By Ahmad Hathout
Cabinet, on the advice of Innovation Science and Economic Development (ISED), will not order the CRTC to revisit a decision denying a complaint alleging Bell and its subsidiary Northwestel violated aspects of a wholesale call traffic agreement.
Iristel leveraged the opinions of two CRTC commissioners to bolster its case charging that the CRTC did not ask past and present Bell employees about the telco’s alleged refusal to set up an agreed-upon interconnection point at Kuujjuaq in northern Quebec and Whitehorse to carry its call traffic. Instead, it said it had to accept an interconnection point that didn’t allow it to carry as much traffic, which represented a majority of its revenue.
The far north provider had only asked cabinet to instruct the CRTC to make “full use of its investigative powers” to decide on the matter it had already adjudicated twice and against Iristel, which was ordered to pay money for services it withheld from Bell in retaliation or see its services disconnected.
“The Governor in Council considers that the Commission provided all parties with several opportunities to present documentation to it to support their claims and that the Act does not require the Commission to use its discretionary authorities to improve or supplement a party’s submissions,” said the decision, dated June 12. “The Governor in Council considers that Telecom Decision 2025-157 does not raise concerns with respect to the exercise of the Commission’s discretionary powers and the manner in which it examined the alleged tariff violations.”
Iristel did not respond to a request for comment.
In its cabinet petition, Iristel said a dissenting opinion of Commissioner Claire Anderson and a concurring opinion of Commissioner Bram Abramson point to the CRTC’s shortcomings in the decision.
“The Commission committed errors both in fact and in law in [the decision], which raises substantial doubt as to the correctness and the reasonableness of that decision,” Anderson, the regulator’s commissioner for British Columbia and Yukon, said her dissenting opinion. “I would approve Iristel’s application to review and vary the decision and conclude there is sufficient evidence on the record to warrant further investigation by the Commission, through RFIs at a minimum, into the allegations of tariff violations and unfair discrimination.”
Anderson pointed to submissions to the Yukon Supreme Court, where Iristel filed a statement of claim on the matter, that backed the service provider’s grievances.
“Our error was compounded by our lack of exercising any regulatory powers, like the issuance of requests for information (RFIs), if we had evidentiary concerns that needed to be addressed,” Anderson added.
While Abramson agreed with the CRTC’s decision, he criticized the approach in getting there. “If timely performance of tariffs matters, as it must if our supervisory framework is to inspire confidence; and if, as a corollary, getting to the bottom of breaches in performance must matter, too … then good-faith RFIs that do not abuse process but do help get to the bottom of things are fundamental,” he said. “Indeed, to the extent that it is helpful in resolving the complex disputes that stakeholders expect us to be able to wrangle effectively, some reflection on how to innovate on the process, such as the possibility of transcribed oral RFIs, may be warranted.”
The issue first emerged in 2023, when Iristel filed a Part 1 to the CRTC claiming that Bell had effectively reneged on its agreement to provide the interconnection point it requested in Kuujjuaq and Whitehorse. Iristel said from 2015, it had reluctantly agreed to an interim arrangement in which it would route traffic to Kuujjuaq through a single exchange in Montreal. Iristel alleged, after repeated requests and denials, that it was finally offered the alternate local POIs in Whitehorse and Yellowknife in 2023 — four years after it was informed that Northwestel was relocating the original POI; one year after it started withholding payments for Bell/Northwestel services in 2022; and after it said it had suffered financial and reputational damages.
Despite that, in July 2024, the CRTC found that Iristel failed to provide sufficient evidence that it was wronged in the dispute and ordered it to pay amounts it withheld from Bell in protest.
