Flares in Canada at the Thought of Verizon

While it remains far from certain that Verizon will enter the Canadian wireless market, just the idea has set off a near panic in Canada’s wireless industry.

Prominent ads have appeared across the country over the last few weeks denouncing any incursion by Verizon as a threat to Canada’s sovereignty and economic well-being. “How does losing thousands of jobs in the cellphone industry help Canada? It doesn’t,” one ad said. In an “open letter to all Canadians,” George Cope, the president and chief executive of Bell Canada, one of the three major wireless carriers in the country, wrote that “we would like to ensure Canadians clearly understand a critical situation impacting their world-leading wireless industry.”