Industry Committee on July 25th, 2022

[Tony Staffieri]

In planning for our coming together with Shaw, we were very careful in looking at the complete financial picture, as well as the benefits it would provide to all stakeholders. I can confirm to you, sir, that our plan is to conclude the transaction and increase the amount of investment that we intend to make in infrastructure and in networks. Networks are the lifeblood of our industry. In our 60 years of entrepreneurial history, it's always been about the network—the wireless network and our cable wireline network—and that will continue to be our priority.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Lemire.

We now go to Mr. Masse for six minutes.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for being here.

To be fair, this committee has had to subpoena...not subpoena, but push hard to get some witnesses to come, so I'm glad you've come on your own volition.

However, I do want to make sure that I understand what is being proposed. Did I hear correctly that the separation of the lines to make sure 911 would work would cost around $250 million? Is that specifically required to ensure that 911 does not fail again? That's one of the largest problems in all of this. One thing is the inconvenience, but second to that, 911 is critical. Is it correct that $250 million is the fix for 911?

[Tony Staffieri]

If I could clarify this, as part of the investments and the fixes we're putting in place, first and foremost, emergency 911 and essential services are core to what we're doing. As part of the memorandum of understanding that we will deliver together with our industry in the next 60 days, we have been working on and will deliver a robust solution for 911 so that it works.

What we saw in the outage was that our planned solution, as an industry, failed. Many calls—

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

So, it's not a....

Sorry, go ahead.

[Tony Staffieri]

Many calls did go through, but many did not, and even one is too many.

As part of the fixes, we will have the redundancy that I spoke about. In addition to that, we will have failover measures, so that in the event there is an outage and it doesn't fall over to our alternate network, it will fall over to one of our competitor's networks within seconds.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I just want to make sure that I get this correct. It's not a technical problem in terms of providing 911 guaranteed service; it's more that it was a business decision that led to the lack of capacity or redundancy in the system.

[Tony Staffieri]

The failure of 911 calls was a technical problem. It had nothing to do with lack of resources. We clearly prioritize emergency calls.

With regard to the specific technical problem—and I'll ask my colleague to provide a fuller explanation—what happens is that when there's an outage, certain phones would continue to try to connect to our network even though the network was down. That's the frustration that we incurred.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I don't need a technical answer for that. I appreciate it, but what I'm looking for is that it was a business decision at the end of the day, and it's a business decision to fix this. That's the critical item.

Mr. Erskine-Smith mentioned essential services. Would you categorize that any provider in our system providing 911 is essential?

[Tony Staffieri]

There's nothing more important than the completion of 911 calls. The inability for calls on 911 to complete on July 8 was a technical issue. It was not for a lack of resources. There was no business decision, other than the one to confirm that 911 calls are important and we need to ensure that they are able to be made.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

At the end of the day, it was a business decision because there wasn't the provision of cash.

It's either one of two things. It's either a technical problem, which we have to discuss as a committee if we're letting our carriers do that, or we're letting them make decisions that don't prioritize it enough to actually have the redundancy. That's the follow-up that I think is necessary to find out, to make sure....

You had this problem before, and there was a promise to fix it. What happened between that time back in 2021 and today? That's where I think consumer confidence has to be reasserted, for the business application aspect.

I think we might have to separate the 911 itself at the committee, but what happened between then and now? What's different? Why didn't that fix from 2021 get done for this situation?

[Tony Staffieri]

I'll commence.

The outage that occurred last April on our wireless services was due to a specific technical issue that was different from the one we encountered on July 8.

Following the April outage, changes were made to our network and to our processes to prevent that type of outage and other outages. We just could not foresee the type of outage that we experienced on July 8.

[Ron McKenzie]

I'd maybe just add that the instances are very different. The instance on July 8 was essentially the core of the network, the brain of the network, that supports all wireless, wire line, internal communications and connectivity. It was a complete loss of connection. With the technical issue on the 911, as much as our fellow operators all offer to help, there is no technical way, with loss of connectivity.... We wish we could have helped, because we wish we could have transferred—

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you. I have one quick question left. I'm sorry to interrupt, but it is an important one that I wanted to get in.

