OTTAWA – Canada’s telecommunications companies have launched an agency to hear complaints from consumers that can’t be resolved by the telcos or the CRTC.
The office of the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services (CCTS) opened its doors in Ottawa on Monday. It was created in response to a request from Industry Minister Maxime Bernier that telephone service providers work together to create an independent, industry-funded agency to handle complaints that fall outside the CRTC’s jurisdiction and that consumers and small businesses have been unable to resolve directly with their service provider. The request was tied with the federal government’s announcement in April of its framework for deregulating local phone services in areas where competition exists.
“Our office will give consumers an additional avenue of redress when their local phone service is deregulated and customer complaints no longer fall under the complaints process of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission,” said interim commissioner David McKendry, a former CRTC commissioner, consumer advocate, and telecom industry ombudsman. “The fact that Canada’s leading telecommunications carriers acted on Industry Minister Maxime Bernier’s request that they establish such a consumer agency as soon as possible indicates the seriousness with which they take resolving complaints,” McKendry said in a release.
Also on Monday, the telcos—Bell Aliant, Bell Canada, SaskTel, TELUS, MTS Allstream, Rogers, Virgin Mobile, Cogeco, Videotron, and Vonage—gave the CRTC a joint proposal for the CCTS’s structure and mandate, after consulting with other telecom providers and consumer groups.
After the CRTC approves the structure, an independent nominating committee will chose the independent members of a board of directors, who will then select a permanent commissioner as soon as possible. Membership in the agency is open to any telecom provider.
McKendry formerly worked for the Consumers’ Association of Canada. Its current president, Bruce Cran, said the CCTS is a “welcome support for consumers” and will have enough time to ramp up before deregulation takes effect in certain communities across the country in the coming months. “The agency will give consumers the opportunity to have their unresolved complaints investigated and adjudicated by an objective and independent third party,” Cran said in a statement.
