Processes and procedures

Today, I’d like to focus on an interesting issue of process.

The Telecom Act says:

12(1) Within one year after a decision by the Commission, the Governor in Council may, on petition in writing presented to the Governor in Council within ninety days after the decision, or on the Governor in Council’s own motion, by order, vary or rescind the decision or refer it back to the Commission for reconsideration of all or a portion of it.

In the case of the Globalive review, there was no petition presented; the Minister of Industry set in motion a review of its own motion. For that kind of process, there is not a lot of procedural definition.

That raises an interesting question of process. Would the Globalive determination have been delayed if there had been a “petition in writing”? For example, let’s say that someone looked at the CRTC’s decision and thought that there was a problem with paragraph 45 – which has some interesting ideas about independent directors. [As an aside, how independent can we consider the director named by one shareholder to be?]

Once the Minister started his own review, what would have happened if a party representing the interests of proper corporate governance had filed a petition to the Governor in Council? Normally, this would cause a series of prescribed activities. The Department would have waited 90 days until January 27 (the end of the cabinet appeal period defined in the Act) and then posted a notice calling for comments in the Canada Gazette.

Check out the processes described in the recitals in the MTS Allstream and Bell / TELUS orders posted a couple days ago.

It would have taken until late February before the paper consultation was complete. By then, Globalive might have brought itself into compliance with the original CRTC Order through a creative financing scheme with one of the banks.

Did Globalive’s opponents miss a clever procedural manoeuvre?

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