Telecommunications Ombudsman for Canada

With the advent of competition in telecommunications in Canada, many aspects of the regulatory framework are evolving. As existing services become unregulated, and new services are never regulated at all, new consumer issues arise. For a regulated service, if customers cannot satisfactorily resolve a dispute with a service provider, there is recourse to the regulatory agency. For an unregulated service, generally the only recourse is switching to a new service provider. Unfortunately, this is not always easy, and in any case may not address past problems. Recourse to the courts, while possible, is expensive and often unsatisfactory from a user perspective.
In principle, competitive forces, if sufficiently vigorous, will provide incentives for service providers to be responsive to customers. However, in practice, handling of complaints can be complicated, especially in a large company. Competition, while intense enough to keep prices and terms of service reasonable, may not suffice to take care of individual customer problems. As a result, many industries have set up independent ombudsmen to deal with individual customer complaints.
This paper reviews different models for an industry ombudsman. A number of viable options are available, ranging from no ombudsman to a far-reaching government-mandated and controlled office. Given the current regulatory framework in Canada, the paper concludes, a mandatory ombudsman would be the best solution. All telecommunications service providers would be required to participate.
The ombudsman’s office should be a not-for-profit organization, funded by participating service providers and subject to general government guidelines. In all other respects it should be independent of both industry and government. The ombudsman should have jurisdiction over wire-line and wireless telecommunications, as well as Internet access and voice services (VoIP), where internal conflict resolution has been tried and failed, and where other administrative bodies do not have jurisdiction.
The ombudsman should have discretion to refer a complainant to a regulator or the courts if in its judgment that is a more appropriate or convenient avenue to pursue. For individual disputes, the ombudsman should first try to mediate a voluntary resolution to the dispute. If that fails, it should issue a recommended resolution. This will become binding on both supplier and complainant if the complainant accepts; otherwise, it will bind neither party. Recommended resolutions should include an explanation or apology, an action by the service provider, and compensation for actual damages up to a maximum of $1,000.
 

PIAC Report: Telecommuncations Ombudsman for Canada
Download File: telecom_ombudsman_for_canada.pdf [size: 0.22 mb]

Please see also the Telecommunications Policy Review Panel – Final Report 2006 , which largely adopted the conclusions of this paper in Chapter 6 .

UPDATE: Consumer Groups File Notice of Appeal of CRTC Deferral Accounts Decision

The Consumers’ Association of Canada and the National Anti-Poverty Organization obtained leave to appeal the CRTC’s Telecom Decision 2006-9, Disposition of funds in the deferral accounts, on September 22, 2006.
The CAC and NAPO therefore filed a Notice of Appeal dated November 21, 2006, appealing the CRTC Decision. A copy of the Notice of Appeal is below in Microsoft Word, Adobe Acrobat and plain text formats.

CAC/NAPO Notice of Appeal Deferral Accounts – Word
Download File: notice_appeal_final_e_service.doc [size: 0.1 mb]

CAC/NAPO Notice of Appeal Deferral Accounts – PDF
Download File: notice_appeal_final_e_service.pdf [size: 0.12 mb]

CAC/NAPO Notice of Appeal Deferral Accounts – Text
Download File: notice_appeal_final_e_service.txt [size: 0.02 mb]

Where Should the Green Choices Be Made

September 27, 2006
For immediate release
Attention: Business/Energy Editors
PIAC Report: Require local electricity retailers use renewable sources
(OTTAWA)—The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) today released a report recommending all electricity suppliers be required to obtain a percentage of their supply from renewable sources.
The report, Where Should the Green Choices Be Made published September 2006, was funded by Industry Canada. It is available at:

Fighting for consumer rights

Where Should the Green Choices Be Made endorses the “portfolio standard” requiring public and private retailers of energy including local distribution companies, ensure a target percentage of their electricity sold can be replaced by natural processes such as sunshine, wind, flowing water, biological processes or geothermal heat flow.
The PIAC study also suggest voluntary approaches such as green marketing will not have a enough impact to produce the desired results.
“Canadian policy makers must face the fact that market forces alone will not do the job. We need to develop new regulatory models,” says Michael Janigan, PIAC Executive Director and General Counsel.
The study examined approaches to encouraging the development and use of renewable energy in North American jurisdictions including details concerning the minimum renewable requirements in a number of American states.
Michael Janigan
Executive Director and General Counsel
Public Interest Advocacy Centre
(613) 562-4002×26
 

