By Margreet van den Berg

In May 2020, Canadians for Safe Technology (C4ST) launched the “Suspend 5G Appeal,” asking the federal government to: 1. Ensure Internet access that is safe, fast, reliable, resilient, secure, affordable, and, in the long term, the most environmentally and economically sound for Canada; 2. Protect Canadians’ health and the environment before further rollout of wireless infrastructure, including 5G; 3. Provide a meaningful, transparent process for municipalities and their citizens to have a decisive say over installing cellular network antennas. Over 21,000 Canadians signed the Appeal.

Did the federal government listen? Not one bit. On the contrary.

Lockdowns: Keeping Canadians Safe?

During the lockdowns, people around the world could see outside their windows as workers deemed “essential” installed the infrastructure needed for 5G: laying (fibre) cables, putting up towers, small cells in cities, and transmitters on roofs. The lockdowns were imposed to “keep Canadians safe,” yet the federal and provincial governments had no problems whatsoever with exposing Canadians to more wireless communication radiation both inside and outside their homes.

Working from home and attending school demanded many more hours behind a screen, often over wireless rather than wired connections. Some Canadians were lucky enough to have fast fibre all the way to their home; maybe they even used wired connections at home too. But most Canadians used Wi-Fi at home. Anyone who could not afford an Internet connection at home was left behind; parents had to drive their children to a parking lot to use free Wi-Fi at Walmart to do their schoolwork on a wireless device. Young people were forced to connect with their friends through a (radiating) screen instead of meeting face to face. How many people developed symptoms of ill health, not knowing that some of those were due to (over)exposure to their wireless devices and transmitters close to their homes?

Canadians Reducing RF Exposure

How many more Canadians have become aware of the health risks of wireless communication technology since 2020 and tried to reduce their exposure? How many have reconnected their computer/laptop directly to the router with a cable instead of using Wi-Fi, switched off Wi-Fi at night to sleep better, or heard that sleeping with a phone under the pillow or on the night table next to your head is not a good idea?

Who has taken it another step further and switched off their phone completely when it’s not needed, or put it on airplane mode, switching off Bluetooth, Mobile Data and the (every-second-bleeping) Find-My-Phone function as well? How many Canadians have tried—and succeeded—in opting out of a pulsating “smart” communicating utility meter, be it for electricity, water and/or gas; how many have fibre all the way to the home today, in 2026, and how many still have to rely on slower and less reliable wireless “the last mile”?

Despite Health Canada, those in Canada who attempt to reduce their exposure to wireless radiation have clearly not relied on Health Canada’s “expertise”; they have researched the subject themselves and often report that this type of technology leaves them off balance and can lead to neurological problems such as brain fog, memory and cognitive problems, mood changes, sleep dysfunction, headaches, tinnitus, cardiovascular issues, sudden exhaustion out of the blue, and so much more. No need for Health Canada to try to convince them that this type of artificial electromagnetic radiation technology is absolutely safe 24/7, 365 days a year. “Safe”: the famous mantra so often used by Health Canada. When will Health Canada finally catch up?

Health and Industry Canada work very hard to ignore and dismiss new research, Canadians’ experiences, warnings, and appeals. What makes Canada’s government and most MPs refuse to admit there is a major health problem here, caused by an uninsurable technology? Are there too many billions invested in rolling out ever more wireless technology as part of the much-touted “Digital Transformation”? How long will the blinders stay on?

Small cells? Municipalities Are In The Way

The 2020 5G Appeal already mentioned small cells: “Full 5G rollout will require the installation of hundreds of thousands of new antennas throughout the country on cell towers, hydro poles, lamp posts, buildings and other structures, often within a few metres of where we live and work.”

What are small cells? “A small cell installation consists of small radio equipment and antennas that can be placed on structures such as streetlights, the sides of buildings, or poles. They are about the size of a pizza box or backpack, and are essential for transmitting data to and from a wireless device.” Small cells support very high-frequency signals, including millimetre waves. These signals travel shorter distances than lower-frequency signals and can be weakened or blocked by buildings, trees and other foliage, and even people and animals. Heavy rain can also weaken some millimetre-wave links.

Small cells may be small and low-powered, but they require a much denser network than traditional cell towers, with units placed close together throughout neighbourhoods. Too close. If you live in a big city, you’ve likely seen them along the street. But deployment “isn’t going fast enough,” according to Rogers, Bell and TELUS. To speed it up—and bypass municipalities that want a say in whether and where the units are installed—the three telcos are demanding that Parliament amend the federal Telecommunications Act.

Rogers writes to Melanie Joly’s ISED: “To enable small cell deployment, [telecom] carriers need non-discriminatory access to municipal rights-of-way, municipal infrastructure (streetlights, transit shelters, traffic lights, buildings) and hydro poles. Municipalities and others should not be in the way, the telcos say; and Parliament should make that happen. ‘Like TELUS, we urge ISED, the PMO and Cabinet to proceed to drafting and tabling amendments to section 43 of the Telecommunications Act to correct the deficiencies that hinder a telecommunication carrier’s ability to access municipal and hydro company infrastructure to support small cell deployment.’”

Flying Blind

The telcos’ audacity in expecting Parliament to smooth their path to profit is quite astonishing, to say the least. As explained in my August 2026 Druthers article, “Cell Towers Without Consent,” the telcos are pushing for and profiting from the proliferation of an uninsured technology—uninsurable because of expected health damage.

The telcos’ brazen attitude becomes even more staggering when one realizes that when 5G was rolled out, that same industry conducted no research at all on the health and biological effects of the higher frequencies that would be part of 5G technology. In 2019, American Senator Blumenthal asked telecom representatives that question: “How much money has the industry committed to supporting additional independent research—I stress, independent—research? Is that independent research ongoing? Has any been completed? Where can consumers look for it? And we’re talking about research on the biological effects of this new technology (…) ‘So there really is no research ongoing. We’re kind of flying blind here, as far as health and safety is concerned.’”

Since 2019, some research has examined 5G’s higher-frequency radiation, such as millimetre waves, and it does not look good: not for humans, whose skin, the largest organ and protective border between the inside and outside of the body, and eyes will be affected by millimetre waves. Not good for insects, including bees, our pollinators on whom we depend for food, and which are millimetre-wave in size.

Do Appeals And Petitions Help?

It is clear that our federal government did not, and does not, care at all about what 20,000 Canadians asked in the 5G 2020 Appeal: “Protect Canadians’ health and the environment before further rollout of wireless infrastructure, including 5G.” Telecom keeps pushing the envelope as long as various levels of government and politicians allow it. And the sixth generation of mobile communications technology, 6G, is on its way. Does signing appeals and petitions help at all? It is one of the ways to make it known to legislators and MPs that this was, and is, a growing concern, a growing health risk, further burdening an already overburdened healthcare system that has no idea. A health risk that will escalate with the further densification of (small cell) transmitters.

Some 3,300 Canadians have signed a recent C4ST petition urging Industry Canada and Minister Melanie Joly to stop suppressing local voices in cell tower location processes under the guise of a red tape review. https://c4st.org/eng/petition_ised.php

What we also desperately need are MPs with integrity who are willing and courageous enough to put Health and Radiofrequency Radiation back on the federal political agenda. After decades of silence and suppressed information from Health Canada and the government at large, it is high time. Where are those MPs?