Given the Minister’s announcement on Monday, I thought it may be helpful to provide a brief lesson in the mechanics of cabinet intervention in a CRTC telecom decision.
Students – you’ll be tested on this, so take notes.
Cabinet appeals are covered under Sections 12 and 13 of the Telecom Act. Section 12(1) says, in simplified terms, that a cabinet appeal has to be launched within 90 days of a CRTC decision. Cabinet (the Governor in Council) has a year from the date of the original decision to either refer the decision back to the CRTC or issue a variance to the decision. Cabinet does not require an application to act – it can act of its own motion.
The CRTC’s local forbearance decision was issued on April 6, 2006. Aliant, Bell, SaskTel, and Telus filed their appeal on May 12, 6 weeks after the Decision and only half the time permitted under the statutes. The Government of Saskatchewan and the Coalition for Competitive Communications also filed appeals within the deadlines.
The Minister’s announcement and publication of the proposed variance order will constitute the notice to the provinces required under Section 13 of the Telecom Act.
However, the clock is ticking since the final order must be delivered prior to April 6, 2007, the end of the one year period specified in Section 12(1). Comments are due January 15, 2007 to enable Industry Canada to digest the submissions and polish up the Order for proclamation by Cabinet. It will be a busy holiday period for a number of regulatory affairs departments to address some of the missing details.
There are a number of areas that require genuine consultation, as we will discuss over the next few days.
Here is the snap quiz on what we learned so far: If there is a 1 year time limit for cabinet review, how could the Minister’s proposed variance include changes to the winback rules (June 2005) and the promotions rules (April 2005)? Why hasn’t the review period expired on these decisions? Answer: as it turns out, both of these decisions were reviewed by the CRTC in the local forbearance decision (April 2006), so the 12-month clock for cabinet review was restarted.
By the way, while you are studying the cabinet’s role in regulation, you can also look up the process for the Minister’s unprecedented proposed policy direction to the CRTC, announced at our June Canadian Telecom Summit, made pursuant to Sections 8, 10 and 11 of the Telecom Act.
It is also worthwhile noting that Recommendation 9-5 of the report of the Telecom Policy Review panel recommends that the ability to launch cabinet appeals be eliminated.
A little ironic, isn’t it, that these initial implementations of the report’s recommendations are derivatives of appeals that may not be permitted when reform is completed?
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CRTC, Telecom Act, cabinet appeal, local forbearance, TPR