Bell says subsea cable from Cape Breton to Newfoundland was deliberately cut — twice

Bell is looking for answers after workers found a subsea cable, shown in this handout photo, had been severed on Dec. 24, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO — Bell

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — Bell is looking for answers after its subsea fibre-optic cable connecting western Newfoundland to Nova Scotia was severed for the second time in the space of a year.

The telecommunications cable was most recently cut on Dec. 24, said David Joice, the company’s networks director. That’s almost a year after the first incident on Jan. 4, 2024.

“We found that it was cut by humans,” Joice said in an interview Wednesday. “And what was really difficult about this, because it’s a huge investment, is we found that it was deliberately cut for the second time by humans.”

The cable stretches across the Cabot Strait, between Dingwall, N.S., and Codroy, N.L. When crews retrieved the ends of the three-centimetre cable, they saw it was sliced clean, as if someone had used a specialized tool, he said.

Joice said it is possible an anchor got ensnared in the line, which lay roughly 30 metres below the surface, and it was cut to free a ship.

“If you find yourself in that situation, please don’t cut the cable,” he said. “It’s critical infrastructure for residents and customers of Newfoundland (and) Labrador.”

Wrapped in coils of thick wire that act as armour, the line is a “primary connection” for internet, television and long distance communications between the two provinces, Joice said.

Bell has contacted the RCMP in an effort to find out who sliced the cable and why, he added.

In the meantime, the cable has been repaired and returned to the water, where remotely operated vehicles dug into the seabed to bury it much deeper. The company is also looking at “surveillance options,” Joice said.

“We want to spread the word that these cables are there and people need to avoid them,” he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 19, 2025.

CTV News is owned by Bell Media, which is a division of BCE.