Videotron has filed a Part 1 application asking the CRTC to force the city of Ottawa to reimburse it for being made to reallocate its telecommunication line to make way for city construction projects.
The city had requested that the telecom move its transmission lines and equipment at two locations, one at Montreal Road and another at Woodroffe Avenue, less than five years after it installed the equipment on Hydro Ottawa poles.
When Videotron went to the city in early 2022 to get reimbursed for the $300,000 move, it was denied on the basis that the request to reallocate came from Hydro Ottawa and not from the city, alleges the Montreal-based telecom in the Part 1 application.
Videotron argues its case on several bases: that it is the city that is responsible for the cost because it owns the private utility; it was the city that required the telecom to attach its equipment to the hydro poles; and it is the city that ultimately requested it to move for the municipal projects.
The telecom said because the city was concerned about a delay in the municipal projects, which includes an expanded Montreal Road with new street furniture and the construction of a pedestrian bridge on Woodroffe Ave., it went ahead in good faith with the reallocation in hopes the city would come around and pay it back.
But that didn’t happen, it alleges.
“Videotron requests that the Commission order the City of Ottawa to reimburse it for all fees, costs and expenses that it was forced to incur in order to comply with the requests of relocation made by the City for the completion of the Woodroffe Avenue and Montreal Rd. projects,” Videotron said in its application.
