Search Results for: dissen

For nearly 20 years, I have written about some of the dissenting opinions that appear within CRTC decisions.

There have been some classics, as I wrote in 2016.

Commissioner Claire Anderson wrote a lengthy dissent last year as I documented at the time. Commissioner Bram Abramson has written a number of dissenting opinions, perhaps aspiring to challenge former Commissioner Stuart Langford’s record. The Abramson dissents frequently address important legal fine points, dealing with procedural issues and fairness.

Today’s post is intended to highlight the number of dissenting views in the CRTC decisions released so far this week.

• Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2026-71: TV5/UNIS TV – Application to increase the mandatory per subscriber monthly wholesale rates
  “A joint dissenting opinion by Commissioners Ellen C. Desmond, K. C., and Stéphanie Paquette is attached to this decision.”
• Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2026-74: Rogers Communications Inc.’s contributions to the Shaw Rocket Fund
  “Dissenting opinions from Commissioners Bram Abramson and Ellen C. Desmond, K.C. are attached to this decision.”
• Telecom and Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2025‑180‑2: Call for comments – Improving the public alerting system – Changes to procedure
  “the Commission denies, by majority decision, their request to be made a party to the proceeding”

These documents were released by the CRTC in just two days: April 22 and 23. Are these releases demonstrating an inability to reach a consensus with the Commission?

I expect to be writing more about the substance of some of these dissenting views. For now, I simply want to highlight an unusual pattern of dissent.

Last week, the CRTC issued its long overdue regulatory policy decision, Telecommunications in the Far North [TRP CRTC 2025-9]. The CRTC’s Phase II review process was launched nearly three years ago, following an initial consultation launched in November 2020. Remember the CRTC’s promise in October to “continue to issue timely and clear decisions”.

In its press release, the Commission pointed to three key actions to help improve services in the Far North:

First, the CRTC is requiring Northwestel Inc. (Northwestel), the region’s largest service provider, to automatically reduce customers’ bills when Internet services are disrupted for 24 hours or more. These credits will help address the impact of network outages on residents’ daily lives.

Second, the CRTC is making it easier for other Internet service providers to use Northwestel’s network to sell services to customers. This will help foster competition and provide more choice in the Far North.

Third, the CRTC is launching a public consultation to develop a subsidy to help improve affordability. This subsidy will help bring the cost of Internet services in the Far North closer to those in other parts of the country.

I will let others comment on whether a mandated couple dollars in bill credits (imposed solely on Northwestel) is a meaningful incentive to improve network reliability. The subject of reliability begins at paragraph 124 of the Decision.

I am also going to bypass the Commission’s approach to wholesale in the Far North. The CRTC says it will have a follow-up proceeding to determine the rates for Northwestel’s Wholesale Connect service, after waving its hands over a magical assumption that “rates for Wholesale Connect can be low enough to allow competitors to enter the market, but high enough not to harm investment” [see: paragraph 214].

Let’s open the discussion of the subsidy plan, recognizing that the Commission has just launched its “Call for comments – Implementing a retail Internet service subsidy in the Far North”. Initial interventions are due February 18 and replies 10 days later. The consultation opens with a statement:

The Far North is an exceptionally challenging region to build and maintain telecommunications infrastructure. The remoteness of communities, low population density, and geography make providing telecommunications services much more expensive than elsewhere in Canada. This has led to unaffordable Internet prices for many residents.

In last week’s Decision, the CRTC decided to offer a universal subsidy, funded by the National Contribution Fund. In other words, telecom subscribers across Canada will pay a little more, regardless of their own ability to pay, in order to provide subsidies to residents of the Far North, regardless of their actual financial need.

I recognize that the prices charged for internet services in the Far North are higher than prices for comparable services in much of the rest of Canada. I also recognize that there are some people for whom those prices are unaffordable. However, let’s also consider household income levels. According to Statistics Canada, in 2020, the national median household income was $84,000. Yukon’s median household income was $100,000; NWT was $127,000; and, Nunavut was $118,000. Half of all households in the Northwest Territories had more than $127,000 in income. None of the 10 provinces had 6-figure median household incomes. So, while prices for telecom services are higher than in the Far North, it is overly simplistic, and somewhat patronizing, to conclude that these prices are universally unaffordable.

