Bill C-555 (Historical)

Telecommunications Clarity and Fairness Act

An Act to provide clarity and fairness in the provision of telecommunication services in Canada

This bill is from the 39th Parliament, 2nd session, which ended in September 2008.

Sponsor

David McGuinty Liberal

Introduced as a private member’s bill. (These don’t often become law.)

Status

Second reading (House), as of June 4, 2008
(This bill did not become law.)

Summary

This is from the published bill.

This enactment requires the Governor in Council to direct the Minister of Industry to amend the conditions for PCS and cellular spectrum licences to include a prohibition against the levying of any additional fee or charge that is not part of the subscriber’s monthly fee or monthly plan rate. It also requires the Governor in Council to direct the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to gather information, seek input and make a report on competition, consumer-protection, and consumer-choice issues relating to telecommunication services in Canada.

Similar bills

C-555 (40th Parliament, 3rd session) Telecommunications Transparency and Fairness Act

C-555 (40th Parliament, 2nd session) Telecommunications Transparency and Fairness Act

Elsewhere

All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.

Bill numbers are reused for different bills each new session. Perhaps you were looking for one of these other C-555s:

C-555 (2013) Law An Act respecting the Marine Mammal Regulations (seal fishery observation licence)

Telecommunications Clarity and Fairness ActRoutine Proceedings

June 2nd, 2008 / 3:05 p.m.

Liberal

David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-555, An Act to provide clarity and fairness in the provision of telecommunication services in Canada.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate having 30 seconds or so to speak to this bill, which would direct the Minister of Industry to amend the conditions for PCS and cellular spectrum licences to include a prohibition against the levying of any additional fee or charge that would not part of a subscriber's monthly fee or monthly plan rate.

It also would require the government to direct the CRTC to gather information and seek input and make a major report on competition, consumer protection and consumer choice issues relating to telecommunication services in Canada.

I hope this goes some distance in addressing what many Canadians believe to be unfairness and a lack of transparency in the charging for services that are occurring on a monthly basis, including system access fees, which the federal government ceased requiring to be collected by the telephone companies some 21 years ago. Still today 18.5 million Canadian cellphone users are paying monthly charges. We intend to address this through the bill.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

As spoken