Green Choices Report
Download File: green_choices.pdf [size: 0.28 mb]

Letting Everyone Help: Removing Barriers to Consumer Participation In Energy Conservation

Final Report: LETTING EVERYONE HELP: REMOVING BARRIERS TO CONSUMER PARTICIPATION IN ENERGY CONSERVATION [pdf file: 0.46mb]
PIAC, February 2006
Executive Summary
The necessity to reduce overall consumption of energy is a goal common to Canadian governments at all levels. This goal is driven, in part, by the duty to reduce emissions pursuant to Canada’s international agreements and the stark economic reality of the costs associated with construction of new power generation to meet increasing demand.
With rising energy prices beginning to mirror such increases in demand, efforts to reduce consumption have taken on new urgency for Canadian consumers. Not only are conservation efforts essential as part of an overall strategy for meeting Canadian energy needs, but they are increasingly necessary for Canadian households to undertake to avoid economic burden.
However, not all Canadians may have the ability to reduce household energy consumption because of barriers to participation. These barriers may include the inability to finance changes to heating equipment or household features that would reduce energy bills. There can be language and educational barriers which may constrain take-up. As well, there are structural barriers to many rental households participating in conservation programs. Landlords that pass on energy costs to tenants may be ambivalent about making expenditures to benefit such tenants and tenants whose energy costs are included in their rent have little incentive to expend household income on conservation.
Statistics Canada defines low income as “an income threshold below which an average family will likely devote a larger share of its income to the necessities of food, shelter and clothing that an average family would”. In 2000, the incidence of low income households among the Canadian population was 16.2%. The average Canadian household expended 20.4 % on shelter costs (including utilities) .
It is unlikely that energy costs are going to be reduced in the near term. Analysts predict that the long term prices for natural gas and energy are up and are likely to stay that way. In the Northeastern United States, low income customers have already experienced potentially catastrophic increases in heating between 9.4% and 113.6% in heating bills since 2001 with the likelihood of more such increases occurring as demand increases . The need for the removal of barriers, and in particular financial barriers, to access to energy conservation measures is likely becoming acute in Canadian jurisdictions as well.
An Ontario-based study in 2004 proposed a package of basic and extended measures which involved home assessments, energy conserving equipment and education. The cost of basic measures was $1000 and those of extended measures including the replacement of furnaces and appliances was $3700 . These monetary amounts show a requirement for external funding for low income customers to access the conservation savings conservatively estimated in this report at 20% of energy costs. The structural problems associated with the misplaced benefit incentives referred to above also has to be solved for low income tenant renters.
There are numerous examples of successful programs that have been undertaken in various jurisdictions to address the problems of barrier reduction. One of the most successful models has been undertaken in the United Kingdom associated with the policy concept of “fuel poverty”. Fuel poverty is said to exist where a household has to spend over 10% of its income on all fuel use to heat the home to an adequate standard of warmth. The major causes of fuel poverty has been identified by the government as poor home energy efficiency and low incomes. The U.K. program to end fuel poverty has set definite goals for ending fuel poverty within a fifteen year window.
This report also describes programs that address the energy needs of disadvantaged groups; such needs that may, if not remedied impair their ability to participate in conservation programs. These include emergency programs, energy bill assistance, and consumer protection measures. Emergency programs address particular crises, chiefly financial that may result in the disconnection of customers from the network. Energy Bill assistance programs attempt to remedy systemic financial ability to pay energy bills from meager household income. Consumer protection programs cover a wide variety of programs from protection of customers from disconnection in winter to implementation of higher efficiency standards for housing or electrical appliances.
The report principally concentrates on programs associated with enabling conservation efforts on the part of utility customers who would otherwise be unable to do so. The measures described include those offered in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. In the United States, there are four major mechanisms for addressing the removal of barriers. These are Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP), System Benefits Funds, or Utility financing. The conservation and weatherization services funded by these programs generally involve common sense measures that are made accessible to program participants. These measures include energy audits, fuel switching including hot water conversion, insulation for attics, compact fluorescent lighting, energy efficient refrigerators, energy efficient furnaces, water heater blankets, weatherstripping, caulking, and repairs to reduce air infiltration.
In the United Kingdom, the campaign against fuel poverty attempts to carry out the government directed strategy through mechanisms that include both public and private initatives. These include the establishment of energy efficiency obligations through Ofgem, the regulator of gas and electricity suppliers. Such obligations, called the Energy Efficiency Commitment (EEC), require and incent such suppliers to carry out improvements in energy efficiency by way of innovative actions. Over a three year period from 2002-2005, the EEC resulted in savings of approximately $70 CDN per year to low income households. The EEC programs consist primarily of the same menu of measures funded in the United States that are described above. Other programs include the funding of energy efficient partnerships to achieve energy efficiency in the building process by doing such things as developing national standards and best practices. Local authorities fund home inprovement agencies that provide cost effective repair and maintenance assistance to clients that are unsuitably housed.
The report also describes efforts to extend low income conservation programs to disadvantaged customers in various Canadian provinces. In Quebec, Equiterre carries out audits and follow up refits and education of customers which have achieved estimated savings in aggregate that are double the cost of the program. As well, the expenditures have been shown to produce job growth at a higher rate than power generation projects.
In Ontario, electric distribution companies have embarked upon major initiatives at the behest of the Ontario Energy Board to fund conservation programs from their rates. Social housing buildings have been targeted for energy audits to identify all possible ways to save energy from switching light bulbs to installing a new furnace. Natural gas local distribution companies (LDCs) have been delivering demand side management programs to gas consumers for over a decade. The report describes how one LDC, Enbridge will be attempting to make its residential conservation programs more accessible to low income customers through a strategy of education and outreach. In addition to the efforts by gas and electric LDCs the Ontario government’s own conservation bureau operated by the Ontario Power Authority will spend $235 million (with another 75 million dollars leveraged) over five years on low income programs addressing the needs of low income homeowners and low income and social housing tenants.
The OPA’s program measures derive from a study financed by the Ontario Government and the Toronto Atmospheric Fund referenced earlier. The study gave the following general recommendations for low income conservation programs:

