Can someone give me the run down on how this merger was permitted

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They've infiltrated every level of government. The CRTC exists to only rubber stamp whatever it is that Robellus wants to do, they just have the appearance of pretending to try and encourage competition. They've also been infiltrated.

Our federal and provincial governments need a complete cleaning, top to bottom. Canadians need actual consumer protections, not capitalist bootlicking.

I have a love-hate relationship with Canadaland, but will fully acknowledge that their series on monopolies in Canada was excellent: https://www.canadaland.com/podcast/introducing-the-new-season-monopoly/

The argument was that Shaw and Rogers generally don't compete in the same markets. Rogers wanted Shaw to expand their presence in the west. Shaw wanted the deal because they are actually a horribly managed company and didn't want to spend the money needed to upgrade their ancient copper lines or roll out 5G towers. They are a shell of the company they were 10+ years ago.

The one area they did compete was in wireless, and they were forced to sell off Freedom Mobile.

Honestly as a Freedom customer this deal has been fantastic. Quebecor has done more in the past 6 months to expand their service than Shaw has done in the previous 2 years. Prices have dropped, they eliminated the nationwide data cap, rolled out 5G, and the overall quality of the service has improved substantially.

So on the surface it sucks because we lost a major player in the tv/home internet space, but they were rapidly fading into obscurity anyway. I would have seen Quebecor buy them in their entirety and merge them with Videotron, but as it stands not much of value was lost.

the run down on how this merger was permitted

Harper appointed justice Paul Crampton

It wasn't really though. Shaw and Rogers didn't compete in cable anyways. Sure cell service they 'competed' but that had to be sold off.