As regular readers of this blog probably already know, I’ve never exactly been happy with the Canadian telecommunications industry. They’ve been bilking Canadians out of money unfairly for years now, with little or no government intervention to keep them on the straight and narrow.

It appeared that no one in government was willing to take on the big Canadian telecom companies and stand up for Canadians right to not get screwed on telecommunications service provision. It would appear David McGuinty’s Get Connected Fairly Act may change all that.

According to the Canadian Press:

Liberal MP David McGuinty says Canada’s cellphone industry has collected billions of dollars in “misleading” charges over the last 25 years, and he’s proposing legislation to stop it.

McGuinty says 911, overage, data and roaming surcharges can double advertised monthly rates for an industry that’s turning a $4-billion-a-year profit.

He says cellphone companies double-bill, change contract terms on the fly, and obfuscate agreements with unnecessary words and vague clauses.

He says Canadian cellphone users are paying an average of 33 per cent more than users of equivalent services in the United States, while high-end business users average 56 per cent more.

Only 55 per cent of Canadians have cellphones, compared with 75 per cent of Americans and 86 per cent of Germans, while the rate of cellphone use in Canada ranks 29th among 30 OECD countries.

McGuinty is proposing legislation, called the Get Connected Fairly Act, he says would end system access fees and impose more transparency on the cellphone industry.

I couldn’t have put it any better myself. Canadians have long lagged behind other countries in terms of cellular phone service — and not because we lack the technological capacity. Telecoms have consistently provided phones that are out-of-date in other first-world countries, and then charged users rates that would put a telco out of business in any other country.

As I said previously, Rogers’ decision to cap their bandwidth was a cheap grab at an extra $25 a month. Consumers who were already going above the new bandwidth cap would now be charged a maximum of $25 on top of their regular bill, which basically amounts to a $25 service increase for doing what they’ve always done. The real question is, when you sign a contract with them, why is it only their side of the contract that gets to change? Why can’t we determine that their service fees are too high and decide to pay less?

While Get Connected Fairly is definitely a step in the right direction, and I applaud David McGuinty for the work he’s done in this area, there are countless other areas where telecommunications companies are overstepping their bounds as good corporate citizens.

Canadians have had a history of monopolized, state-controlled telecommunications, and it’s time we snap out of it and get with the 21st century. Things have changed globally, and unless our telecommunications can provide with global-standard service, Canadians will be the ones who have to suffer for it.