The conflict of interest accusations repeated for several months by Canadian independent Internet service providers against CRTC Chairman Ian Scott will be examined more closely by the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner of the federal government. . The results of the investigation will be given to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and then made public.
The light will therefore be shed once and for all on the seriousness of this one-on-one meeting which took place in December 2019 between Ian Scott and the current CEO of Bell Canada Mirko Bibic, who at the time was chief operating officer of the Canadian telecom giant. This seemingly impromptu meeting between the two leaders took place in an Ottawa bar and without a direct witness to the conversation, which is explicitly against the rules of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission of Canada (CRTC) .
The Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner will attempt to determine whether this meeting does indeed place Mr. Scott in a conflict of interest situation and, if so, this will oblige the federal government to react publicly, which is a welcome development for the leaders of the independent Ontario supplier TekSavvy, one of the companies in the telecom sector that has been asking for the resignation of Ian Scott for many months, precisely because of his too close proximity to the three Canadian giants, Bell, Rogers and Telus.
“This is major news,” said TekSavvy Vice President Insights and Engagement Peter Nowak. It is the request for an investigation into Ian Scott initially made last March by TekSavvy to the Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner of Canada which has just been taken up by that on conflicts of interest and ethics. It’s a step in the right direction, says the Ontario leader.
“This is great news given that [le gouvernement] can no longer ignore the question. Someone will have to look into this and publish the results. »
The Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner had not responded at the time of publication to the request for information from the To have to.
The cost of the internet at stake
Independent Internet service providers are suffering from the CRTC’s decision of May 27, 2021 to increase the wholesale fees they pay to the owners of existing networks to then offer consumers their own services. Some suppliers had to close their doors. In Quebec, the managers of Ebox, the largest independent supplier in Quebec, have decided to sell their company to Bell.
This is quite a reversal of fortune for companies like Ebox and TekSavvy, who before this decision considered investing in the wireless market, projects that were abandoned in the face of the increase in their costs linked to wired Internet. .
The federal government normally reserves a period of one year to reconsider a decision like that of the CRTC dating from last May. Ottawa therefore still has about ten days to cancel this increase in the costs of the smallest telecom suppliers in the country. Since its decisions over the past few months have tended to go the way of the big vendors, the chances of that happening are pretty slim, believes TekSavvy’s Peter Nowak.
“We have no choice but to hope that the government will act in the interests of consumers, because otherwise the situation [pour les fournisseurs indépendants] will continue to get worse,” he said.