The CRTC notes [at paragraph 14] “that residents of the Far North pay, on average, more than one and a half times what Canadians living elsewhere in the country pay for a 50/10 Mbps service”. In reply to that statement, I think it is relevant that, on average, the median household income in the three territories is more than one and half times the median household income of each of the provinces east of Ontario.

It is worth referring back to my post from May of 2023, Affordability of telecommunications services, where we examine a variety of measures of affordability. Looking at price alone is somewhat sophomoric.

Fifteen years ago, I asked “Does geography determine needs”. As I wrote then, if we are concerned with broadband affordability, shouldn’t the subsidy be needs-based, independent of where the person lives? Nearly 17 years ago I first called for the development of a needs-based subsidy program. That is what ultimately led to Connected for Success from Rogers, Internet for Good from TELUS, and the national Connecting Families program. All of these are funded completely by the participating telecom service providers.

I am somewhat surprised that the 86 page decision failed to mention that NWTel announced its participation in Connecting Families during the course of the oral hearing in 2023. That program offers eligible low-income families and seniors access to internet services for as little as $10 per month. How was that announcement completely ignored in the decision?

In addition, I need to point to the 18-page dissenting opinion filed by Commissioner Claire Anderson, appended to the Decision [pdf, 821KB]. Long time readers of my blog know that I love writing about dissenting opinions.

From her opening sentence, Commissioner Anderson is clear. “I fundamentally disagree with the majority decision in Telecom Regulatory Policy 2025-9 (the Decision) that the most meaningful and effective means of achieving affordable and accessible telecommunications services in the North is to provide a uniform subsidy to all telecommunications service providers, including international players”. She also takes issue with the majority’s finding on wholesale.

There are 12 pages in the main body of the Decision devoted to “Reconciliation in the Far North” [paragraphs 279-351]. The summary of the Decision was made available in: Inuktitut (South Baffin) [HTML and pdf], Inuinnaqtun [HTML and pdf], South Slavey [HTML and pdf], and Tłı̨chǫ (Dogrib) [HTML and pdf].

Commissioner Anderson is harsh in the closing of her dissent as she turns to the issue of reconciliation. As the first Indigenous woman (a citizen of the Taku River Tlingit First Nation) and first Yukon resident to be appointed to the CRTC, one might have expected her perspectives to carry a little extra weight around the board table. She was clearly disappointed with the outcome. “We invited Indigenous people to invest their time and efforts into making submissions on the record with the promise that we would be listening, under the premise that we would be responsive.” [paragraph 57 of the Dissent]

“Unfortunately, with all respect, the regulatory outcomes provided for in the Decision suggest that this meaningful engagement did not go both ways.” [paragraph 61]

And her concluding paragraph [63]:

We cannot say that we are advancing reconciliation or that we considered what Indigenous people had to say about UNDRIP and modern treaties. Indigenous intervenors, like Ms. Southwick, wanted to “move mountains” and asked us to create a more level playing field in which Indigenous people could participate more fulsomely in the economy. This was an opportunity for transformative regulatory change. Instead, the Commission responded by putting art on the walls.

More than four years after the first consultation was launched until the CRTC delivered its policy for the Telecommunications in the Far North. As far as the Commissioner Anderson was concerned, instead of transformative regulatory change, the Commission provided summaries in 4 indigenous languages – putting art on the walls.

Last week’s CRTC award of more than a quarter billion dollars for an arctic fibre optic route included an especially relevant dissent. Long time readers know that I love reading dissenting views in CRTC decisions.

Telecom Decision CRTC 2024-149 provided a remarkably precise $271,937,242 for the Government of Nunavut’s transport fibre project in Nunavut. The CRTC decision is worth examining for a number of reasons.

To start with, have any of us ever seen a government estimate a project to 9 significant digits of accuracy?

Second, the Broadband Fund is funded by the telecom industry, through a tax administered by the CRTC. So, in a reversal of most broadband projects where a government body subsidizes a private sector initiative to invest in broadband infrastructure, here we have the private sector subsidizing a territorial government. The funding amount is substantial. It represents nearly 2 full years of collection for the Broadband Fund ($150 million per year).

