Canadian telecom circles have been busy this week discussing a new report (pdf) from Harvard (and commissioned by the FCC) highlighting how Canada's starting to lag in terms of broadband speed, price, and penetration. This led to calls from Canadian media outlets like the Globe And Mail for the Canadian government to start instituting a broadband plan that increases competition in the Canadian market. Not surprisingly, carriers like Rogers Communications fired back, lobbyist Jan Innes proclaiming that data suggesting Canada had competitive problems was "flawed":As we've been illustrating for some time, part of Canada's problem is that they've been copying the United States approach to broadband policy. Which would be fine, if U.S. policy for the last decade hadn't consisted of letting the biggest and wealthiest carriers dictate policy, crush independent competition, and even write telecom laws. A popular tactic in selling this type of policy in the States has long been the use of paid consultants to act as "objective" analysts, who'll loyally parrot ISP talking points to the press. Enter consultant Mark Goldberg, who writes this on his blog about the need for a national Canadian broadband plan:Looks familiar. Of course by attacking any data that dares claim Canada has broadband issues, carriers in both the U.S. and Canada have tried to convince the press and public there really aren't broadband problems that need fixing. That in turn ensures continued competitive issues and high prices, which is just the way incumbent carriers in any country like it. In the real world, you can ask users in our Canadian broadband forums if they think Canada has broadband competition problems. Make sure specifically to ask them how much they enjoy incredibly low monthly caps and high per gigabyte overages.

Update: At least one user writes in to note that Goldberg claims the Globe and Mail screwed up, and the original letter to the editor was written by Goldman himself, not Rogers lobbyist Jan Innes. Even if not direct plagiarism (and we've seen no retraction by the Globe and Mail), Goldberg has worked as an analyst for Canada's biggest carriers in the past on reports claiming that Canda's broadband market is secretly awesome, so draw your own conclusions.