Geoff Russ: Elon Musk could save taxpayers millions. Of course Liberals won’t hear of it

In the minds of the paranoid and possibly deranged, Elon Musk lives rent-free. The mere mention of his name over the weekend was enough to make Liberals think like Enoch Powell and awaken a very tired and uniquely Canadian defence of protectionism.

Last Friday, the Prime Minister’s Office announced that the federal government is extending a $2.14-billion loan to Telesat Lightspeed so it can “expand internet and 5G networks in communities across Canada, with affordable, high-speed broadband connectivity.”

Additionally, Telesat will help the federal government “bolster its satellite communications technology and support North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) modernization to keep Canadians safe.”

Conservative MP Michael Barrett critiqued the plan by asking Elon Musk what it would cost for Starlink to provide rural broadband throughout the country. Musk replied that the cost would be less than half the $2.14-billion price tag.

As expected, members of the unloved and increasingly bitter Liberal government attacked Barrett for his query, accusing him of selling out Canadian workers and industry for daring to suggest the U.S.-based Starlink might be a better option.

A bit more surprising was how Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne, who is usually regarded as one of the smarter members of the cabinet, derided Musk as a “foreign billionaire.”

Remember that silly quote spoken by Justin Trudeau during the 2015 election, “A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian”? Well, Musk, who grew up in South Africa, inherited Canadian citizenship from his mother and went to Queen’s University. Yet the fact that he made his money in the United States apparently disqualifies him from being a worthy Canadian in the eyes of Champagne and some far less impressive members of the government.

The suggestion that Musk’s Starlink might play a greater role in Canada’s infrastructure also awakened the comically Laurentian defenders of protectionism. Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s chief of staff responded to Barrett’s tweet, writing: “Conservative MP being openly anti-Canadian space and tech business. Bold, brazen misjudgment!”

Telesat working on networks that bolster NORAD and NATO is one thing, and the fact that a Canadian company has been contracted by the federal government for national defence projects is the right choice and should not be controversial. On the other hand, Canadians have every right to be skeptical of Ottawa’s influence in determining who wins and who loses in the telecommunications market for everyday consumers.

Last year, Ottawa and the Ontario government handed over $215 million to Rogers Communications to expand its rural fibre-optic network in the province. Had Starlink been commissioned instead and connected about 66,000 homes to its satellite grid, it would have only cost $50 million.

Rogers does not need one more sweet deal from any government at any level. It is already bolstered by regulations that favour domestic companies and allow it to maintain its oligopoly in the telecom market, alongside Telus and Bell.

Attempts by smaller entities to gain a foothold have largely been snuffed out by acquisitions and mergers. The result is that Canadians pay seven times more per gigabyte for mobile data than Australians, 25 times more than the Irish and the French, and an astounding 1,000 times more than the Finnish.

Air travel is another sector where Canadians are being gouged due to a myriad of protectionist regulations, including rules prohibiting foreign airlines from flying on routes between Canadian cities, and forbidding non-Canadian investors from owning more than 49 per cent of Canadian airlines.

One of the many unjust results of these anti-competitive policies is that a round trip from Vancouver to Edmonton from Oct. 31 to Nov. 8 costs upwards of $300 with Air Canada for a distance that takes less than two hours to traverse. By comparison, a flight from Seattle to Chicago takes about four hours each way and costs under $250 with Delta or American Airlines.

Protectionist policies are only defensible if they improve the lives of a country’s citizens.

For example, it is not in the interest of Canadians to have the country flooded with intentionally overproduced, low-cost Chinese electric vehicles that would overrun the North American EV market and accumulate more power in the hands of a hostile state. The decision to slap 100 per cent tariffs on Chinese EV imports was a rare sensible one, if only made in imitation of an identical move by the U.S. government.

Neither Elon Musk nor the United States are hostile entities, and any attempt to equate them with the Chinese government is spurious.

Speaking of China, it was the Liberal government that awarded a contract to provide RCMP radio equipment to a firm linked to the Chinese government. For that and a variety of other reasons related to their former and current friends in Beijing, the Liberals have no right to be accusing people of compromising Canada’s national security.

If Telesat’s new deal to build broadband and 5G networks actually lowers prices, it will buck a long trend of Canadian consumers being gouged by Ottawa’s coddled telecommunications companies with artificially high prices.

Bucking a trend is unfortunately a rare occurrence. Also, let the record show that Elon Musk is, in fact, a Canadian.

National Post