opinionEnjoy your first day, new CRTC chair Vicky Eatrides – it’s all downhill from herePETER MENZIESJanuary 4, 2023

Peter Menzies is a senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a former writer of the Calgary Herald and a earlier vice-chair of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Fee (CRTC).

Vicky Eatrides won’t ever be extra well-liked than on her first day as Canada’s chief communications regulator.

Publicly, everybody loves the brand new chair of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Fee (CRTC) and is stuffed with hope that she is going to see the world as they do and – for the sake of the nation’s tradition, after all – enrich their lives. The identical may be stated for brand new vice-chair (telecom) Adam Scott. Their halos will glow from the graduation of their five-year phrases on Jan. 5.

Till they difficulty a call.

After that, it is going to be all downhill as, one after the other, the ranks of the dissatisfied develop till they type a full-voiced choir of the aggrieved. Little marvel many conclude that the one approach for a CRTC chair to outlive is to make sure that everyone seems to be equally sad.

There’s a lot constructive buzz surrounding Ms. Eatrides. One issue is that the fee she is inheriting is already deeply unpopular amongst those that advocate for shoppers and service-based competitors. The Might 27, 2021, resolution by outgoing chair Ian Scott’s CRTC regarding wholesale entry charges for broadband companies stays notorious. The bar for Ms. Eatrides has been set low.

However the optimism additionally stems from the actual fact she’s a profession civil servant who spent years on the Competitors Bureau, which is in the meanwhile – at the least within the eyes of the pro-competition/client crowd – sporting a superhero cape attributable to its cussed opposition to Rogers Communications Inc.’s proposed $20-billion takeover of Shaw Communications Inc.

Folks I respect and who know Ms. Eatrides suppose she is as stable an appointment as could possibly be made given the Herculean job forward.

There’s additionally an excellent likelihood that she will probably be greater than ably assisted by Mr. Scott, the incoming vice-chair. Those that have crossed paths with him communicate of a extremely succesful particular person with many years of expertise managing connectivity points. Notably, neither Ms. Eatrides nor Mr. Scott convey any baggage from the normal content material creation sector that efficiently lobbied for Invoice C-11, the On-line Streaming Act.

However whereas the monster that’s Invoice C-11 nonetheless awaits affirmation (whether or not unamended or as amended by the Senate stays to be seen), Ms. Eatrides’ first duties will probably be structural and watched fastidiously. With Mr. Scott and Alicia Barin, one other incoming vice-chair (broadcasting), there’s clearly a brand new group with a recent mandate in cost, and these will probably be nervous nights for senior CRTC bureaucrats. It’s not uncommon for brand new chairs to put in leaders with whom they’ve labored beforehand, and, provided that each Ms. Eatrides and Mr. Scott come from the general public service, there will probably be no scarcity of these close by.

Subsequent will probably be clearing the decks of leftover selections, such because the do-over ordered by cupboard on the CBC’s licence, the undue choice criticism filed in opposition to Rogers for not carrying OneSoccer and others.

This can set the stage for Ms. Eatrides to make sense of Invoice C-11 and try to stop the various catastrophes it makes attainable.

These embrace the dangers to the incomes of tens of 1000’s of Canadian digital creators, the way forward for an open web and the liberty of residents to specific themselves by means of it. YouTube and TikTok creators see themselves as lambs being led to the slaughter, whereas smaller streaming firms could, relying on Ms. Eatrides’s selections, resolve that Canada simply isn’t definitely worth the hassle and depart.

Additional complicating issues is the truth that those that pushed for Invoice C-11 will probably be anticipating to reap what’s more likely to be a really overpromised reward, whereas hovering over all of it will probably be a cupboard armed with new powers to second guess all crucial selections.

As if that isn’t sufficient strain, everybody throughout the CRTC’s soon-to-be-global scope will probably be watching carefully to find out if Ms. Eatrides’s appointment will, in live performance with a recent method to competitors coverage, sign that the patron is as soon as once more the one whose pursuits the CRTC intends to primarily serve.

So, right here’s hoping that Ms. Eatrides’s first day is an effective one.