Some people wonder what kind of people read CRTC decisions for fun. Often, the rulings are highly technical or legalistic or filled with econometric terminology.
But every so often, there is a piece that gives such pleasure that you want to come back for more. It is like my golf game. I may only have 1 or 2 holes per round that make me smile, but the intensity is such that I keep going back.
Stuart Langford has distinguished his term as a CRTC Commissioner as being willing to speak his mind. Today’s decision regarding Rogers’ use of poles on New Brunswick highways contains a dissenting opinion by Commissioner Langford that I commend to you.
He pulls no punches and he isn’t afraid to use colourful language to describe the majority determination.
The Majority decision invites a Robin Hood approach to assessing user fees. Taken to its logical conclusion it could result in provincial schemes that take from the rich and give to provincial coffers not as directly as the Merry Men of Sherwood Forest once redistributed wealth, but just as surely. Perhaps a more appropriate analogy would be to the Sheriff of Nottingham rather than Robin of Locksley. Either way, it strikes me as a formula for anything but regulatory fairness.
His conclusion is succinct:
It may be that the amounts the Province attempts to collect from Rogers each year closely approximate the annual damage done by Rogers’ trucks to New Brunswick’s highways and rights-of-way. Unfortunately, New Brunswick has provided no evidence upon which I could reasonably come to that conclusion. Accordingly, I would have granted Rogers’ application to enter on highways controlled by the Province’s Department of Transportation at no charge.
The majority said that the province’s bill of more that $170,000 was reasonable. After all, look at all the money Rogers is making in New Brunswick.