Telecom - Staff Letter addressed to Jason Ball (Rogers Communications Canada Inc.)
Ottawa, 26 July 2024
Reference: 8000-C12-202203868
BY EMAIL
Jason Ball
Vice President, Legal
Rogers Communications Canada Inc. ("Rogers")
1 Mount Pleasant, 4th Floor
Toronto ON M4Y 2Y5
Jason.Ball@rci.rogers.com
Subject: Abridged version of Xona Report
Dear Jason Ball,
On 4 July 2024, the Commission released the executive summary of Xona Partners Inc. (Xona) expert report on Rogers' July 2022 outage. On 10 July 2024, because the report was based on confidential information provided by Rogers, the Commission asked Rogers to identify the information in the report that it deems confidential within the scope of paragraphs 39(1)(a) to (c) of the Telecommunications Act (the Act). On 17 July 2024, Rogers responded, claiming confidentiality for its entire response and not providing an abridged version.
Rogers Letter Regarding Disclosure of the Xona Report
Commission staff note that it is highly unusual to designate a response to a request for disclosure as itself being entirely confidential.
Requests for disclosure of information designated as confidential are addressed in light of sections 38 and 39 of the Act and sections 30 and following the CRTC Rules of Practice and Procedure (the Rules). In evaluating a request, an assessment is made as to whether the information falls into a category of information that can be designated confidential pursuant to section 39 of the Act. The next step in the assessment is to determine whether any direct harm will likely result from the disclosure of the information in question and whether any such harm outweighs the public interest in disclosure. In making this evaluation, several factors are considered, including the degree of competition and the importance of the information to the ability of the Commission to obtain a full and complete record. The factors considered are discussed in more detail in Procedures for filing confidential information and requesting its disclosure in Commission proceedings, Broadcasting and Telecom Information Bulletin CRTC 2010-961, 23 December 2010, as amended by Broadcasting and Telecom Information Bulletin CRTC 2010-961-1, 26 October 2012.
Upon review of the letter, staff considers that the information in the letter regarding the justification for non-disclosure does not fall into a category of information that can be designated as confidential under section 39 of the Act. Further, staff underscores the strong public interest in the disclosure of Rogers' response. Interested persons must understand the basis upon which parties claim confidentiality to assess whether to request disclosure, as permitted by the Act. The Rules specifically state that such justifications must be made. While in some cases, specific details justifying a request for confidentiality that themselves contain the underlying confidential information may be abridged, in most cases, some form of the general justification remains public.
Commission staff expects Rogers to accede to disclosing information on the public record to the maximum extent possible. Therefore, Rogers is requested to resubmit a public or abridged version of the letter by 31 July 2024 so that interested parties can see the supporting rationale for the confidentiality claims.
Disclosure of the Xona Report
Regarding the substance of Rogers' response, staff requests that Rogers file the abridged report, consistent with its designations of confidentiality, along with its now public or abridged response letter. Once received, Commission staff intends to post the resubmitted letter and the redacted report on the Commission website.
Further Process
Commission staff is aware that interested persons have indicated they are likely to request full disclosure of the report. Once the report is posted on the website, the Rules allow interested persons to request disclosure and set out the process for addressing those requests. For efficiency and to ensure that all arguments for disclosure are considered, Commission staff would respectfully ask that interested persons file any requests for disclosure within 14 days of Rogers’ abridged version of the report being posted on the Commission's website.
Yours sincerely
Original signed by
Noah Moser
Director, Broadband and Network Engineering
Telecommunications Sector
c.c.:
Howard Slawner, Rogers Communications Canada Inc., Howard.Slawner@rci.rogers.com
Simon-Pierre Olivier, Rogers Communications Canada Inc.,
Simon-Pierre.Olivier@rci.rogers.com
John Lawford, PIAC, jlawford@piac.ca
Jean-Francois Mezei, Vaxination Informatique, jfmezei@vaxination.ca
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