Arguments about network neutrality haven't made much headway in Canada (perhaps it's hard to get traction on all that ice?), despite several years of traffic shaping from cable operators like Rogers. But now that Bell Canada has jumped aboard the P2P throttling dogsled and is mushing ahead with all possible speed, the issue has suddenly become high profile news, spawning numerous articles in the mainstream press and launching several strenuous protest movements. It has also led Bell to dig in, arguing that it not only has the right to throttle its own customers and its wholesale buyers, but that the government should butt out of the wholesale line-sharing business altogether.

Bell Canada has been shaping P2P traffic for its own DSL customers for some time, but a real furor erupted late last month when it was revealed that Bell was…