Charlie Angus (NDP MP) has presented a private member’s bill on Net Neutrality. Bill C-552 is actually an amendment to the Telecommunications Act.
This enactment amends the Telecommunications Act to prohibit network operators from engaging in network management practices that favour, degrade or prioritize any content, application or service transmitted over a broadband network based on its source, ownership or destination, subject to certain exceptions. This enactment also prohibits network operators from preventing a user from attaching any device to their network and requires network operators to make information about the user’s access to the Internet available to the user.
The CBC writes that the Liberals have not yet given indication that they will support the Bill, preferring to let the CRTC intervene in cases of Net Neutrality infractions.
Line 36.2a in the Bill says network managers will still have the right “manage the flow of network traffic in a reasonable manner in order to relieve congestion;”. I’m not a legal expert, but what does “reasonable manner” mean. How will ISPs interpret that. Hopefully the CRTC will address this when it looks at the Bell throttling case.