Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission - History

History

The CRTC was originally known as the Canadian Radio-Television Commission. In 1976, jurisdiction over telecommunications services, most of which were then delivered by monopoly common carriers (for example, telephone companies), was transferred to it from the Canadian Transport Commission although the abbreviation CRTC remained the same. On the telecom side, the CRTC originally regulated only privately held common carriers, such as B.C. Tel (now part of Telus), in which a U.S. company (GTE) had a substantial stake; Bell Canada, which served Ontario, most of Quebec, and part of the Northwest Territories; and operations in Newfoundland, the Northwest Territories, Yukon and northern B.C. Other telephone companies, many of which were publicly owned, were regulated by provincial authorities until court rulings during the 1990s affirmed federal jurisdiction over the sector, which also included some fifty small independent incumbents, most of them in Ontario and Quebec.