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8665-B38-201306829

Ottawa, 17 June 2013

Mr. Bill Abbott
Senior Counsel & Bell Privacy Ombudsman
Bell Canada
Floor 19
160 Elgin Street
Ottawa, Ontario K2P 2C4

By email: bell.regulatory@bell.ca

Re: Bell Canada’s Part 1 Application to Improve the Accessibility of Mobile Telecommunications at Bell Canada – Request to disclose information claimed as confidential

Dear Mr. Abbott:

With this letter, Commission staff is requesting disclosure of the following documents submitted in confidence by Bell Canada (Bell) in this Part 1 Application:
A. The attachments to Bell’s response to Bell Canada(CRTC)10Aug12-1C MAI:

At the time that Bell filed this application, it designated the above information as ‘confidential’ pursuant to section 39 of the Telecommunications Act (the Act) and the Appendix to Telecom Information Bulletin CRTC 2010-961. Bell provided the following reason for its designation of confidentiality for this information:
“Release of this information would provide potential competitors with invaluable competitively-sensitive information that would not otherwise be available to them, and which would enable them to develop more effective business strategies. Release of such information could prejudice the Companies' competitive position resulting in material financial loss and cause specific direct harm to the Companies.”

We note that the Commission stated in Bulletin 2010-961 that:
“Generic statements such as ‘the release of this information to competitors would result in specific, direct harm to the company’ are not sufficient. Parties must provide sufficient reasons to allow meaningful analysis by the Commission or another party who may wish to request disclosure of the information.”

Commission staff considers that the release of the information identified above would be in the public interest as it would facilitate meaningful comment by interested parties on the effectiveness of Bell’s Mobility Accessibility proposal in achieving its objectives and would promote the creation of a fuller record for this proceeding. In the view of Commission staff, Bell has not provided sufficiently specific rationale to justify why disclosure of this information is not in the public interest, nor did it explain how the information at issue is of a type listed in the Appendix to Bulletin 2010-961. Bell may file a reply to this request no later than 27 June 2013.

Sincerely,

Nanao Kachi
Directeur | Director
Politique sociale et des consommateurs | Social and Consumer Policy
Consommation et politiques stratégiques | Consumer Affairs and Strategic Policy
819- 997-4700. nanao.kachi@crtc.gc.ca

c.c. mary-louise.hayward@crtc.gc.ca

Dist List:

Canadian Association of the Deaf jroots@cad.ca; Ontario College of Art and Design, Treviranus, jtreviranus@faculty.ocad.ca; ARCH archlib@lao.on.ca; petricoi@lao.on.ca; Council of Canadians with Disabilities, laurie@ccdonline.ca; Council of Canadians with Disabilities, ccd@ccdonline.ca; Independent Living Canada, nationaldirector@ilc-vac.ca; Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB), Christine.robbins@cnib.ca; Canadian Council of the Blind, mpotvin@ccbnational.net; Ottawa Deaf Centre, newfiedjh@yahoo.com; Ontario Association of the Deaf, dean@deafontario.ca; The Canadian Hearing Society, ckenopic@chs.ca; Canadian Association for Community Living, mbach@cacl.ca; Centre québécois de la déficience auditive, cqda@videotron.ca; Public Interest Law Centre, mybow@legalaid.mb.ca; Disability and Information Technologies (Dis-IT), ine@ccdonline.ca; d_stienstra@umanitoba.ca; Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians/L'Alliance pour l'égalité des aveugles canadiens, mworkman@blindcanadians.ca; Farah.mughal@rci.rogers.com; Neil Squire; Society, garyb@neilsquire.ca; Chris Stark, stark.chris@rogers.com; jeff.in.kanata@gmail.com; Clayton Zekelman, clayton@MNSi.Net; Ms. Denise Sayer, denise.sayer@paliareroland.com; Mr. David Lepofsky dlepofsky@sympatico.ca; Beverley Milligan, Media Access Canada, bmilligan@mediac.ca; Confédération des organismes de personnes handicapées du Québec, direction@cophan.org

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