Part of the problem we have right now is that nobody in your organization thought to call the minister, even with 911 being down.

Now you're kind of making up stuff in terms of what to do next for consumers and things like that. It's not a negative comment. It's the same with the minister: He's making up some new things in terms of regulatory...and processes.

Would Rogers support a universal process that's transparent for consumers, businesses and the public, for all carriers, so that there would be like a bill of rights for consumers and carriers alike? It doesn't matter whether you're sitting in the seat or somebody else is in the future. Is that something Rogers would support?

[Tony Staffieri]

We are very much focused on what we need to do to ensure the resiliency and redundancy of our networks so we can earn back, in this competitive environment, the confidence and trust of our customers and of Canadians. We will make the investments needed to make this right.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you. That's all the time we have, Mr. Masse, but we will get back to you.

Now we'll move to Mr. Généreux for five minutes.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Staffieri and Mr. McKenzie.

I believe you have customers in Quebec. In fact, I know you do since I, too, was affected by the outage. I wasn't able to use the Interac system.

Was the Quebec government notified as quickly as Mr. Champagne was? My understanding is that Quebec government officials had to call you because you didn't contact them.

Did you notify the Government of Quebec of your service outage?

[Tony Staffieri]

Again, through you, Mr. Chair, sir, throughout the day, beginning in the late morning, once we knew and had access to our networks, which was a little after 10:30, we started the communication. What we knew stakeholders wanted to know was the cause of the outage—in particular, if this was a cybersecurity incident—and when we expected the networks to get up. You could imagine our focusing on those two issues first and foremost. We notified the minister's office shortly before noon of our outage and that we did not have the answers to those two questions. I spoke with the minister in the early evening.

To answer your specific question, we did not notify the Premier of Quebec until that evening as well, and in retrospect, I regret that, and I'm disappointed that we didn't reach out sooner. There are reasons, as I said. We were focused on the solution and getting our customers up and running, but nonetheless, those communications should have happened sooner for an important stakeholder such as the government.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

You talked about spending $250 million on fixing the problem and separating the two networks, and investing another $10 billion in technology infrastructure system-wide in the future. Your products and services impact people's lives. I want you to really understand that. People rely on your services to call 911. That's how important they are.

Today, you are telling us that you will be spending $250 million on your infrastructure and more than $10 billion in the future. Shouldn't you have made those investments a while ago to ensure your customers had access to high-quality service?

[Tony Staffieri]

Today we invest close to $3 billion every year. This year we will invest $3 billion, and that number has continued to grow. Of that $3 billion investment we make every year, this year, more of that goes to the network than would have been the case in the past. Network investment this year will be double what it was two years ago, and, as we look to future years as that capital investment continues to grow, more and more of that proportionately will be spent on networks. The $250 million is the immediate incremental investment we will make in what I would describe as urgent fixes to the redundancy and resiliency of our network.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Tell us about your business with Interac.

I know the answer, but for the benefit of those following today's proceedings, I'd like you to describe your relationship. I was affected by the outage. I had to use my credit card instead of my Interac card to pull out cash.

That business relationship affects Canadians all over the country who aren't necessarily Rogers customers, so tell us about it.

[Tony Staffieri]

I'll start, and Ron can complement this.

Interac is a customer of ours, and we provide connectivity to Interac across the nation. In our relationship with Interac, we were responsible for providing primary and secondary connectivity through our wireless and our wireline network. Because this outage impacted our core gateways, as my colleague outlined, it caused both to go down, so, as a result, we failed Interac and we failed Canadians.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

I have one last question.

Are any members of your board French-Canadian or even women, English- or French-speaking?

If not, you should explore that possibility.

[Tony Staffieri]

Thank you for the comments.

Board decisions are made by the board, and I will refer those comments to our board.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you.

We now go to Ms. Lapointe for five minutes.