The federal cabinet said it will issue a fresh order to the Canada Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission on how to regulate the internet and telephone industries. The proposed new order, to be finalized by fall, keeps the regulatory principles the government gave the CRTC in 2019 but is much more precise about how the regulator should promote competition and consumer rights. It also repeals language from a 2006 order telling the CRTC to rely on market forces as much as possible. (The Logic)

Talking point: The new direction doesn’t overturn a CRTC ruling that raises prices small internet companies pay the big infrastructure owners for wholesale bandwidth, which has been the target of a long, loud campaign by those upstarts. But it changes the system that led to the ruling. Among many other things, the CRTC must listen more to consumers and advocacy groups; make decisions quicker and more transparently, based on better evidence; and show just how those decisions make markets more fair and competitive. The government said it’s even open to carving the cellphone industry up into separate wires-and-poles and retail-service businesses so the same company couldn’t do both.