1. The focus should be on savings associated with energy for the safe preparation of food, home heating and cooling (for vulnerable groups)
2. The plan should meet immediate needs of low-income and at the same time produce long term (but based on preventative measures)
3. Prior to program implementation, the overall strategic program planning should be negotiated with low income and advocacy groups
4. Clear and simple screening process for identifying program participants
5. All low-income households need to be included (including renters)
6. The program funds should not come out of other subsidies or financial support given to participants
7. Upfront cost to participants will not be required for energy efficiency upgrade programs
8. Energy efficiency and conservation programs should address the following components:
   1. Appliances
   2. Envelopes
   3. Heating
   1. Cooling

1. Delivery of programs should be done by local community groups with experiences in delivering energy efficient programsIn assessing the cost effectiveness of low income conservation programs, it is important that the overall impact of conservation programs upon demand and the resultant avoided costs be considered. In Ontario, for example, every 1000 MWs of new electricity production requires an expenditure of at least $1.6 billion. It means that expenditures such as those of the OPA above are at least 50% justified by the avoided costs alone as they will reduce demand by 100 MW.Other studies have confirmed the viability of these programs. Assessments of California’s Low Income Efficiency Plan filed with the California Public Utilities Commission show bill savings to cost ratios which range from .31 to .97. This provides comfort that the additional avoided costs and societal benefits create a total amount that far eclipses the costs for the implementation of the usual range of conservation measures previously discussed.As well, an important 1999 study has shown that the non-energy, non-environmental benefits to the utility of investing in low income efficiency programs are substantial. These benefits include lower utility costs for accounts collection, emergency services, bad debts and reconnections and societal benefits mainly in the form of reduced social service delivery costs. The authors of the study conservatively estimate that such benefits, in aggregate should approximate 50% of the program costs for the utility .
   While there is no formula for removals of barriers to access for conservation programs, the following should be considered as part of the package:
2. Customer education and outreach, including home audits and follow up;
3. Elimination or reduction of up-front costs

1. Service delivery that is rationalized to involve delivery agents with experience with the communityFinally, there are two general observations that can be made about the effectiveness of such programs to date:
2. The programs have a material effect upon the well-being of the consumer participants, including but not limited to a reduction in household expenses.

1. The program outlays are easily justified financially from the standpoint of any reasonable accounting for benefits, and politically from its ability to provide a higher standard of living for those citizens who are too marginalized to obtain an equivalent positive effect on their own.

