By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – The CRTC has denied Bell a request for the CRTC to temporarily suspend its collection of money for the $750-million Broadband Fund until it makes a decision on its review and vary application.
Bell filed the Part 1 application in December – in response to a CRTC decision to collect $150 million this year – asking the regulator to immediately stop drawing money from the telecoms toward the fund until it has concluded its scheduled policy review of the fund, which it launched in March. It argued that the regulator will have collected and not awarded $148 million and asked that the money would be better served toward investing in networks instead of sitting idly in the regulator’s coffers.
To succeed in its request for an immediate request to stop collecting money, the company had to meet a standard three-part legal test: that this is a serious issue, it is irreparably harming the company, and the balance of convenience favours its request for a stay considering the public interest.
While the CRTC said in a decision dated last month that this is a serious issue to be determined, it said Bell failed the latter two parts of the test.
For its irreparable harm argument, Bell said not having the money it is giving to the fund would prevent it from investing in its networks and therefore hurt its competitive position in the market. The CRTC, however, said the amount collected represents “less than 1%” of the $13.4 billion the telecommunications service providers spent in 2022.
“Also, the Broadband Fund is a known cost of business and the amounts in questions have been in the public domain since 2016,” the CRTC added.
For the balance of convenience, the CRTC said pausing collection and then resuming its would be “burdensome” to the fee payers and the National Contribution Fund, which collects and distributes the money, “and could ultimately be more inconvenient to fee payers (and other parties) when compared to simply waiting for the Review and Vary decision to be published later in 2023,” the regulator said.
“The Commission considers that, even if Bell had proven irreparable harm, the balance of convenience favours denying the stay request,” the decision said.
The CRTC, however, did cap the amount it will collect for the remaining years for the fund at $150 million as part of the launch of the fund’s review. Previously, the regulator endeavored to collect increasing amounts in $25-million increments until it hits $200 million in the fifth year.
Bell was supported in its review application by six other providers, but was opposed by SSi Canada and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre.
