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Canada is a cesspool of oligopolies, from TV to Cell Phone to Banks, etc.The excuse is always “if we don’t then some foreign/US company could come in and destro

Canada is a cesspool of oligopolies, from TV to Cell Phone to Banks, etc.The excuse is always “if we don’t then some foreign/US company could come in and destroy our culture.” Which of course is bullshit. A handful of companies are making billions and billions off the backs of Canadian with worse service and it won’t get any better unless the oligopolies are broken.

crashcrashcrush 7y ago
I actually sympathize - Canada is nice. Quebec especially so; doubly for Montreal. Perhaps it's a bit of this protectionism and isolationism that keeps it that way.
- rogerkirkness 7y ago
  Certainly almost no aspect of Quebec would survive actual competition with the outside world, as you imply.
  - crashcrashcrush 7y ago
    That’s perfectly fine.
    - deburo 7y ago
      Why is it fine? I certainly would like to either pay less or have better service if possible.
- dmix 7y ago
  Quebec is nice if you're a tourist. I tried living there and that sheen quickly fades. Especially after living in a US city. It's a joke if you think anyone in the world is even attempting to try to imitate Quebec. Montreal is nice because of what is left from the past greatness in the pre 1970s and because of its decline it's now a dirt cheap urban playground with economy-class hipster NYC lite for the unemployed artists whose parents can afford paying their $400/m shared living rent. Otherwise the economy is incredibly behind the times and incredibly lucky for the political influence it's established over the years being the special child who gets preferential treatment despite having none of the excuses the have-not east coast provinces have, despite receiving the most aid of all of the provinces. There's a very good reason MTL rents are 20x cheaper than NYC despite the large stock of high quality old buildings. And it has nothing to do with what they’ve achieved recently.
tpmx 7y ago
This sounds a bit like the general situation in Australia. It annoyed me to no end when I lived there but the locals didn't seem to worry.
- tybit 7y ago
  I know the feeling, I regularly bemoan Telstra here, while many friends happily pay a fortune for sub par service from them.
  - tpmx 7y ago
    Well, if it was only mobile... It seemed like everything you might want to buy that had a brand attached to it was like 20-40% more expensive in Australia, for no particular reason. (Apple products, Intel CPUs and commodities like RAM, SSD and GPU pricing were exempt - those have pretty straight-forward global pricing.) But.. say, random things like B&H Speakers? Or whatever else. Probably 40% more! Etc. So many things were so much more expensive in Australia for seemingly no particular reason. Freight costs didn't make up for all of that cost disparity - there was something else at play. I almost left the day job I was sent to do in Melbourne to work on building a price search engine for the Australian market. I couldn't really find anything that was useful/structured enough back then (2012). I'm curious, has this opportunity been filled since then?
- jbarham 7y ago
  > This sounds a bit like the general situation in Australia. As a Canadian living in Australia since 2011, I have to disagree. Politically Canada is much more of a protectionist nanny state than Australia. For mobile service in particular (i.e., the topic of this dicussion), Australia is much more competitive than Canada despite also being a very large, sparsely populated country. I pay $25/month for unlimited calls and 18 GB of 4G data (https://www.aldimobile.com.au/plans/value-packs/ https://www.aldimobile.com.au/plans/value-packs/). Unlike Canada, Australia allows strong, foreign competitors to provide mobile service (e.g., Vodafone and Optus). Other ways in which Australia is less protectionist than Canada: - parallel private healthcare system - parallel private education system (although not at university level) - buy alcohol anywhere, not just at government owned stores - no dairy and poultry "supply management" - foreign owned supermarkets (e.g., Aldi) Australia is far from perfect (e.g., the natural gas cartel is far too powerful) but on the whole there's far less government interference that protects cozy domestic oligopolies compared Canada.
reaperducer 7y ago
Don't forget radio. A lot of USAians don't realize that in Canada (and a lot of other countries) you can't start a radio station, or change your programming, without the government approving the format you choose. Want to play country music on your radio station? Woah there, podner. There's already a country station in this town, and if you play country music, too, there won't be enough advertising money to go around. So the incumbent stays, and the idea of competition allowing the better station to survive can go pound sand.

