OTTAWA — Arguing that “Canadians still pay too much and see too little competition” for internet and cellphone service, Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne issued new orders Monday to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, telling the CRTC to regulate harder.

The direction is revised from a draft the Liberal government released in May, which included language that overstepped the Telecommunications Act, according to the Big Three telcos. This version keeps that material and goes farther.

Here’s what you need to know:

Growing pressure: Industry players—especially smaller ones—have grown increasingly irked by CRTC telecom decisions. One recent flashpoint was a ruling saying a “mobile virtual-network operator,” or MVNO, has a right to access a big telco’s cell towers, but only if the MVNO already owns some wireless spectrum of its own; another was a reversal of a previous decision cutting the prices big telcos could charge small operators for wholesale access to their internet networks.

The Liberals chose not to overturn either decision but this new instruction is meant to point the CRTC toward some different values.

Basic dispute: The draft direction in May included some very bossy language, with several clauses telling the CRTC what it “must” do, such as “mandate the provision of wholesale high-speed access services with a variety of speeds, including low-cost options in all regions.”

This is not OK, large telcos warned in some of their official responses.

“A policy direction should provide guidance to the commission regarding the outcomes that government wants to achieve,” a brief from the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association summarized. “It should not prescribe the regulatory measures to be maintained or enacted to achieve these objectives.”

Small competitors argued for even more prescriptiveness. TekSavvy, which has waged open war against the CRTC recently, called for cheaper wholesale internet rates to be written into the commission’s new direction. It also asked that the CRTC be made to study a fundamental reform to Canadian telecom: separating the business of providing retail service from the business of owning wires and antennas, so the same company couldn’t do both.

Resolution (maybe): The “musts” stayed in Champagne’s final version. Though it doesn’t include quite the language that TekSavvy wanted, it nods in that direction more vigorously than the draft did. New clauses on wholesale wireless and wired internet access, for instance, tell the CRTC to ensure they’re available “at just and reasonable rates.” 

The new crew: The new direction lands after an overhaul of the CRTC’s membership. New chair Vicky Eatrides is a competition specialist; new vice-chair Adam Scott came from ISED’s spectrum-policy branch. Bram Abramson, a new regional member for Ontario, has been a lobbyist and regulatory expert for small telcos.

Ministers and Eatrides have exchanged open letters in a stylized display of their commitment to making the CRTC more open and responsive.

More work for lawyers: In its response to the draft, BCE warned that the prescriptive language was illegal. Telus’s included a pages-long legal argument on the limits of the government’s power to order the CRTC around, which could be copied readily into a court filing challenging the directions, if Telus wants to make one. The government argues that the direction demands outcomes but leaves the CRTC leeway to decide how to achieve them.

Whether that’s enough may be up to judges.