By Ahmad Hathout
A judge ruled earlier this month that the Federal Court will not hear a complaint filed by Cogeco and Eastlink asking to review whether cabinet erred by denying their request to toss a CRTC decision to allow the three largest telecoms to access the wholesale internet regime.
In short, the court ruled that the regional telecoms have better avenues to challenge the underlying decision, effectively accepting the application of the attorney general to reject the request based on the same reasons.
While the complaint specifically challenged cabinet’s alleged lack of sufficient reasons explaining its decision to deny their request, the Federal Court ruled that the “central aspect” of the complaint was really about wholesale access itself, which the court noted is already being challenged in different forums.
Indeed, there are outstanding petitions to cabinet against the CRTC’s policy, while Cogeco and Eastlink have been granted their day(s) in court to challenge the CRTC decision at the Federal Court of Appeal. (The Federal Court of Appeal will also hear a SaskTel challenge on a similar access matter.)
“The way in which the applicants played their procedural cards allows the Federal Court of Appeal and the Governor in council to address the substantive issues they raised on a more extensive record and based on a more recent assessment by the CRTC,” the Federal Court said in its final decision on January 7. (Cartt had to wait an extended period to receive the full reasons.)
Cogeco and Eastlink had filed a “precautionary” petition way back in December 2024 in case the CRTC did not overturn the decision to allow Big 3 access to the wholesale regime. The CRTC, at the behest of cabinet, narrowed its focus on its temporary decision from November 2023, which allowed the largest telecoms to access the last-mile fibre networks of Bell and Telus in Ontario and Quebec. The regulator upheld the decision before it moved to address the review-and-vary applications challenging its final wholesale internet ruling from August 2024.
Because of that, the Federal Court also said, had it accepted the current application, it would have been dealing with outdated information compared to the most recent thinking of the CRTC from June 2025.
“It is difficult to understand what would be achieved by challenging reasoning that is no longer current,” the court added.
“Moreover, this Court lacks the expertise of the Federal Court of Appeal and Governor in council with respect to telecommunications matters,” the decision continued.
Cogeco declined to comment and Eastlink did not respond to a request for comment.
