The CCTC Annual Report shows a 9% year over year increase in consumer complaints during the months of August 1, 2020 to July 31, 2021. Customers raised 12% more Internet-related issues during COVID-19 lockdown, with nearly one quarter of these concerning poor service quality and complete loss of service at a time when Canadians rely on internet services to complete essential activities.

“Increased home internet usage by Canadians during COVID-19 restrictions highlights serious problems with Canada’s Internet industry and regulation,” noted John Lawford, PIAC’s Executive Director and General Counsel. “The CRTC’s ‘Internet Code’ had only 18 confirmed violations despite consumers raising over 13,000 Internet issues – or less than 0.2%,” he added. “That’s a ridiculously low number that we think means the Internet Code has no real substantive consumer protections while consumers are led by regulators and industry to think that it protects them.”

Wireless services continued to be the most complained about service, at 44% of consumer complaints overall, versus 31% for Internet services and 12% each for TV and home phone service. Disclosure issues continue to worsen as they were the top consumer concern (14% of all issues for all service), followed by incorrect charges (13%) and poor quality of service (11%). Within the service quality category, complaints relating to Internet quality of service saw a whopping 48% increase.

PIAC notes that disclosure concerns also are a common issue again this year despite a Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) Report on Misleading or Aggressive Retail Sales Practices of Canada’s communications providers that clearly described flaws in industry behaviour.

For more information, please contact:

John Lawford
Executive Director and General Counsel
Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC)
613-562-4002 ext. 125 (New)
(613) 447-8125 (cell)
jlawford@piac.ca

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• Service providers are required to place on their web sites a notice about CCTS and a link to the CCTS web site.
• Service providers are required to place notices about CCTS on customers’ bills four times per year. They are also required to provide notice to customers who do not receive bills, such as pre-paid wireless customers.
• Service providers are required to notify the customer about the right of recourse to CCTS following the second level of escalation in the company’s complaints process.

According to the CCTS, the awareness plan is built on the strategy of ensuring information about CCTS is readily available to customers at the time they experience a problem. PIAC has previously been critical of this approach, stating part of the role of the CCTS is to promote to the public at large that an avenue is present for Canadians with unresolved telecommunications service issues. Quite simply, if more Canadians knew the CCTS existed, the CCTS would be more effective in fulfilling its mandate to assist those Canadians with unresolved complaints.
However, at the present time, the task of promoting the CCTS falls to participating telecommunications service providers. The job of Rogers, Bell, TELUS et al. is to provide notices on their websites about the CCTS, place notices on their bills 4 times a year and notify their customers if a complaint remains unresolved after review, among other activities. But who makes sure this happens? Does it happen?
The CCTS has noted publicly it does not have the mandate or the resources to do formal auditing of compliance with aspects of its public awareness plan. However, according to unofficial data collected by the CCTS and submitted to the CRTC in 2015, there is evidence service providers may not be very diligent in their promotion of the CCTS.
For instance, CCTS sent compliance surveys to 133 participating telecommunications service providers (PSPs) and received 47 replies, for a response rate of 35%. With those 47 replies, this is what was found:

• 38 of 47 respondents have web sites that contain the required notice and link, and the text of the notice as required. This is a compliance rate of 81% of respondents.
• However, the CCTS Public Awareness Plan also requires that if a PSP’s web site has a search function, seven prescribed terms (“complaint”, “dispute”, “agency”, “CRTC”, “CCTS”, “commission” and “ombudsman”) should return a link to the page with the CCTS notice and web site link. Only 2/26 were actually fully compliant (i.e. all seven search terms returned the CCTS web page). This is a compliance rate of 8% of respondents.
• 31 of 47 of respondents self-report that they are compliant with the requirement to place notices about CCTS on customers’ bills four times per year, a compliance rate of 66% of respondents.
• 7 of 20 respondents reported compliance with having a process for delivering notices about CCTS to customers not receiving a monthly bill.
• CCTS considers customer notification during a complaint process the most important feature of the Public Awareness Plan, yet admits the CCTS has no real ability to monitor PSP compliance with this provision. CCTS concluded that 15 or 47 respondents report a customer notification process that appears to be compliant with the Plan. This is a compliance rate of 32% of respondents.

In our view, the argument of the CCTS – that awareness of its existence is readily available to customers at the time when they need it – is only viable if service providers are diligent in providing the information. However, it is clear not all telecommunications service providers are fulfilling their obligations to the CCTS or to Canadians.
As an outside observer, this begs a number of questions:

• Does the CCTS intend to measure the compliance of service providers going forward?
• At what point is the CRTC partially responsible for allowing this chronic non-compliance with the CCTS participation agreement?
• Will the CRTC provide the deterrents required to ensure telecommunications service providers fulfill their public awareness obligations regarding the CCTS?

PIAC believes that until a substantial proportion of the Canadian public is aware the CCTS exists, attempting to determine its effectiveness in fulfilling its mandate remains elusive. The degree of public awareness of the CCTS is crucial to its effectiveness—consumers will not seek recourse with the CCTS if they are not aware that it exists or of how it might help them.
Thus far, the blame for a low number of Canadians being aware of the CCTS as a recourse avenue can be fairly placed equally at the feet of the CCTS, Canada’s telecommunications service providers and the CRTC. However, it does not have to remain this way. The CCTS can routinely monitor service provider compliance with the elements of their public awareness plan outlined above, as they did in 2015. The service providers can simply do what they have agreed to do, and do it better. Meanwhile, the CRTC could be imposing enforcement deterrents for those instances where service provider non-compliance of the CCTS has become habitual.
For PIAC, ensuring more consumers are aware there’s a way to resolve their communications complaints is the objective. Taking action to ensure Canada’s telecommunication service providers fulfill their awareness obligations consistently would be an ideal first step.
 
Jonathan Bishop is a Research Analyst with the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC)
 

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