Summary with limited quotation under fair dealing (Copyright Act, s. 29). Full analysis, including data tables and figures, at the source link above.
A Jacobin analysis arguing for rebuilding public ownership of Canadian telecommunications, framed explicitly around federal NDP leader Avi Lewis’s “public option” platform and its public-telecom plank.
The piece situates the debate historically: Prairie farmers and residents forced public ownership of telephone service through a 1906 Manitoba referendum, leading provincial governments to buy out Bell’s operations and create what became Manitoba Telephone System, SaskTel, and Alberta Government Telephones (AGT). By 1960, Canada had the highest number of phones per inhabitant in the world. A wave of privatizations under Progressive Conservative governments — beginning with Mulroney’s sale of federal telecom crown corporations in 1987 and continuing through the sales of AGT (1990), MTS (1996), and EdTel (1996) — sold off roughly 20 percent of the sector for about CAD $8.8 billion in 2025 dollars. Public carriers fell from about 25 percent of telecom revenues in 1980 to below 3 percent by 2000.
Drawing on what it describes as the first comprehensive compilation of Canadian telecom revenues by ownership type from 1953 to the present, plus comparative OECD data, the analysis argues that countries retaining a public hand average higher fibre deployment (22 connections per 100 inhabitants versus Canada’s 14). It points to SaskTel — one of the last publicly owned holdouts — out-performing the national fibre average (17 per 100) despite serving low-density territory, as domestic proof that the “public option” can succeed in a competitive market.
The article ties the case directly to Lewis’s leadership, opening with the claim that his “public option” platform “is re-contesting the question that Prairie Province telecoms pioneers first fought for 120 years ago,” and closing:
“The question Avi Lewis is re-contesting today has been answered. It is time to act on it.”