Editorial

Interconnected

OpinionsAlex Mcgill — Published February 8, 2011

The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission has delayed further review of the implementation of usage based billing until May 1, at which point it will be tabled again. While the Harper government has opposed the decision, the Canadian government has been leaning towards the privatization of information for some time now.

Canada prides itself on being a nation of innovation, change, and most of all, of freedom. The CRTC’s proposed Internet cap would make this reality a thing of the past.

When it comes to the Internet, we are still in a period of transition. It has redefined the way our world is structured and reshaped our realities. The Internet is arguably the most powerful resource our world has ever seen—this is no time to take our feet off the gas pedal.

Our generation is in the midst of finding our place within this new Internet world. We understand that in our future, any field we choose to go into will have a specific place within cyberspace. We’ve reshaped our goals and our tactics to fit our shifting society. A cap on Internet usage would force us to, in essence, go back in time and once again have to find out our place and our future.

As well as providing a space for communication and expression, academic success would be next to impossible without the Internet. We communicate with our professors via e-mail, pay our tuition, conduct our research—do everything—online. Getting a university degree without access to the Internet is now impossible.

While the CRTC’s proposed UBB wouldn’t eliminate our ability to do all of these things, it would cost us in a big way. Usage-based billing would up the cost of Internet access for the university, which could potentially cause our tuition rates to rise.

Right now we interact with the Internet so closely, it has almost become a resource we use unconsciously. We use it to listen to music, to communicate with our friends, to view art and writing, to be productive and to be creative. It has given us unlimited opportunities to have our voices heard, and to hear the voices of others. We are more connected with diverse people and cultures than we have ever been, and it is extremely important for our future and society that we don’t disconnect.

Usage-based billing, putting limits on our Internet access and usage, is a step in the wrong direction for Canada. We are a democratic society, and not only would the CRTC’s implementation of UBB be unfair and unnecessary, it would be anti-capitalist. The CRTC would essentially be transferring a huge amount of power to the big companies like Rogers, Bell and Videotron—as big an affront to the principle of the free market as it is to the freedom of Canadians to enter the future at the same speed as the rest of the world.

—Alex McGill,
Student Press Liason

This article originally appeared in Volume 31, Issue 22, published February 8, 2011.