The Financial Post reports in its Thursday edition that the Tory government is intervening in the marketplace without any evidence that consumers are getting gouged. The Post's guest columnists Jeffrey Church and Andrew Wilkins write that the Tory government, allegedly representing the interests of all Canadians, and BCE's Bell Canada, Rogers Communications and Telus, the incumbent providers of wireless services, have been waging a high-stakes battle. The issue? Who should determine how wireless services are provided in Canada? Should prices, quality, availability, and other terms of service be determined by the market? Or by the government? The accumulated wisdom of successful economies is that markets, warts and all, work most of the time in providing consumers with many choices at reasonable prices. The verdict on government regulation and intervention is harsh. In general, government intervention results in shortages or high prices. The threshold for intervention should therefore be high. If the concern is insufficient competition then there must be robust evidence of its opposite, of which the writers say there is none. Canadians should say "no" to opportunistic policies intended to "buy" their votes.
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