Broadcasting Commission Letter adressed to Frederique Couette (Quebecor Media Inc.)

Ottawa, 31 October 2022

Our reference: 2017-138

BY EMAIL
Frédérique Couette
Director
Regulatory Affairs, Broadcasting
Quebecor Media Inc.
frederique.couette@quebecor.com

Re: Request for Information regarding availability of Described Video on video-on-demand Services – Request for disclosure of electronic information designated as confidential

Dear Ms. Couette:

Commission staff acknowledges receipt of the correspondence provided by Quebecor Media Inc. (Quebecor) dated September 23, 2022, in response to Broadcasting – Commission letter addressed to Distribution List regarding: Request for Information regarding availability of Described Video on video-on-demand services.

With this letter, Commission staff requests disclosure of the following documents filed as confidential by Quebecor:

At the time Quebecor filed its response, it designated the above information as "confidential." Quebecor provided the following justification for its designation of confidentiality of this information in its letter dated September 23, 2022:

“This is confidential business information that is treated as such on an ongoing basis by Vidéotron and TVA. We also believe that disclosure of this information would cause significant financial loss to the parties involved and would harm their competitiveness. Thus, disclosure of this information would not be in the public interest. Therefore, the public would be better served if the information identified as confidential were treated as such.”

In the view of Commission staff, Quebecor has not provided a sufficiently specific rationale to justify that the disclosure of this information would directly cause specific harm and that such harm outweighs the public interest, nor has it explained how the information at issue meets the criteria in the appendices to Information Bulletin 2010-961. Commission staff also notes that the requested information has been submitted publicly by other service providers without a request for confidentiality.  Commission staff believes that the disclosure of this information is in the public interest and that, without a clear explanation of the harm that may be caused by its disclosure, it should be disclosed.

Therefore, Quebecor must submit an unabridged version of its answer to questions 3(a) and 3(d), or file a full justification of confidentiality, no later than November 7, 2022.

All documents filed in response to this request must be submitted in a file format accessible to blind or visually impaired persons who could benefit from a file format in which the text can be enlarged or modified, or read by a screen reader (e.g. in MS Word, not pdf). Please refer to the resource Creating Accessible Documents, which is available on the CRTC website.

Please use the following naming convention when submitting your document(s): “Company Name – Report – Described Video – Brand Name (if applicable) – Document Title (i.e. cover letter, appendix) if multiple documents are filed – FR/ENG – Abstract/Confidential (if applicable) – YYYY-MM-DD."

Sincerely,

Nanao Kachi
Director 
Social and Consumer Policy
Consumer and Strategic Policy

c.c.:  Meghan Zwiers, Meghan.Zwiers@crtc.gc.ca
Paula Jaramillo Palacio, Paula.JaramilloPalacio@crtc.gc.ca

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