In Decision 2018-377, the CRTC said “the Commission determines that to be eligible for funding, applicants must demonstrate that… they, or at least one member of the applicant partnership, joint venture, or consortium, have experience deploying and operating broadband infrastructure in Canada for a minimum of three years, or they have entered into a contractual arrangement with an entity… that has experience deploying and operating broadband infrastructure in Canada for a minimum of three years.”

That experience requirement is also set out in the Application Guide for the funding call.

In awarding the money to the Government of Nunavut, the CRTC waved its hands over the eligibility of the “applicant” to receive funding from the Broadband Fund.

15. With respect to applicant type, applicants must demonstrate that they meet the requirements set out in the Application Guide regarding their acceptable legal structure, experience, and financial solvency. Paragraph 6.1.1(c) of the Application Guide sets out that as a territorial government, the GN is exempt from the financial solvency criteria. The Commission considers that the GN has demonstrated that it meets the other requirements. (emphasis added)

Hold on here.

More than a quarter billion dollars is going to a government with just a 14-word sentence confirming it meets the other 4 points of the criteria set out in the Application Guide? Trust us.

Let’s look at some of those criteria.

An applicant must demonstrate that it, or at least one member organization of the applicant partnership, joint venture, or consortium, has experience deploying and operating broadband infrastructure in Canada for a minimum of three years, or that it has entered into a contractual arrangement with an entity as described in 6.1.1(a) above that has a minimum of three years’ experience in deploying and operating broadband infrastructure in Canada.

Note that experience in deploying and operating broadband infrastructure should be related to the project type. For example, the CRTC will assess applicants for mobile projects based on their experience with deploying and operating mobile broadband infrastructure in Canada.

If the Government of Nunavut has the requisite “Broadband infrastructure experience”, shouldn’t the CRTC have taken an extra few words to state that relevant experience?

What about the requirement for applicants to set out the “Defined roles and responsibilities”? The Application Guide says “For example, applicants must identify which entity will retain ownership of the network assets, which entity will be responsible for building the network, and which entity will be responsible for the network’s operation.”

Perhaps there were more details about these criteria in the application. It isn’t obvious to me that the Government of Nunavut has 3 years of experience operating broadband infrastructure. The CRTC decision doesn’t disclose “which entity will retain ownership of the network assets, which entity will be responsible for building the network, and which entity will be responsible for the network’s operation.”

I think that when this level of funding – two years of Broadband Fund contributions – gets handed out, the CRTC should have more than a simple pro-forma statement that asks the public to trust that over a quarter billion dollars is going to an experienced builder and operator of broadband networks.

So, I was pleased to see an especially relevant dissent by Claire Anderson, Commissioner, British Columbia and Yukon, attached to the Decision. Although she does not represent Nunavut, as the first Indigenous woman appointed to the CRTC, with a decade of experience working with Indigenous communities on a wide range of matters to advance reconciliation, her opinion might carry a little extra weight on this decision. After all, in its Summary, the CRTC said this funding contributes “to the Commission’s commitment to advancing reconciliation with Indigenous peoples in Canada”.

In the Dissent, Commissioner Anderson says that there was a duty to consult in advance with NTI, Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, “the Designated Inuit Organization responsible for ensuring that the rights and responsibilities set out in the Nunavut Agreement are respected.” The CRTC Decision made the funding conditional on the Government of Nunavut providing evidence of NTI’s support. Did the Commission put the cart before the horse (as Raj Shoan summarized in a series of tweets)? “The CRTC approved the govt’s request for $300 million subject to future evidence that the community in question supported it.”

What was the rush?

It looks like the Commission skipped some steps in ensuring the Applicant is in conformance with the rules, and certainly in consulting with NTI.

Why did the CRTC feel a need to push the cash out the door? Was it tied to the CRTC rejecting an application by Bell Canada to pause contributions to the Broadband Fund? Bell had observed that “the Commission has collected significantly more than the amounts it has awarded through the Broadband Fund and will not be able to distribute the total amounts already collected”.