PIAC: CRTC Deferral Accounts Decision: Telephone customers lose

(OTTAWA, February 16, 2006)—The Public Interest Advocacy Centre expressed its dismay with today’s CRTC decision to allow telephone companies to spend the fund, in which rate reductions have been deposited, on rural broadband.
“With all due respect to the Commission, this is not their money, it belongs to the telephone customers who paid the excessive rates in the first place,” says Michael Janigan, PIAC Executive Director.
“Telephone customers won’t get the rate reductions after all. Instead we will all make a $650 million contribution to the Commission’s favourite projects. It is unfair and unprecedented,” Janigan says.
Please take PIAC’s survey on the disposition of the deferral accounts.

 

Mobile Number Portability: Moving with the Times

Mobile number portability (MNP) is the ability to keep one’s wireless (cellphone) number when changing wireless service providers (WSPs). While fixed-line telephone number portability is compulsory for major providers of basic telephone service in Canada, mobile number portability is not, despite the ever-increasing population who use this technology. Notably, Canada is one of the few industrialized countries that has not yet implemented MNP.
This paper discusses the desirability of MNP mandatory in Canada. The conclusions drawn are based on analysis of the following key areas: the history of the wireless communications industry and its associated regulatory scheme; the benefits of mandating MNP and the related obstacles to switching between service providers; and the costs of mandating MNP. Additionally, this report examines MNP from an international perspective, with a particular focus on the US experience with implementation. Based on the above, it is clear that the benefit to consumers of mandating MNP in Canada is significant and outweighs the cost to providers.
The principal advantage of implementing MNP is enhancing competition among wireless service providers, which is currently dominated by a few players. Customers wishing to “switch” from one WSP to another, or between a WSP and a fixed location service provider, face a number of obstacles in achieving that objective, including changing their telephone number. Studies have shown that consumers not only value their telephone numbers, but also that not having access to MNP is a significant factor preventing them from making a switch. In the absence of MNP, WSPs may settle into a comfortable oligopoly. Thus, MNP would serve a pro-competitive function.
Opponents of mandatory MNP point to what they claim are significant costs of implementation. These can be grouped into three categories: (1) Start-up costs; (2) Customer transfer costs; and (3) Operations Costs, each of which is addressed in the body of this paper. The cost of implementing MNP would likely be very small under all plausible scenarios, given technology facilitating Local Number Portability (LNP) for fixed-location suppliers is already in place and MNP could use this existing infrastructure. Incremental costs to the existing databases would be small, arising mainly from the need to increase storage and possibly upgrade processing capacity.
Making MNP mandatory in Canada would have a positive impact on competition among WSPs, and probably on competition for fixed-location service, as well. While the benefits are not likely to be large in the very short run, they may be quite significant in the longer run: in the absence of MNP, WSPs may settle down to a comfortable oligopoly. In such a situation, MNP would become important as a pro-competitive measure. On the other hand, costs of MNP likely would be very small under all plausible scenarios, given that LNP for fixed-location suppliers is already in place and MNP can “ride” on its infrastructure.
Implementation of MNP recently has been promised by the wireless industry on a less-than-aggressive schedule. Given the minimal challenges in introduction of this consumer benefit, it is in the interest of Canadians that the CRTC set an aggressive implementation schedule for MNP so that Canadians can begin moving with the times.
 

Mobile Number Portability: Moving with the Times
Download File Mobile Number Portability: Moving with the Times: mnp_final_web.pdf [size: 0.2 mb]

Do Not Call Registry (Bill C-37); PIAC submission to the Senate Standing Committee

