By Denis Carmel
GATINEAU – When the Competition Bureau filed its further comments in the CRTC’s Wireless Review proceeding and issued detailed recommendations as to the future of the wireless industry in Canada, it was obvious that there was going to be some pushback.
Both Telus and CNOC requested to see more of the information filed in confidence and the Commission on Tuesday, granted some of CNOC’s wishes while denying Telus request.
CNOC was interested in both information filed in confidence that is publicly available, as well as methodological aspects of the Bureau’s analysis which was not revealed.
“The Commission also directs the Commissioner to file a revised, abridged version of his further comments and of Dr. Chipty’s report, disclosing additional information for the public record, consistent with the determinations set out above. The Commissioner is to file his revised documents on the public record on 14 April 2020. For greater clarity, the Commissioner shall not file his revised documents before that date. In order to facilitate this process, Commission staff will provide the Commissioner with further specific instructions regarding implementation of these determinations under separate cover,” the Commission’s Tuesday decision reads.
Telus for its part requested some independent third-party experts or counsels be given access to all the confidential information, whether filed by parties of used by the Bureau’s Report and file a report back to the Commission within 90 days based on what the deduced. That would have delayed the proceeding for a few months.
“The Commission considers that additional process, which would be novel, complex, and fraught with its own confidentiality concerns, is neither efficient nor necessary,” the decision reads.
It should be noted that the Commission itself uses confidential information to reach its own decision which is duly recognized by participants but the inclusion of another set of conclusions based on confidential information add to the nervousness of the carriers.
The parties will be able to comment on the information filed by the Bureau later, but we do not know when yet since the Commission has suspended the proceeding until further notice due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
