OTTAWA – Last evening, the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications heard how staff at Canadian Heritage as well as Innovation, Science and Economic Development might change the Telecommunications, Broadcasting and the Radiocommunication Act.
As we’ve reported, the Senate is thinking about how the legislation can be modernized to account for the evolution of the broadcasting and telecommunications sectors in the last decades. As you may have heard, the federal government has appointed an expert panel to do the same thing.
Some criticisms were voiced by Senators on the composition of that panel. For example, Committee…
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ON MONDAY, WE described a Federal Court of Appeal decision as one that strikes down the CRTC’s TV Wholesale Code.
Bell Canada had appealed the Code to the Court, saying the way it was implemented fell outside the CRTC’s jurisdiction – and in its decision released Monday the Court agreed with Bell, saying the Commission had no authority under section 9(1)(h) of the Broadcasting Act to meddle in private carriage contracts the way the Wholesale Code mandates.
The decision seemed to us to be the end of that Code – and we were bolstered in that…
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Better to leave it to various Acts review
GATINEAU – The CRTC announced this morning it has dismissed a proposed website-blocking regime which would address copyright piracy, dubbed FairPlay Canada by its backers.
The Commission ruled it does not have the jurisdiction under the Telecommunications Act and so it did not consider the merits of the proposal, saying in a release this is best considered under the Copyright Act, over which it has no jurisdiction.
The Copyright Act, is under review, on which Cartt.ca has been reporting on Continue Reading
OTTAWA – Former CRTC chair Jean-Pierre Blais’ ears must have been on fire Monday.
While the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement did away with the CRTC’s 2015 decision to ban the simultaneous substitution of Canadian ads into the broadcast of the Super Bowl here (one of the landmark rulings to come out of Blais’ so-called “Let’s Talk TV” process), the Federal Court of Appeal on Monday sided with Bell saying the Regulator has no right to dive deeply into affiliate contracts between broadcasters and carriers, what the Commission called its Wholesale Code.
The Wholesale Code, said the Regulator…
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New NAFTA means return of Canadian ads to Super Bowl – and QVC is coming
OTTAWA – Buried deep within the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade is a specific bit of direction to the Canadian government about a TV show.
Okay, it’s the most popular show of the year, every year, but it’s highly unusual such a comprehensive agreement on trade also requires our federal government to rescind a decision by our communications regulator which has been upheld by the courts, too. However, this new trade agreement demands the decision made by the CRTC to prevent the simultaneous substitution of…
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OTTAWA – Pakistan-based food products company National Foods Ltd. has been fined $25,000 for violating Canada’s unsolicited telecommunications rules.
Acting on complaints, the CRTC said Monday that an investigation determined that National Foods initiated telemarketing telecommunications to consumers whose telecommunications numbers were registered on the National Do Not Call List (DNCL), and for doing so while it was not registered with the National DNCL operator and was not a registered subscriber of the National DNCL, contrary to Canada’s unsolicited telecommunications rules.
The Commission issued a notice of violation to the company on March 30, 2017 for 303 violations at $82.51 per violation,…
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MONTREAL — Quebecor and Bell are going to see each other in court again, this time over Bell's practice of door-to-door sales, which Quebecor alleges is unfair competition and against the law.
Quebecor subsidiary Videotron Ltd. filed a request with Quebec Superior Court on Sept. 21 for an injunction against Bell Canada, requiring Bell to change its practices and pay $78.5 million "to compensate Videotron for losses suffered and to be suffered as an immediate and direct result of the civil fault committed by (Bell)."
The issue, Videotron alleges, is that Bell's sales representatives (either employees or subcontractors) pitch Bell's services…
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GATINEAU – If Iristel wants to make sure hospitals can reach patients who are also its customers on the phone in order to call them in for surgery, then the company should stop illegally boosting network traffic so those calls make it through, Telus told the CRTC in a letter today (September 28).
This week, the CBC posted a story detailing how a hospital could not reach a cancer patient in Behchoko, NWT (about 100 kms northwest of Yellowknife) in order to call her in for surgery. She is an Ice Wireless customer – which is a…
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AS THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE of Canada’s fastest-growing telecommunications company, I understand corporations operate to make a profit. Profits build shareholder value and create jobs.
And in competitive environments, corporations will battle. I get that. My company is currently entangled in a heated dispute with Telus Corp. in Canada’s North. Of course, we think we’re right and Telus thinks something else. Lawyers are involved. The regulator is involved. Even politicians are beginning to take notice.
The problem is that innocent Canadians are involved, too.
And this week, I received a phone call from a CBC reporter that underlined that…
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OTTAWA – The northern Ontario cities of Timmins and North Bay could soon have new radio stations after the CRTC issued separate calls for comments on the market capacity and on the appropriateness of calling for radio applications in the two markets.
The Commission said Wednesday that it issued the calls after receiving applications from Vista Radio for new commercial radio stations in both areas. The notice for Timmins is available here, and click here for the notice for North Bay.
Interventions are due by October 29 and the deadline to file replies is November 8, 2018. Following receipt of comments, the CRTC said…
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