For Sale to the Highest Bidder: Telecom Policy in Canada, is a collection of articles by activists and academics offering a timely and critical perspective on the current state and future of telecommunications policy in Canada. While the business press trumpets the competitive exploits of the major telecom and media firms, extols their synergistic couplings, and admonishes Canada to be a lean and mean player on the global stage, this collection asks us to take a collective breath and educate ourselves about the impact of deregulation, re-regulation, and “smart regulation” for our Canadian economy, culture, and society.

Please join Media@McGill in the downstairs restaurant at Thomson House on Wednesday, April 9th at 5:30 pm, for the launch of this important new book.

Authors discuss the impact of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), whose overarching goals are to integrate trade, security, defense, environmental, and cultural policies, on our telecom environment; the policymaking process and public interest implications of the government’s pro-market Telecommunications Policy Review Panel (TPRP) Report; Canadian sovereignty and national security amidst telecom takeovers; why we need net neutrality provisions; spectrum management basics and the importance of spectrum as a public commons; and why community internet access is vital for effective democratic participation.

“Hands off” initiatives by the current Conservative government and their policy by stealth attitude should mobilize Canadians, now more than ever, to stand on guard for the public interest in the wake of proposed telecom reforms.