have it working....FedEx is garbage, Canada Post sucks for parcels, Local couriers are nice because they are real people who call and attempt to actually deliver the package (who would think.....)
So some would say that's just a roundabout way of praising checks notes Canada Post.
And before everyone starts, no, geography doesn't really make a huge difference in cost of providing the service. In remote rural areas you can get away with putting one tower up with LTE800 or another low frequency carrier, which will probably cover 20km in each direction from the cell site. Dense places are much more expensive to serve, requiring cell sites every <1km with a multitude of high and low frequency carriers.
However SaskTel charges $35/month for a 5GB data-only plan while Rogers charges $60. They also have a $90CAD 60GB plan which Rogers would charge checks notes $180 for.
So is it an objectively good deal, no. It is however half the national average.
I don't consider these plans unlimited; after the data allowance of 100GB speeds are shaped to <512kbit/sec which is close to unusable these days (some carriers in the UK offer similar but they consider it 'emergency' data to keep connected for basics, they wouldn't sell it as unlimited).
I think that's fair criticism. It's how this kind of plan is marketed all over North America. At one point Rogers marketed a 10MB plan as Unlimited like 10 years ago haha.
But this is a tiny, tiny distance in Canada... which has more rural roads than probably all of Europe.
Secondly, you can see how few towers SaskTel has here - https://www.sasktel.com/wps/wcm/connect/content/home/wireles... - click Saskatchewan LTE then show the various towers. Look how many towers are required for more "urban" areas in SK than the rural areas. These are pretty low density by european cities standards as well, where you can have small cells every 100m on busy streets.
In Saskatchewan and Alberta, it surprisingly is.
I'd say about 66% of the land area of Saskatchewan and Alberta has coverage on a mix of Bell, Telus and SaskTel. That's a ton of square footage.
Your statement is true of Canada in general, but not the prairies.
This shows a lack of understanding, for there are endless towers where no one lives.
Recall those roads I mentioned? Towers are there too. Rural roads can go through 100s of km of brush, farmland, tundra, and have towers.
1. https://www.comparecellular.ca/coverage-maps/ - "Less than 30 percent of Canada’s geographic area is covered by Bell, Rogers, or TELUS."
I agree, let's do it!