Major wireless providers have cut the costs of basic phone, text and data services by at least a quarter since winter 2020, in time to hit a target the Liberals set then, according to the government’s report. It looks at the prices of monthly plans with two, four and six gigabytes of data, offered by Fido, Koodo and Virgin—the discount brands of Rogers, Telus and Bell. (The Logic)

Talking point: Navdeep Bains, the innovation minister in March 2020, told carriers at the time to cut the prices of those plans within two years or the government would “take action with other regulatory tools.” (In a separate move, the CRTC also ordered providers to offer cut-rate plans with lower minimum requirements.) The benchmark for the mid-range plans uses 2020 standards, such as 4G/LTE data connectivity instead of 5G, and since Bains issued the ultimatum, average monthly wireless-data use has risen from 2.9 GB to 4.4 GB, as of the third quarter of 2021, according to the CRTC.