It’s a slow news day. In fact, the first few days of July are always slow here in North America. Two of the three nations that make up the continent celebrate their nation’s sovereignty within that span, and other than discussions about hockey signings in Canada and fireworks displays in America do we hear much in the way of anything really newsworthy. But that’s especially so in Canada, because Americans tend to make news on July 1, as if they’re ignoring our country’s birthday....

Canada’s restrictions on foreign telecommunications ownership is bad for competition and, as a result, bad for Canadians, and Globalive’s chairman told industry executives today at the Canadian Telecom Summit that it’s about time that the government take steps to fix that problem. And quickly. According to a report fromReuters, Globalive chairman Anthony Lacavera says his company “had no choice” but to look at funding from foreign sources for its Wind Mobile service....

Wind Mobile, a newcomer to the Canadian wireless scene, has been facing major challenges with the government and the Canadian Radio-Television Commission (CRTC) since before its launch in 2009. It was just reported that Tony Clement, the Canadian industry minister plans to appeal a recent decision made by the federal court earlier this month that aims to withhold Wind Mobile’s license. This issue is with foreign ownership regulations. Currently, 65 percent of the company that owns Wind Mobile (Globalive) is owned by Naguib Sawiris, an Egyptian that also controls an Egyptian-based Telecom, Orascom Telecom....

Michael Geist, law professor and chairman of Internet and E-commerce Law posted earlier today that Rogers, a major teleco and ISP in Canada has not been following CRTC policies. As Geistreported today, recent complaints surrounding Net Neutrality were sent to the CRTC (Canadian Radio Telecommunications Commission) claiming that Rogers was affecting downstream peer-to-peer traffic and was being disobedient with Internet traffic management policies. The CRTC has received numerous complaints over thelast four months, that Rogers, the major Canadian telco, had not been compliant with the CRTC Internet traffic management policy requirements (TRP 2009-657)....

The largest chain of newspapers in Canada is about to do some serious cost-cutting as it restructures its business for the “digital age”. According to a report fromReuters, Paul Godfrey (the man in charge of Postmedia) has indicated that there will also be some extensive retraining during the reshaping of the company. Godfrey goes on to say that “Reporters are going to have to become more than just a reporter,” and mentioned that there are already Postmedia print journalists in the field who have video cameras at their disposal so that they can send video clips from the field for online articles....