The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is currently overseeing a proceeding regarding the future of net neutrality in Canada. ISPs and music groups have been lining up with objections and claims that such regulations would stop them from bandwidth throttling, content blocking and graduated response penalties.

One ISP, Videotron, was vehemently opposed to net neutrality and offered an interesting take on the matter: network neutrality “could be beneficial not only to users of Internet services but to society in general.”

And so on with an itemized list of big content/ISP mantras: The Pirate Bay is evil, musicians need to make money, bandwidth throttling is essential, copyright copyright copyright, punt no-gooders from the interwibble, etcetera.

Canadian law professor Michael Geist was astonished by the groundswell of anti-consumer policies.

“That any ISP could demonstrate such hostility toward its own customers provides a clear indicator of the utter lack of broadband competition in Canada and serves as a warning that the New Zealand fight could eventually make its way here,” he said.