In these early, heady days of his five-year tenure, CRTC topper Konrad von Finckenstein has been impressing colleagues and industry stakeholders alike with his smarts and his deft handling of the crisis at the Canadian Television Fund. But the question still remains – what sort of mark will this tree-tall public servant leave on our cultural champion and regulator?

Is this the beginning of the end of the regulator as, well, regulator? A look von Finckenstein’s history at the Competition Bureau in particular says yes.

As the bureau’s competition commissioner from 1997 to 2003, von Finckenstein and the CRTC were nothing less than adversaries, each holding up their end of a vigorous tug-of-war of market forces versus regulation.

His approach had more in common with that of current Industry Minister Maxime ‘deregulate or bust’ Bernier than with his CRTC predecessor, cultural champion Charles Dalfen. In 2002, he even said of the CRTC that ‘the current regulatory model is not sustainable in the evolving communications environment.’

Music to the ears of Stephen Harper and Bernier, no doubt.

But if the trajectory is as ominous as protectionists fear, his MO thus far has been more palatable. Von Finckenstein launched a series of informal consultations with industryites on his very first day on the job, telling each, ‘Hi, I am the new kid on the block. I have nothing to tell you. I am in receiving mode. You have 45 minutes of my time; tell me about your issues.’

And although he made no bones about his plans for telecom – ‘Make no mistake: less regulation in telecom has been and will continue to be the Commission’s prime objective’ he said during a speech at the recent CFTPA Prime Time conference – he promised transparency, fairness, predictability and timeliness as his guiding principles.

The former judge also issued a crucial caveat. ‘From my days as Commissioner of Competition I am only too well aware that excessive and untimely deregulation can end up stifling rather than stimulating competition,’ he said.

‘He’ll be intellectually curious, and he won’t let us get away with anything,’ says Elizabeth McDonald, former chief of the CFTPA and a close friend.

His recent speech before the heritage committee bore this out. A succinct and masterfully delivered thrust which he reportedly penned himself, it both smoothed feathers and rapped knuckles of temporary CTF dropouts Videotron, Shaw Communications and the fund itself.

‘It sent a powerful message to the billionaire’s sons, to the CTF and to the regulated industry as a whole that a new strong leader has arrived,’ said one insider.

His penetrating intellect and past as something of an anti-consolidation crusader who’s not afraid to take on the big boys mean that proposed dance partners CTVglobemedia and CHUM, as well as CanWest Global and Alliance Atlantis are going to need an extra-solid dossier come their turn in the hot seat.

Leonard Asper, in particular, must be sweating. He’s going to have to make an airtight case as to how, given that Goldman Sachs is kicking in the vast majority of equity, CanWest will have real control of Alliance Atlantis. This goes beyond their management and voting share arrangement. Von Finckenstein is going to want proof that Goldman Sachs will not be able to pull the rug out the way that Providence Equity did during its dealing with Craig Media in spite of the latter’s ‘control position.’

And why would Goldman Sachs, one of the world’s most aggressive investment bankers, agree to a deal like that, anyway?

Von Finckenstein told a Commons committee in 2002 that the CRTC should concern itself less with the functioning of markets and stick to its cultural mandate. And yet now he says the CRTC has to find the ‘right mix’ of market forces and regulation.

‘We’re going to have to find ways, in this ever more borderless world, to carve out a special place within the broadcasting system for Canadian voices, points of view and ways of expressing ourselves,’ he told the Prime Time crowd.

When the rubber hits the road, expect him to find his own advice impossible to follow.