OTTAWA, Tuesday, November 15, 2005
The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications, to which was referred Bill C-37, to amend the Telecommunications Act, met this day at 9:00 a.m. to give consideration to the bill.
John Lawford, Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre: The Public Interest Advocacy Centre is the first consumer group and I believe the only that has testified before either committee so far, and I wish to underline that.
Consumers do want this legislation. That I will make clear. The most recent survey from the Environics poll makes that clear as well. However, there are certain elements to this bill that we would like to deal with in your committee rather than in the public notice process before the CRTC. Our submissions are highlighting three but now four concerns that have come up in the deliberations so far.
I will add one right off the bat, and that is through all of the committee hearings we have heard this list will be run at no cost to consumers. Our concern is that there is nothing in the legislation to guarantee that. I believe the experience in the United States has been that there was some seed money given from Congress to start up their do-not-call list in the case that there were not enough funds from telemarketers to actually run the list. Our concern is that there may be a facility within the legislation to make charges to consumers or there is nothing in there that actually prohibits it and that is a new addition to our submissions.
The other three concerns we have in representing consumers are, first, the exemptions under the bill are wide and they do not make a proper balancing between consumer privacy interests and business need to contact existing customers.
I would like to deal with the issue which has not been dealt with, and you will hear about I believe with the next panel, and that is charitable solicitation telemarketing. Charities represent 44 per cent of calls. That is what the latest Environics poll has shown us. These calls at the moment are exempted almost completely except the charity has to keep a secondary list under this legislation. Our concern is that charitable organizations may not be able to keep their lists up in the fashion that is necessary and either will run the risk, through lack of resources or negligence, of continuing to call consumers who have expressed a concern about being called and would like to be placed on the secondary list. We propose an amendment to have the do-not-call administrators keep the secondary lists for the charities. Whether that is feasible is something I would like to explore with you in questions.
Second is the business exemption for existing business relationship. The existing business relationship is not exactly parallel to the United States’ existing business relationship in at least one aspect, and that is with inquiries and applications. In the United States my understanding is that if you make an inquiry or application that that is three months. You have three months to call after an inquiry or application. In our bill it is six months. I do not see the difference if we are modelling between the two countries if we are trying to keep them parallel why there is the difference.
We feel that the existing business relationship exemption in general is awfully long and that 18 months is not a reasonable amount of time to call customers after they have had a relationship with a business and that has ended. Eighteen months of tail calling is a long time and we think that most consumers would consider that to be incompatible with the creation of a do-not-call list.
Finally, we are concerned about the consent issue. You have heard about consent in cyclical businesses. Our concern is from a more privacy point of view and that is that often with the business card in the fish bowl example that has been given people do not know that that will lead to telemarketing, that that consent is not clear. If you are to address a consent override in this bill, perhaps you could consider putting in an amendment to clarify how long that consent is good for. We would like it to be very short, actually non-existent, but we realize that there are some practicalities with people who need to call in two years, for example.
Our last two concerns deal with issues that have been touched on only once and that is, first, who will run this database. Our concern is that the administrator of this database should be a truly independent administrator.
At the moment there has been some interest expressed by the Canadian Marketing Association in running this database. We do not think that is a proper administrator for the database. They will not look after the public interest because they will be in a conflict position with their own members who are also telemarketers or heavy users of telemarketing services. In that instance, we ask the committee to consider moving an amendment that will make the independence of the administrator from all telemarketing a requirement so that you cannot be in the business of marketing or representing telemarketers and be the administrator of the list.
Finally, one issue that was briefly touched on by the representative of the CRTC is voice casting or what is called leaving voice mail in people’s voice mail boxes without ringing the telephone. At the moment, the CRTC has allowed that to occur outside of the telemarketing rules. We are not pleased with that result. It would surprise people if the do-not-call list covered telephones ringing but not voice mail messages left in their voice mail boxes. We think a technical amendment to specify in the definition of “telecommunications” that these voice mail messages directly to voice mail boxes without ringing the phone would be covered by the do-not-call list.
Those are our submissions and I welcome any questions from the senators.
 

Transcript includes questions from Senate and PIAC Responses
Download Complete Transcript: * [PDF: 0.03 mb]

Background: Declaration of telecommunications principles

Consumers Likely To Pay Price of Proposed Telecommunications Reform

In April of this year, in response to the lobbying of Canada’s large telephone companies, the federal government created a panel of three industry experts to review the way telephone service and telecommunications should be regulated. The Telecommunications Policy Review Panel (TPRP) has received submissions from numerous interested parties and is now deliberating. To no one’s surprise, big industry players have dominated this process, filing in one case alone over 1300 pages of submissions. Most of the telephone, cable and other large companies would like to have a market virtually free from regulation that provides consumer protection: a market where what you get depends on what is offered to you by the telephone and cable companies. Just like banking, the big customers would get the discounts. The little customers (consumers) would get the right to “choice” in the market (provided any real competitors survive), but not necessarily lower rates, better service, or rights to redress when things go wrong.
We think that this rush to deregulate telecommunications is just plain wrong and contrary to nearly a century of public policy on telecommunications. And so do most Canadians. In astudy conducted in the summer of 2005 by Decima Research, over 90% of Canadians expressed the view that each of the objectives of (i) reasonable price, (ii) good quality (iii) privacy (iv) disabled access and (v) rural access were important responsibilities of the federal government. Affordable access for low income Canadians was viewed as important by 86% of Canadians. None of these issues were mentioned as priorities with the companies.
We are worried that the public interest of all Canadian telecommunications users will lose to the few large private interests who have lobbied and argued for the unimpeded access to customers’ wallets. We think telecommunications services are essential to the Canadian way of life, and should never be compromised by allowing unreasonable rates, poor quality of service and marketplace abuses to occur. If we deregulate telecommunications in the way that the big telephone companies desire, we will have abandoned meaningful consumer protection for the financial benefit of a handful of big companies.
Public Interest Advocacy Centre
November 1, 2005

