Canadian CBC News elaborates, "Government buyers are using an exception in provincial law that allows them to buy directly from a proprietary vendor when there are no options available, but Facil said that loophole is being abused and goes against other legal requirements to buy locally."

According to CBC, the Quebec government spent $25 million on Microsoft products just between February and June of this year. It’s spending over $80 million a year just on Vista licenses.

Facil is a non-profit organization, and the only money they are seeking from this suit is enough to pay their legal expenses. All they want is a fair shot at opening up competition. P2Pnet News points out the rarity of Quebec’s case:

While most of the developed countries are now migrating their technological infrastructures to Free Software, "Quebec’s public administration is far behind," says the group, adding:

"In France, hundreds of thousands of desktops used by civil servants have been migrated. In the Netherlands, the public administration, one of the most modern in the world, has decided to forbid the use of proprietary software in the public sector.

The decision rests in the hands of the Quebec Superior Court. Luckily the judges for that court are appointed by the federal government rather than the Provincial one.

The class-action suit was filed in Quebec Superior Court on behalf of Montreal resident Myrna Raphael, seeks certification on behalf of all subscribers in the province. The suit claims that by purposely slowing Internet speeds, Bell has misrepresented its service and caused privacy concerns.

The watchdog group is seeking the refund of 80 percent of the Internet subscription price, which it says is equal to the reduction in speed and $600 per subscriber to compensate for false advertising, along with $1,500 for privacy rights violation.

L’Union des consommateurs says that Raphael signed a three-year contract with Bell in 2006 that promised, "always-on constant high speed, without frustrating interruptions during peak hours of the day."

Bell has admitted that it uses deep packet inspection (DPI) to slow down the Internet, mainly for subscribers who uses peer-to peer applications like Bit Torrent during peak hours. The compay says it needs to slow some traffic to keep its overall network operating properly.