Most wanted fugitive in Canada arrested in Charlottetown, P.E.I.
The most wanted fugitive in Canada was arrested in Charlottetown, P.E.I., Tuesday night.
Canada’s Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said he has tasked Canada’s major telecommunications networks with establishing a formal agreement to mitigate the damage of future outages.
Following a closed-door meeting with the CEO of Rogers and the heads of other telecommunications service providers on Monday, Champagne told reporters he’s given the group 60 days to consider emergency roaming, mutual assistance during outages, and building out a communication protocol to better inform the public and authorities of any emergencies.
Champagne said during the teleconference it’s a “first step” to tackle the resiliency and reliability of the sector.
The Rogers outage began early Friday morning and lasted about 15 hours, impacting millions of households and businesses. It also hampered customers’ ability to use emergencies services like calling 911.
Rogers says the “network system failure” was triggered by a maintenance update to the core network, which caused routers to malfunction.
While the company confirmed on Saturday most of its system was restored to the vast majority of customers, some are still reporting problems.
Champagne said he relayed to Rogers CEO Tony Staffieri his expectation that the company will compensate all those impacted.
“I expressed the frustration of millions of Canadians, I told him, this was unacceptable, full stop,” he said.
Staffieri said in his July 9 statement that the company will “proactively” credit all customers for the network outage, which will be automatically applied to individual accounts.
“We understand the significant impact Friday’s outage had on Canadians. We are committed to taking every step within our control to ensure it doesn’t happen again,” Staffieri said in a statement Monday, after his meeting with Champagne.
He also mentioned that all impacted customers will be credited, but didn’t provide further details on the reimbursement plans.
The minister also announced that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) would be investigating the source of the outage.
“CRTC inquiry will be one which will certainly inform the root cause and propose remedial action and we'll take it from there. But certainly with a spirit of always doing more and using all the tools that we have as regulator to demand on behalf of Canadians that the networks are more resilient,” he said.
The event has brought about renewed calls for enhanced competition in the telecommunications space to mitigate the widespread impact of a future network failure.
Asked about what the government plans to do on this file, Champagne referred back to a revised policy directive published on May 26.
While light on detail, the policy would entail the CRTC “improve support” for service providers that want to offer internet and mobile services at lower cost to Canadians.
“It says very clearly, what is in my mind, in terms of what needs to happen in Canada, which is additional competition, and always striving for more affordability,” Champagne said.
The outage happened against the backdrop of a pending telecommunications merger that would see Rogers buy Shaw Communications for $20 billion, if approved.
The industry minister weighed in on the issue on Monday, noting Ottawa won’t allow a deal without conditions being met.
“I've said very clearly and openly that I will not allow the wholesale transfer of licences from Shaw to Rogers, and I think this is well understood. And the framework of mine, when I look at these things, is all about affordability, affordability, affordability and competition,” he said.
Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner, former industry critic, tweeted on Friday that she wrote to all members of the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology to hold an emergency meeting about the outage and sector competition more generally.
“This outage underscores another potential risk provided by the current federal regulatory structure. That is, potential significant national vulnerability to a prolonged service outage given the lack of diversity in Canada’s telecommunications providers,” the letter reads.
The NDP also released a statement responding to the events and criticizing the government’s decision to meet with Rogers.
“Minister Champagne meeting with Rogers as a top priority shows that the Liberals are fixated on protecting the profits of telecom giants instead of helping Canadians. People need accountability here— what happened was unacceptable,” a statement from Leader Jagmeet Singh reads.
It goes on to state that the NDP will also look to bring Champagne and others before committee to get answers.
The most wanted fugitive in Canada was arrested in Charlottetown, P.E.I., Tuesday night.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says he does not regret calling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau 'wacko,' and now his MPs are renewing calls for the House of Commons Speaker to resign, this time over ordering the Official Opposition leader to leave the chamber.
The highly contagious norovirus is spreading across Canada, with some symptoms overlapping with other viruses. CTVNews.ca spoke with a health expert to find out how you can tell you have norovirus, the most common form of stomach flu, and what to do if you have it.
Nearly a month after the total solar eclipse, at least 160 cases of eye damage have been reported across the country.
The investigation continues into a collision that killed two grandparents and their infant grandchild during a high-speed police chase on the wrong way of Highway 401 east of Toronto.
A month after eight Norwegian Cruise Line passengers were stranded in Africa when their ship left without them because they were late getting back, a U.S. couple – ages 84 and 81 – were also left behind by the cruise line in Spain.
Defence Minister Bill Blair says he couldn't convince the Liberal cabinet that Canada's government needed to meet NATO's spending target in its recent defence policy update.
Dozens of London Drugs stores in Western Canada remained closed for the fourth straight day following a "cybersecurity incident."
A prosecutor in Massachusetts won't seek criminal charges against anyone, two years after four newborns were found in a freezer in a South Boston apartment.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.
The lawyer for a residential school survivor leading a proposed class-action defamation lawsuit against the Catholic Church over residential schools says the court action is a last resort.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.