Here's another stat to look at. Southern Ontario, roughly up to Algonquin Park, has around 12 million people on about 140,000 km^2. Sweden has around 9.5 million people on about 450,000 km^2. Going purely by area or density criteria, southern Ontario should have telecom service miles ahead of Sweden, even in towns that are tiny and remote by southern Ontario standards.

Sure, but you don't live in the middle of the Northwest Territories, and neither do the vast majority of Canadians complaining about telecom prices. The population density figure is a bit of a red herring.