GATINEAU – The Competitive Network Operators of Canada (CNOC) filed an application to the CRTC yesterday seeking an order that CRTC chair Ian Scott recuse himself, or be recused, from deciding matters that affect service-based competition pending the results of an appeal that raises allegations of bias, among other things.
CNOC is referring to TekSavvy’s appeal of a CRTC decision made in May 2021 on a review and vary application. The decision reversed a previous CRTC decision (Telecom Order 2019-288), which lowered the wholesale third-party Internet access rates companies like TekSavvy pay carriers such as Bell and Rogers for access to their networks. (You can read Cartt.ca’s coverage of the decision here, here and here.)
Leave to appeal was granted by the Federal Court last September.
Scott defended the CRTC’s decision on wholesale rates last November at the annual Canadian Telecom Summit. “I’ll be frank: we got that initial decision wrong,” he said of the 2019 decision during his keynote speech. “There were unquestionably errors in the initial decision. We are not infallible, and we could not ignore those errors once they were properly identified.”
The May 2021 decision, however, has been controversial. Both TekSavvy and CNOC submitted petitions to the Governor in Council, requesting cabinet overturn it.
TekSavvyy, in its petition and its application for leave to appeal the CRTC’s wholesale rates decision, pointed to a highly publicized image of Scott having a one-on-one meeting at an Ottawa Bar with Mirko Bibic, who at the time was the chief operating officer of Bell and is now the company’s CEO.
The meeting between Scott and Bibic “was not attended by any Commission staff and is alleged to contravene the Commission’s internal protocols and guidelines, as well as those from the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner,” CNOC’s application reads.
Scott addressed the image earlier this week in an interview with the Toronto Star, during which he said he did not do anything inappropriate. “I went for a beer with someone I have known for many years,” he told the Star. Scott said Bibic did bring up a broadcasting issue when they met, so the meeting was recorded as required by the lobbyist registration.
CNOC’s application points out the meeting happened “only one week after the facilities-based providers, including Bell, applied to have the Commission reverse its findings in Telecom Order 2019-288.”
Another issue concerning bias TekSavvy has raised is with comments Scott made at an event stating a preference for facilities-based competition.
When asking for Scott to be recused from deciding matters affecting service-based competition, CNOC argued his “involvement in such proceedings would render any decision made by the Commission in which he is involved vulnerable to appellate review on the same grounds should TekSavvy be successful in its appeal.”
CNOC further argued Scott’s recusal “is crucial to restore public and stakeholder confidence in the CRTC, to protect it from further institutional damage, and to avoid the taint of bias.”
While CNOC’s application brings up Scott’s recent interview on his meeting with Bibic several times, the catalyst for filing it is much broader.
“We had been preparing this application independently of any media coverage, because of two ongoing problems: The first is that the CRTC is out of line with the Government’s 2019 policy direction and its emphasis on “competition, affordability, and consumer interests”, and the second is the ongoing controversy concerning the CRTC’s integrity,” CNOC’s executive director Geoff White said in a statement emailed to Cartt.ca.
“Both these problems are pushing smaller ISPs to the brink of collapse, and it’s ultimately consumers who will suffer when they are gone. So when the Toronto Star published Mr. Scott’s defense of his actions, we felt we had no other course of action.”
