ARCHIVED - Letter
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Ottawa, 26 May 2011
Our reference: 8340-D41-201105875
BY E-MAIL
Mr. Cedric Tardif
DERYtelecom Inc.
1013 Bagot Street
P.O. Box 1154
La Baie, Quebec
G7B 2N6
cedric.tardif@derytelecom.ca
Re: Agreement 1434/00 - Access to the Public Switch Telephone Network for Resale of Local Services
Dear Mr. Tardif:
On 30 March 2011, the Commission received a copy of an agreement between DERYtelecom Inc. (DERYtelecom) and Shannon Vision Inc. concerning local interconnection. This agreement was filed in confidence with the Commission.
In a letter dated 19 April 2011, Commission staff asked DERYtelecom to file with the Commission a copy of this agreement to be entered in the public record. DERYtelecom replied to that letter on 29 April 2011.
In its reply, DERYtelecom stated that the company had previously filed two similar agreements in confidence with the Commission without being asked by the Commission to add them to the public record. In this regard, DERYtelecom noted that, under the terms of Broadcasting and Telecom Information Bulletin CRTC 2010-961, Procedures for filing confidential information and requesting its disclosure in Commission proceedings, published on 23 December 2010 (Information Bulletin 2010-961), a company can designate as confidential at the time it is filed commercial information that is treated consistently in a confidential manner by the person who submitted it. In addition, DERYtelecom pointed out that making such agreements public could affect contractual negotiations with future customers.
The Commission considers that the agreement in question does not contain any contractual requirements or financial, commercial, or technical information that the Commission generally treats in a confidential manner.
Subsection 39(4) of the Telecommunications Act states that the Commission may disclose or require the disclosure of designated confidential information where it determines that the disclosure is in the public interest.
In Information Bulletin 2010-961, the Commission states that, in determining whether disclosure of information is in the public interest, the Commission will consider whether the information would be likely to result in specific direct harm and whether that harm outweighs the public interest in disclosure. Where the specific direct harm does not outweigh the public interest in disclosure, the Commission will generally require that the information be disclosed.
The Commission notes that the handling of a request for confidentiality should not be considered an indicator of the manner in which such a matter would be handled in the future, under different circumstances.
The Commission considers that the likelihood of specific direct harm occurring is not, in and of itself, sufficient to warrant maintaining a designation of confidentiality. Under certain circumstances, substantial harm resulting from the disclosure of such information can nevertheless be outweighed by the public interest in disclosure.
In the light of the foregoing considerations, the Commission considers that the above-mentioned agreement, designated confidential by DERYtelecom, should be made part of the public record of the proceeding.
The Commission consequently orders DERYtelecom to file a copy of its agreement to be added to the public record of the proceeding within two working days following the date of this letter. This should be done through Access Key.
Since the disclosure of this agreement will add information to the public record of this proceeding, interested parties may file interventions within 25 calendar days following the date of filing of the agreement, and the applicant will have 7 calendar days following the closing date for the filing of interventions to file comments in response to those interventions.
A copy of this letter and of any related correspondence will be added to the public record of the proceeding.
Yours sincerely,
‘Original signed by R. Morin’
Robert A. Morin
Secretary General
c.c. Sylvie Labbé, CRTC, 819-953-4945, sylvie.labbe@crtc.gc.ca
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