crashcrashcrush 7y ago

I actually sympathize - Canada is nice. Quebec especially so; doubly for Montreal. Perhaps it's a bit of this protectionism and isolationism that keeps it that way.

rogerkirkness 7y ago
Certainly almost no aspect of Quebec would survive actual competition with the outside world, as you imply.
- crashcrashcrush 7y ago
  That’s perfectly fine.
  - deburo 7y ago
    Why is it fine? I certainly would like to either pay less or have better service if possible.
dmix 7y ago
Quebec is nice if you're a tourist. I tried living there and that sheen quickly fades. Especially after living in a US city. It's a joke if you think anyone in the world is even attempting to try to imitate Quebec. Montreal is nice because of what is left from the past greatness in the pre 1970s and because of its decline it's now a dirt cheap urban playground with economy-class hipster NYC lite for the unemployed artists whose parents can afford paying their $400/m shared living rent. Otherwise the economy is incredibly behind the times and incredibly lucky for the political influence it's established over the years being the special child who gets preferential treatment despite having none of the excuses the have-not east coast provinces have, despite receiving the most aid of all of the provinces. There's a very good reason MTL rents are 20x cheaper than NYC despite the large stock of high quality old buildings. And it has nothing to do with what they’ve achieved recently.

tpmx 7y ago

This sounds a bit like the general situation in Australia. It annoyed me to no end when I lived there but the locals didn't seem to worry.

tybit 7y ago
I know the feeling, I regularly bemoan Telstra here, while many friends happily pay a fortune for sub par service from them.
- tpmx 7y ago
  Well, if it was only mobile... It seemed like everything you might want to buy that had a brand attached to it was like 20-40% more expensive in Australia, for no particular reason. (Apple products, Intel CPUs and commodities like RAM, SSD and GPU pricing were exempt - those have pretty straight-forward global pricing.) But.. say, random things like B&H Speakers? Or whatever else. Probably 40% more! Etc. So many things were so much more expensive in Australia for seemingly no particular reason. Freight costs didn't make up for all of that cost disparity - there was something else at play. I almost left the day job I was sent to do in Melbourne to work on building a price search engine for the Australian market. I couldn't really find anything that was useful/structured enough back then (2012). I'm curious, has this opportunity been filled since then?
jbarham 7y ago
> This sounds a bit like the general situation in Australia. As a Canadian living in Australia since 2011, I have to disagree. Politically Canada is much more of a protectionist nanny state than Australia. For mobile service in particular (i.e., the topic of this dicussion), Australia is much more competitive than Canada despite also being a very large, sparsely populated country. I pay $25/month for unlimited calls and 18 GB of 4G data (https://www.aldimobile.com.au/plans/value-packs/ https://www.aldimobile.com.au/plans/value-packs/). Unlike Canada, Australia allows strong, foreign competitors to provide mobile service (e.g., Vodafone and Optus). Other ways in which Australia is less protectionist than Canada: - parallel private healthcare system - parallel private education system (although not at university level) - buy alcohol anywhere, not just at government owned stores - no dairy and poultry "supply management" - foreign owned supermarkets (e.g., Aldi) Australia is far from perfect (e.g., the natural gas cartel is far too powerful) but on the whole there's far less government interference that protects cozy domestic oligopolies compared Canada.

reaperducer 7y ago

Don't forget radio. A lot of USAians don't realize that in Canada (and a lot of other countries) you can't start a radio station, or change your programming, without the government approving the format you choose. Want to play country music on your radio station? Woah there, podner. There's already a country station in this town, and if you play country music, too, there won't be enough advertising money to go around. So the incumbent stays, and the idea of competition allowing the better station to survive can go pound sand.