Officials from Public Mobile and Globalive wireless say allowing more foreign investment in Canadian telecommunications carriers, it will be easier for new wireless entrants to raise money so they can compete against the incumbents. Read the latest in the House of Commons industry committee hearings on foreign ownership

Two of the country’s newest cellphone companies are urging federal lawmakers to lift foreign ownership rules preventing access to international capital.

Removing the barriers would “sustain competition” within a domestic wireless market increasingly central to the economy, infant carriers Globalive and Public Mobile told a special parliamentary committee on Tuesday.

Today Tony Lacavera, Chairman of Globalive and WIND Mobile took the stage and spoke at the Empire Club of Canada. His topic was called the “21st Century Canadian Telecommunications: The Way Forward” and basically addressed the industry, his challenges and Canada’s opportunity.

There was obviously much talk about foreign ownership and how the Big Three (Rogers, Bell and TELUS) have his organization on their radar and doing what they can to call them anti-Canadian. Lacavera stated “To call us anything but Canadian would, quite simply, be untrue. But, that’s the kind of fear-mongering that the incumbents would like to seed in order to continue their anti-competitive hold on the Canadian telecom market. A market that has under served Canadian consumers for a decade and one that has been hamstrung by a national oligopoly and provincial duopolies.”

While it’s been a “pretty cozy ride” for the three major providers in Canada’s mobile market – Rogers, Bell and Telus – consumers have consistently got the short end of the stick, according to Globealive Communications Corp. chairman Anthony Lacavera.

Speaking at the Empire Club of Canada, Thursday, Lacavera blasted the Big Three for practices that limit competition and negatively affect consumers, “including long term contracts with unreasonably high rates and silly nonsense fees for fictitious network services.”

Globalive Wireless Management Corp.’s chairman and chief executive officer said Thursday that rivals of his company’s new Wind Mobile wireless service are “fear-mongering” with complaints about its foreign investors.

Anthony Lacavera, who heads Canada’s newest national wireless carrier, said Thursday that the industry’s three established players – Rogers Communications Inc., BCE Inc. and Telus Corp. are trying to stifle competition within the country and are using Wind Mobile as a target.

“The incumbents are using this very important question of Canadian sovereignty and culture… in order to actually create an issue with respect to telecom’s infrastructure,” Mr. Lacavera said in an interview after delivering a speech at the Empire Club in Toronto.

Canada’s newest wireless company Wind Mobile accused Shaw Communications Inc. of making a “racial slur” during a conference call with financial analysts when two of its senior executives, including chief executive officer Jim Shaw, alluded to the upstart as a “camel.”

Wind Mobile’s Canadian competitors have long raised questions about the nationality of the company, which is backed by Egyptian-based Orascom Telecom Holding SAE.

Shaw Communications Inc. is on the defensive after allegedly “derogatory” comments were made by chief executive Jim Shaw and other senior executives toward upstart wireless carrier Wind Mobile and its Egyptian partner, global operator Orascom Telecom Holding SAE.

WIND Mobile says it’s the first wireless provider to offer the new social networking app Twitter For BlackBerry in Canada, offerings its BlackBerry smartphone customers additional opportunities to connect and communicate using the popular social media network.