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The truth that very few Canadians want to admit, is that the government didn’t pay for the network, and telcos are actually competitive. 
Bell / Rogers etc paid for cable / fiber / cell towers using private money (which is why they have so much debt). The government has subsidies for rural regions (think north of Quebec, Nunavut, etc), where it doesn’t make financial sense for a company to build a network. That’s the part thats’s publicly financed. There’s no government incentive in populated areas. In terms of %, I’d wager less than 5% of their revenue comes from government funded networks. And if there were no subsidies, Canadians in remote regions would be fully disconnected from internet / phone coverage.
Then, after telcos spent money laying down the network, the CRTC forces them to share this network with 3rd parties, at a regulated price. Now that price is good, it’s something like $68 per month for fiber, so telcos still make money. However it does set a ceiling, it means they can’t charge whatever they want for their network. There’s a difference between “making money” and “capturing 100% of the economic benefits of an investment”. Pair that with high competition in wireless (check pricing now, $35 can get you more gigs of data than you can use… what was it before COVID? I remember paying that price in 2005 for 100 min of calling plus like 50 text messages) and a declining population growth, what do you get? High debts, shrinking prices, slowdown in population = bad for telcos. 

The truth that very few Canadians want to admit, is that the government didn’t pay for the network, and telcos are actually competitive. 
Bell / Rogers etc paid for cable / fiber / cell towers using private money (which is why they have so much debt). The government has subsidies for rural regions (think north of Quebec, Nunavut, etc), where it doesn’t make financial sense for a company to build a network. That’s the part thats’s publicly financed. There’s no government incentive in populated areas. In terms of %, I’d wager less than 5% of their revenue comes from government funded networks. And if there were no subsidies, Canadians in remote regions would be fully disconnected from internet / phone coverage.
Then, after telcos spent money laying down the network, the CRTC forces them to share this network with 3rd parties, at a regulated price. Now that price is good, it’s something like $68 per month for fiber, so telcos still make money. However it does set a ceiling, it means they can’t charge whatever they want for their network. There’s a difference between “making money” and “capturing 100% of the economic benefits of an investment”. Pair that with high competition in wireless (check pricing now, $35 can get you more gigs of data than you can use… what was it before COVID? I remember paying that price in 2005 for 100 min of calling plus like 50 text messages) and a declining population growth, what do you get? High debts, shrinking prices, slowdown in population = bad for telcos.