w00t NDP

Network Neutrality -- or "Net Neutrality" for short -- is the guiding principle that preserves the free and open Internet. Put simply, Net Neutrality means no discrimination. Net Neutrality prevents Internet providers from speeding up or slowing down Web content based on its source, ownership or destination.

The NDP is urging the government to introduce net neutrality and stop Canada's large telecommunications companies from throttling internet speeds.

MP Charlie Angus, the NDP's digital spokesman, has called on Minister of Industry Jim Prentice to follow the recommendations of the Telecommunications Policy Review Panel, made in 2006, and enact legislation that will stop large internet service providers from prioritizing certain types of internet traffic.

"Ground rules are needed to ensure that the bandwidth management strategies of the major telecoms will not lead to anti-competitive practices or arbitrary discrimination against end use applications," he wrote in an open letter to Prentice dated April 17, which was recently posted on his website.

"I am urging you to adopt the recommendations of the Telecommunications Review Panel in order to send a clear signal that Canada has a plan going forward to ensure continued development of internet technologies and fairness for consumers."

Angus, who is the MP for Timmins-James Bay in Ontario, recently questioned the minister on his views regarding net neutrality in the House of Commons, but Prentice said he was not in favour of regulating the internet.

"We have a well advanced internet system in this country. It is not publicly regulated," he said in the exchange earlier this month. "At this point in time we will continue to leave the matter between consumers on the one hand and internet service providers on the other."

In his letter, Angus said Prentice was mistaken in that the internet is already regulated. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission governs how the major ISPs provide access to their networks to smaller, rival providers.