Four years ago, I asked if the CRTC’s Broadband Fund was fundamentally flawed.

Last week’s decision should raise plenty of questions. It does nothing to assuage my concerns.

The Executive summary of yesterday’s CRTC’s decision [2010-255] on wholesale usage based billing (UBB) was almost Orwellian in its doublespeak:

The Commission approves, with changes, applications by Bell Aliant and Bell Canada to introduce an economic Internet traffic management practice for their wholesale Residence Gateway Access Services (GAS).

Right. I remember some of the parenting books trying to teach us how to always answer our kids with a yes, such as: yes, you can have that cookie, just as soon as you finish eating your chicken and salad. Yes, of course you can watch more TV, when your homework is finished.

So, a number of people fell for the CRTC’s positive approach to executive summary writing. A tweet read:

Bell’s government arm, the #CRTC has approved usage based billing on resellers. Double dipping on bandwidth chargers. http://bit.ly/cxAJtD

In reality, Bell and Bell Aliant have been told that they have to eat their dinner first. In fact, they have to do all their homework, eat a good dinner, wash the cars, take out the garbage and play nice with their little sisters for the next few years before they can have that cookie. And they got their allowance cut.

Was this decision really an approval of usage based billing? It certainly was not the decision that Bell wanted.

Here is how the CRTC phrased the precondition:

the Commission concludes that each Bell company may implement its economic ITMP only once it charges UBB rates to all its retail Internet service customers.

Which customers don’t have UBB? The customers who have been around the longest. The most stable, least likely to churn customers are precisely the ones that are standing in the way of wholesale UBB.

In other words – there will be no usage based billing for wholesalers in the near future. If you are a Bell retail internet subscriber with a legacy unlimited data plan, why would you voluntarily get rid of it? Maybe some people could be bought out, but all it will take is a single hold out. If I was working for an independent ISP, I would find a Bell customer with such a plan and pay them to make sure they never voluntarily give up their unlimited service.

On top of this, the CRTC adjusted [downward] the pricing for the wholesale service – the cut in allowance. The lower rates are coming into effect virtually immediately [the tariffs are to be filed within 15 days], improving competitor margins by about 10 percentage points. Given the reductions, it appears highly unlikely that the CRTC will permit the $2.00 price increase that Bell proposed in mid February. So that is a double win for the competitors.

When you read the dissent by Commissioner Molnar, you can get a sense of where this could be heading. She writes that there are three ways that the majority may have contravened the Policy Direction in three ways:

• the requirement to use measures that are “efficient and proportionate to their purpose and that interfere with the operation of competitive market forces to the minimum extent necessary to meet the policy objectives.”
• the requirement that regulatory measures “neither deter economically efficient competitive entry into the market nor promote economically inefficient entry.”
• the requirement measures be “implemented in a symmetrical and competitively neutral manner.”

The bottom line: usage based billing for wholesale will not be seen in 2010. The decision appears to have been a victory for independent ISPs.

The issue of UBB for wholesale internet customers is certain to be raised during the regulatory blockbuster at The 2010 Canadian Telecom Summit taking place next month on June 7-9.

Have you registered yet?

Download the complete conference brochure here [pdf, 1.2MB].

There are a lot of reports hitting the wires (eg. Globe and Mail or Canadian Press) on the CRTC’s Decision on the new regulatory framework for Broadcast Distribution Undertakings (eg. cable and satellite companies). The CRTC’s press release can be found here.

I’d prefer to point to a different perspective.

I took the greatest interest in reading the dissenting opinion by Commissioner Michel Morin. His dissent takes up 45 pages (of the total 141 page decision [pdf]), which he says is the longest ever written by a CRTC Commissioner.

I was appointed to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) in August 2007 for a five-year term. Today, I am issuing my sixth dissenting opinion… Believe me when I say I am not happy to be compelled to dissent from the majority opinion.

Commissioner Peter Menzies also had a dissent that takes on many of the same issues, although written in a different style. Both express concerns about the effectiveness of the local programming fund and whether the CBC should be able to draw on these amounts.

The dissenting views appear after the appendices. They can provide a fascinating peek at what some of the debates must have been during the decision making process.