Declaration of telecommunications principles in the public interest of all Canadians

RECOGNIZING THAT:

• telecommunications performs an essential role in the maintenance of Canada’s identity, sovereignty, social cohesion, and economic health, as well as in the well-being of individual Canadians;
• market forces are incapable, on their own, of ensuring that Canadians of all income levels and in all regions of the country have access to good quality, reliable telecommunications services at affordable and reasonable prices;
• competition, like regulation, is a means to achieving policy goals, not a goal in and of itself;
• deregulation and reliance on market forces in telecommunications have left many Canadians paying more for the same level of service, experiencing unacceptably poor customer service, and tolerating marketplace uncertainties and abuses that did not previously exist;
• persons with disabilities face constant challenges using telecommunications services;
• general competition law and institutions in Canada are incapable of effectively protecting consumers from market abuses in the telecommunications context;
• there is no general consumer protection agency at the federal level in Canada;
• many communities in Canada still lack access to broadband service, and of those that have access, many lack the means to make effective use of such access;
• the digital divide in Canada has grown significantly over the past eight years;
• the federal government, in response to pressure from incumbent telecommunications providers, has established a panel of three experts to review Canadian telecommunications policy and report back to it by the end of 2005;
• most Canadians are unaware of the policy review process, the issues at stake, and the proposals being made by industry players;
• the vast quantity of submissions made to that Panel are from vested private interests who have no public interest mandate;
• some vested private interests are calling for an evi

THE UNDERSIGNED DECLARE THAT:

1. The Telecommunications Act should continue to recognize that telecommunications, unlike most other goods and services, plays a critical and essential role in maintaining the social and economic fabric of Canada and in ensuring the well-being of Canadians;
2. In particular, the following policy objectives currently set out in the Telecommunications Act are fundamentally important and should remain the guiding principles of Canadian telecommunications policy:

• 7(a) to facilitate the orderly development throughout Canada of a telecommunications system that serves to safeguard, enrich and strengthen the social and economic fabric of Canada and its regions;
• 7(b) to render reliable and affordable telecommunications services of high quality accessible to Canadians in both urban and rural areas in all regions of Canada;

3. Market forces should be relied upon for the achievement of policy objectives only where they have proven to be effective and efficient in doing so;
4. Government and regulatory intervention is needed to ensure that Canadians of all income levels and in all regions of the country, including those with disabilities, have access to good quality, reliable, and functional telecommunications services at affordable and reasonable prices;
5. Sector-specific regulatory intervention is needed to ensure that Canadians have access to effective enforcement and redress mechanisms, and are not held responsible for
telecommunications fraud that they cannot control;
6. Regulatory intervention should be designed to prevent the degradation of telecommunications service quality, affordability, availability, and reliability, rather than to respond to such policy failures only after they have developed;
7. Direct government intervention is needed to ensure not only that all communities in Canada have access to broadband services, but also that Canadians have the knowledge and means to make effective use of those services;
8. Proposals for regulatory reform from self-interested industry players should be carefully scrutinized from a public interest perspective keeping in mind that they are driven by private motives rather than public interest goals; and
9. Any reforms to the Telecommunications Act be subject to a full public review, five years after they have been adopted.sceration of the Telecommunications Act and radical deregulation of telecommunications, so as to remove critical social policy and consumer protection goals of the Act and related functions of the CRTC;

Sign On!

