Canada’s telecommunications networks are essential to our economic strength and daily life. Mobile wireless services keep families connected, support public safety and health systems, enable businesses to operate efficiently, and allow Canadians to participate fully in the digital economy. As Ottawa pursues a new red tape reduction agenda, one policy change offers an immediate and meaningful benefit: eliminating annual spectrum licence fees.
Spectrum refers to the invisible radio frequencies that carry wireless signals — the airwaves that make mobile phone calls, text messages, internet access, and mobile apps possible. Wireless providers must acquire licences from the federal government to use specific portions, or bands, of these airwaves. Canadian providers have already paid nearly $30 billion through competitive auctions to acquire these licences, among the highest prices in the world, and must then invest billions more each year to build and operate the networks Canadians rely on.
Yet on top of these extraordinary upfront costs, the government also charges annual licence fees, requiring providers to pay millions more each year. Instead of supporting better service quality and better coverage, these recurring fees simply divert resources away from the very investments that would deliver those outcomes.
Earlier this year, the federal government decided to expand annual fees to additional frequency bands. While managing spectrum responsibly is important, these recurring charges are outdated and increasingly incompatible with Canada’s connectivity and affordability goals. Eliminating them, or at minimum reducing them to only cover the government’s actual costs of administering the spectrum licence system, would reduce regulatory burden, lower operators’ ongoing costs, and free up capital for rural expansion, stronger network resiliency, and continued 5G modernization.
The United States offers a useful comparison. There, the Federal Communications Commission applies only administrative cost-recovery charges, not revenue-generating annual fees. American policymakers recognize that layering recurring charges on top of multibillion-dollar auction payments discourages investment and ultimately harms consumers.
If the federal government is serious about reducing red tape and improving conditions for private investment, it should adopt the same practical, investment-focused approach.
Eliminating unnecessary annual charges, or at least limiting them strictly to cost recovery, would immediately lower operating costs and allow more capital to flow into rural expansion, network hardening, and 5G innovation. Instead of diverting millions into fees that offer no public benefit, those dollars could support the connectivity improvements Canadians consistently expect and need.
As Ottawa looks for practical ways to reduce red tape and stimulate investment, eliminating or reducing annual spectrum fees is a straightforward, high-impact reform. Canada’s connectivity goals will be achieved not by adding unnecessary costs, but by removing them and enabling investment where it is needed most.
Robert Ghiz is the president and CEO of the Canadian Telecommunications Association, and was previously premier of Prince Edward Island.