The Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) has upheld the CRTC’s Deferral Account Decision.
A year ago, Cabinet rejected an appeal. The question remains whether Bell may appeal the FCA decision to the Supreme Court.
There were actually two appellants in the FCA case – Bell and the Consumers’ Association of Canada. As the Court summarized the case:
Both appeals raise issues as to the scope of the authority of the CRTC to order the disposition of the balance of a deferral account created pursuant to a prior CRTC order. Bell Canada says that the CRTC cannot order it to use the balance of the account for subscriber rebates. Consumers’ Association of Canada and National Anti-Poverty Organization (collectively, the “Consumers”) say that the CRTC must order the balance to be used for subscriber rebates (or to improve accessibility to telecommunication services for persons with disabilities).
You can read the ruling for its rationale, but the FCA said that the CRTC was acting within its jurisdiction in reaching the conclusions set out in Decision 2006-9 (a little more than 2 years ago) when it told the ILECs to set aside 5% of the deferral funds for accessibility projects, develop rural broadband plans for the rest.
Funds that weren’t approved under the broadband initiative will get paid back to you and me.