Case information

Administrative law — Boards and tribunals — Jurisdiction — Telecommunications and broadcasting — Regulatory provisions concerning management of disputes between programming undertaking and distribution undertaking — Standstill rule — Whether ss. 14(1) and 15 of Discretionary Services Regulations and s. 12(1) of Broadcasting Distribution Regulations (“impugned provisions”) are beyond powers of Canadian Radio television and Telecommunications Commission (“CRTC”) under s. 10(1)(h) of Broadcasting Act — Whether there is operational conflict and/or conflict of purpose between impugned provisions and ss. 3(1)(f) and 13(4) of Copyright Act — Limits on powers of court sitting on appeal from decision of administrative body where court has already given leave regarding questions that fall within its limited jurisdiction and that will be subject of appeal — Broadcasting Act, S.C. 1991, c. 11, s. 10(1)(h) — Copyright Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-42, ss. 3(1)(f) and 13(4) — Discretionary Services Regulations, SOR/2017 159, ss. 14(1) and 15 — Broadcasting Distribution Regulations, SOR/97-555, s. 12.

Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch). Please note that summaries are not provided to the Judges of the Court. They are placed on the Court file and website for information purposes only.

The applicants, TVA Group Inc. and Québecor Media Inc. (collectively “TVA”), and the respondents, Bell Canada, Bell ExpressVu Limited Partnership and Bell Canada Enterprises (collectively “Bell”), entered into an affiliation agreement under which TVA provided Bell with programming services, which Bell distributed. The renewal of the agreement in early 2019 gave rise to a series of events that reflected problems in the negotiations. One especially notable event was the withdrawal from Bell subscribers of the signal for the TVA Sports channel on April 10, 2019, the date of the first National Hockey League playoff game, which was broadcast on that channel. That decision by TVA had been announced to subscribers during the last regular season hockey game played by the Montréal Canadiens on April 6, 2019 through crawls at the bottom of the screen, as well as the day before the first playoff game, April 9, 2019. Further to TVA’s actions, the CRTC was called upon to issue two decisions and one order. On April 10, 2019, after Bell filed an application for final offer arbitration with the CRTC regarding carriage of the signal for the TVA Sports channel, asking it to determine the applicable rates for that service, the CRTC informed the parties by letter that it considered them to be engaged in a dispute and that the standstill rule in s. 15(1) of the Discretionary Services Regulations was therefore applicable. The CRTC thus determined that the parties were “required to provide their respective programming services to one another, and [were] required to distribute those services, at the same rates and on the same terms and conditions as they did before the dispute”. On April 18, 2019, the CRTC concluded that TVA had contravened the standstill rule on April 10, 2019 by acting in a way that “prevented Bell from providing TVA Sports to Canadians during a dispute”. The CRTC issued an order under s. 12(2) of the Broadcasting Act requiring TVA to continue providing Bell with the signal for the TVA Sports channel at the same rates until the dispute was resolved. The CRTC also suspended the broadcasting licence for TVA Sports because of concerns about TVA’s behaviour. However, the CRTC specified that the suspension would go into effect only if TVA unlawfully withdrew the signal for TVA Sports again. TVA filed an application for leave to appeal to the Federal Court of Appeal in order to challenge the CRTC’s decisions and order on the ground that the regulatory provisions on which the CRTC had relied were beyond its powers. The application for leave to appeal was granted, but the appeal was dismissed.