Telus supports Bell’s plan to strike Matrix from the record
By Greg O’Brien
GATINEAU – Of the 11 organizations to respond to the CRTC’s request for comment on Bell Canada’s demand to strike a key economic report from the public record of the wireless policy review proceeding, only one supports the idea.
Bell has asked the Commission to remove a report from the official record of the policy review which underpins the Competition Bureau’s submission to the CRTC that a modified, but mandated, mobile virtual network operator regime must be established. The Bureau’s final comments and the report done by Matrix Economics contained errors which undermine the Bureau’s position and shouldn’t be relied upon, according to Bell, as we reported.
Despite the fact the official record of the proceeding had closed, because there were acknowledged errors in the Bureau’s final comments the Regulator allowed the Bureau to submit a corrected report, accepted Bell’s letter which asks to strike the report from the record and called for proceeding participants to submit what they thought about that. The deadline for such submissions was Thursday and just Telus is on Bell’s side on this, asking the Commission to either strike the report, or ignore it during its deliberations.
Telus and others complained about the Bureau’s deep involvement in the policy review in the first place last year and the company did not share the same level of data requested by the Competition Bureau in order for Matrix to do its report which Bell, Rogers and Eastlink all provided. It, and others also complained the Matrix report was a redacted report so the companies themselves were not privy to the whole thing and therefore could not do their own analysis of what Matrix’s Dr. Tasneem Chipty found in her study.
“It is likely that additional errors exist in respect of the Matrix Report and the research methodology employed by Dr. Chipty. Even though parties, including Telus, requested procedural steps to allow for parties to assess the Bureau’s expert evidence, the Commission denied these requests. Without access to the underlying data and an ability to further test the Bureau’s evidence, the credibility of the Matrix Report beyond these known errors has been impossible for parties to assess, calling into deep question the reliability of the Matrix Report,” reads the Telus August 13 submission to the Commission.
“The prejudicial nature of the Matrix Report, the fact that parties have not had an opportunity to vet the report in full and the reality that the Bureau has been unwilling to correct facts and objectively weigh evidence in this proceeding, all support the striking of the Matrix Report. In other words, the risks associated with allowing the Matrix Report to remain on the record of this proceeding outweigh any benefits.”
As for others who replied to Bell’s request, one might be able to sum them up as telling the Commission to ignore Bell and to get on with writing and applying new wireless policy.
Writes Shaw Communications: “Bell is inappropriately attempting to re-litigate, after the proceeding closed, a matter that has already been extensively canvassed and considered by the Commission.”
Says TekSavvy: “The process has been a long one, including a 9-day oral hearing, multiple requests for information, multiple deadline extensions, extensive interventions and expert evidence, as well as an additional process to address the potential impact of the Covid 19 pandemic. For Bell to raise additional concerns at this stage shows a complete lack of respect for both the Commission’s expertise and the process established in TNC 2019-57.”
Writes the Competitive Network Operators of Canada (CNOC): “The Commission should reject Bell’s last-minute attempt to insert itself as the trier of fact, reopen the record, and prolong a critical proceeding. If Bell’s request is granted, it will encourage similar conduct in future proceedings.”
From Cogeco: “Cogeco strongly opposes the Request, noting that it is not only untimely, but also highly inappropriate, even abusive. Cogeco further submits that if granted, the Request may negatively impact other parties in the proceeding.”
Writes the Coalition for Cheaper Wireless Service: “With respect, the record is closed, or should be closed, and no further evidence, argument or ‘corrections’ are needed or justified. Any additional process along the lines suggested by Bell or the Bureau, and in particular, the striking of evidence (the Bureau’s ‘Matrix Report’) relied upon by all other participants in this proceeding would be highly prejudicial and not remedied by yet another round of comment.
(Ed note: Both Bell and the Bureau suggested the potential for a longer back-and-forth by the Commission and parties to the proceeding over the errors and the report itself.)
“Although the CCWS represents a wide coalition of consumers, the resources of its legal representatives has been stretched by this proceeding as it is. We would not be able to provide an adequate argument on the argument that additional process were necessary due to resource constraints, nor adjust and rewrite our argument, on the points that Bell continues to seek to argue after the record is closed.
“The CCWS frankly is shocked and dismayed at the exchange of letters between two participants in the proceeding to ‘adjust’ evidence without transparency to other parties. To see this exchange then used as a justification to demand out of process and frankly, unprecedented calls for additional argument about FINAL REPLIES that all parties have otherwise treated as final is more than inappropriate. It is in fact an abuse of process.”
For what it’s worth, it appears Rogers Communications did not file a response.
Now the Competition Bureau has until August 20 to respond to these new submissions.
