The Canadian federal government has approved the C$26 billion merger of telecom companies Rogers and Shaw, with such conditions that, according to Ottawa, consumers will benefit from the deal.
François-Philippe Champagne, minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, reported last Friday that the government has approved the transaction first proposed in 2021.
As part of the deal, the vast majority of Shaw’s wireless business, Freedom Mobile, will be sold to Quebec-based Videotron. While Freedom Mobile and its more than two million customers will move over to Videotron, Rogers will maintain a smaller part of Shaw’s wireless business, known as Shaw Mobile, with service mostly in Alberta and British Columbia.
Those Shaw Mobile customers will be added to Rogers’ more than 10 million wireless customers across all of its brands, which include Fido, Chatr and others.
The approval comes with 21 conditions that the government said are “legally enforceable,” including that Videotron will start to offer plans that are comparable to those currently available in Quebec, and those wireless assets can’t be sold to anyone else for at least a decade.
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