If you are in agreement, signify your acceptance by sending an email to tpr@piac.ca, clearly indicating that you wish to sign, and providing your name, address, and affiliation (if any). If an organization is signing on, please provide the name of the organization as well as the name and contact information for the head of the organization. Put “Telecom Declaration” in the subject line. We will post the list of signatories on our website, and will send the Declaration + signatories to the Telecom Policy Review Panel, as well as to the Minister of Industry and to the Prime Minister.
Si vous êtes d’accord, veuillez nous le signifier en envoyant un courriel à tpr@piac.ca. Veuillez indiquer clairement que vous désirez signer, en indiquant vos nom, adresse et affiliation (s’il y a lieu). S’il s’agit d’une organisation, veuillez fournir le nom de celle-ci, ainsi que le nom et les coordonnées de la personne-ressource. Inscrivez qu’il s’agit de la Déclaration sur les télécommunications comme objet du message. Nous afficherons en ligne la liste des signataires et nous enverrons ensuite la Déclaration accompagnée de la liste des signataires au Groupe d’étude sur le cadre réglementaire des télécommunications, ainsi qu’au ministre de l’Industrie et au Premier ministre.

Opinion: Feds: Report to passenger service

Feds: Report to passenger service
Globe and Mail
Wednesday, March 23, 2005, p A21
MICHAEL JANIGAN
Business failure in the Canadian airline industry rarely fails to produce marketplace bathos. In the Jetsgo meltdown, the insolvent airline has pointed fingers at its competitors, Nav Canada and the Competition Bureau, with hostile rejoinders by the blamed. The resulting ruckus about who knew what when has left the principal parties looking like prep-school miscreants arguing about who broke wind in choir. But the fiasco offers important lessons.
The somewhat surprising sight of the Prime Minister and his Minister of Transport shrugging off the consumer casualties of the Jetsgo failure as casualties in the great unfolding of the marketplace is all too consistent with Ottawa’s approach to airline regulation. Whatever the financial calamities sustained by the industry stakeholders or the indignities heaped on airline passengers, the government intends to confine its role to that of a doleful safety inspector and toll collector; the recent federal budget axed the airline complaints commissioner who had the temerity to bring bad news from the front. The idea that carriers might have licence terms mandating consumer protection at least as rigorous as the licence rules for taxis delivering passengers to the airport is, for Transport Canada, absurd.
But the reports of the airline complaints commissioner before the demise of the office were replete with examples of passengers being treated shabbily by carriers that seemed content to forgo possible future customer business for temporary financial advantage. Airline advertising, unencumbered by bothersome provincial consumer-protection rules requiring transparency and disclosure, often looks like a Mad magazine parody of sleazy promotions. Rock-bottom fares lure passengers to book for tickets that then require markups for fees and surcharges that are often many times the price. Despite their shaky financial record, the airlines themselves don’t participate in an industry-compensation scheme similar to that for travel suppliers licensed provincially in British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec.
One central flaw of Ottawa’s current airline policy is its refusal to acknowledge the airline industry’s unwillingness to self-police its own consumer unfriendliness. Another is the difficulty of inducing airlines to compete on the basis of quality of service. Transport Canada’s stolid acceptance of a succession of crises de jour seems to be entrenched either as a result of free-market zealotry or a culture of bureaucratic torpor. Whatever the cause, it harms the quality of air travel in Canada.
Other jurisdictions have been quicker to act when they perceive a decline in how airline customers are treated. In B.C., Ontario and Quebec, provincial rules forbid travel agencies to engage in the same shell games involving final ticket prices currently practised by airlines. This puts travel agents at a disadvantage in attracting customers—who, in turn, are increasingly bereft of those agents’ useful advice. (A tepid federal government attempt to address this issue last year died on the order paper.)
The U.K. Air Transport Users Council is funded by the Civil Aviation Authority to act as a watchdog for passenger interests and to police airline misconduct. The U.S. Federal Aviation Authority takes an advocacy interest in passenger service by widely disseminating airline-on-time and reasons-for-delay statistics. Compare this to Transport Canada’s website, which expresses sympathy this week for Jetsgo passengers and gives telephone numbers of credit card companies for refunds.
Providing enforceable consumer-protection rules for all airlines doesn’t inhibit airline competition, it enhances it. Acting with other jurisdictions to respond to devious airline advertising practices would be a good start. So would reinstating the airline complaints commissioner’s office. An industry-financed mandatory-compensation scheme, similar to provincial models for travel-supplier failure, should be available for all passengers holding worthless airline tickets. Finally, consulting Canadians on what they expect from air travel might be instructive. Jean Lapierre could risk losing Air Canada’s Robert Milton’s accolade as “the best Transport Minister in a long time,” but the benefits might be considerable.
Michael Janigan is executive director and general counsel for the Public Interest Advocacy Centre.