Case information

Administrative law - Boards and tribunals - Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) - Whether body performing regulatory and adjudicative functions can interpret standard so that it corresponds to what was envisioned by body when standard was adopted - Whether result of envisioned interpretation can apply retroactively - Telecommunications Act, S.C. 1983, c. 38, ss. 27, 62, 64.

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.

In August 2018, the respondent Telus Communications Inc. filed an application for relief with the CRTC regarding alleged traffic stimulation activities involving the 867 numbering plan area (867 NPA) telephone numbers of the applicant, Iristel Inc., in Northwestel Inc.’s incumbent serving territory. In a prior decision rendered in 2017 (CRTC 2017-446) pursuant to an application filed by the respondent Rogers Communications Canada Inc., the CRTC had found that Iristel had contravened s. 27(2) of the Telecommunications Act, S.C. 1983, c. 38 (Act), by participating in traffic stimulation activities involving 867 NPA telephone numbers. That practice, by which a telephone carrier inflates, or allows to be inflated, the volume or minutes of calls beyond an anticipated threshold, is a contravention of s. 27(2) where its effect is to give certain parties an undue preference and to subject others, including Canadian consumers, to an undue or unreasonable disadvantage. Further to its interim relief decision of November 23, 2018 (CRTC 2018-432), the CRTC found that a review was needed to determine “(i) whether the traffic at issue is stimulated by Iristel and/or inappropriate, and (ii) given the apparent changes in traffic levels, whether Iristel’s current tariffed rate for long distance call termination in the North remains just and reasonable”. On August 14, 2020, the CRTC ruled on final relief under the application (CRTC 2020-268). It found that Iristel had once again contravened s. 27(2) of the Act by allowing the use of 867 NPA telephone numbers by certain customers based in distant locations and by granting itself an undue advantage to the detriment of other carriers, whose connection costs had increased while revenue had been generated for Iristel through long-distance call termination charges. The CRTC also found that the tariffed interexchange termination rate was no longer just and reasonable under s. 27(1) of the Act because it overcompensated Iristel and provided an incentive for stimulation of traffic to 867 NPA telephone numbers. The CRTC therefore replaced Iristel’s tariffed termination rate with an interim rate that was to become final 90 days from the issuance of the decision — retroactive to the day on which the rate was made interim — unless Iristel filed a tariff notice supported by a Phase II cost study proposing an alternate rate by November 16, 2020. At the time of releasing that decision, the CRTC also published a notice of consultation (CRTC 2020-269) in order to determine, once the applications were assessed, whether it was appropriate to impose administrative monetary penalties, including on Iristel. On September 2, 2020, Iristel filed an application with the CRTC to review and vary Telecom Decision 2020-268 and Telecom Notice of Consultation 2020-269. The CRTC denied the application, and the Federal Court of Appeal dismissed the motion for leave to appeal.