Evidence of meeting #31 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was outage.
A video is available from Parliament.
1 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Rogers Communications Inc.
That's correct.
Let me outline a few principles. Shutting down our radio access network—or the RAN, as it's commonly referred to—is not a significant decision. To be able to shut down the RAN, you need to have access to the network. When our network went down, it was dark until approximately 10:30 a.m. The earliest we could consider the RAN shutdown was after 10:30.
1 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Rogers Communications Inc.
If I could finish, we considered that option, but by that point we had already started to see areas where our network started to come back on, and so we decided not to shut off the RAN. Had we done that, it would have, in all likelihood, extended the outage for at least another day. That was a significant decision that needed to be made, and we took the view, given that we were seeing opportunities to get our network up and running sooner, we made the decision to not shut down the RAN.
1:05 p.m.
Conservative
Tracy Gray Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Okay. Well, thank you.
It sounds like, as you were considering different options, there weren't strict protocols actually in place, considering what happened. That's not overly reassuring to the public.
I have a few other questions here for you.
What was Rogers' annual revenue in 2021?
1:05 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Rogers Communications Inc.
All of our figures are publicly disclosed.
1:05 p.m.
Conservative
1:05 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Rogers Communications Inc.
We have a team of approximately 25,000 employees throughout Canada.
1:05 p.m.
Conservative
1:05 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Rogers Communications Inc.
We have over 12 million customers across the nation.
1:05 p.m.
Conservative
Tracy Gray Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Does Rogers have a chief risk officer or a chief risk management officer?
1:05 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Rogers Communications Inc.
We have a risk officer. They report into our audit and risk committee. As part of the processes and reviews, there are very specific areas that they focus on in identifying potential risks. Network and cyber would rank as amongst the most important risks a company like ours faces. Therefore we have very specific emergency recovery procedures in the event that an incident like this happens.
1:05 p.m.
Conservative
Tracy Gray Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Is that person in your executive? Are they in the executive role as a chief risk officer?
1:05 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Rogers Communications Inc.
They are part of the chief financial officer's accountability and responsibility. It's a senior level within our company.
1:05 p.m.
Conservative
Tracy Gray Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Okay.
Many organizations that are far less complex and large actually have this senior type of position, a CRO, in their organizations. Why have you not hired or brought someone into that senior CRO position at Rogers?
1:05 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Rogers Communications Inc.
We are confident that through the processes we have today, we have a very methodical and encompassing approach to ensuring that we identify risks and we have the proper plans in place to manage, mitigate and deal with any exposures that come out of that risk.
1:05 p.m.
Conservative
Tracy Gray Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Well, obviously the results of the outage that occurred in July of this year speak differently from what you just said.
You've had two system-wide failures within your organization, created by your organization, putting public safety at risk. Who is losing their jobs—or should it be you? Do you have the confidence of your board?
1:05 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Rogers Communications Inc.
I'm accountable to ensure this doesn't happen again. As I've said, we have already undertaken processes and actions to make changes so that we quickly move forward with the plans that are articulated to ensure this does not happen again.
1:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
Thank you very much.
We'll move to Mr. Dong for the last round of questions.
1:05 p.m.
Liberal
1:05 p.m.
Liberal
Iqwinder Gaheer Liberal Mississauga—Malton, ON
Great, thank you.
I'd like to thank the individuals from Rogers for making time to be at this committee.
My question is for Mr. Staffieri. I can already predict the response to this question, but it's a question that I asked the minister. There are experts who now argue that telecommunications networks should be considered public utilities because of the nature of the service; it's critical digital infrastructure.
What do you think of that statement? Do you think the service that your company provides is so important that it should be considered a public utility?
1:05 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Rogers Communications Inc.
What I can tell you, sir, is that, together with 25,000 employees throughout the country, we come to work every day with the view of trying to be better for our customers.
In this case, as I said, we let them down. We are going to make the changes. It's in our interest to do that in the environment we operate in. As a competitive company in this industry in this country, it's in our interest to do all the things we need to do to ensure this does not happen again.
1:05 p.m.
Liberal
Iqwinder Gaheer Liberal Mississauga—Malton, ON
Thank you for that.
As we know, when talking about compensation, payments couldn't occur, sales were missed, meetings were missed, work couldn't be done and businesses couldn't operate fully. The extent of damages is quite substantial. I know Rogers has committed to compensating customers for five days' worth of services.
Can you give the committee details about how you arrived at that five-day credit as a suitable amount and whether you think it's a suitable amount, given the repercussions of this outage?
1:10 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Rogers Communications Inc.
The outage lasted just under a day. We immediately looked to a few things. As I've said, as I spoke to customers and Canadians, what they really wanted to know is how we ensure this doesn't happen going forward. That's what we're focused on.
In terms of the compensation, we wanted to do the right thing. The outage lasted a little less than a day. We initially made it two days of credit. What we found was that, once the network was up, there were still some customers who were experiencing some issues throughout different parts of the country for an additional one to two days. We just decided to make it five days. We wanted to make it easy for customers. It's a full five-day credit, and it will show up on their future bills. There's nothing that customers need to do in order to obtain that credit.
1:10 p.m.
Liberal
Iqwinder Gaheer Liberal Mississauga—Malton, ON
I look forward to seeing an estimate of the costs of this outage to the Canadian economy.
My last question is this. I know the minister met with all of you to talk about collaboration on several items with other telecom providers. Can you update the committee on how the plan is coming along and what collaboration between the telecom companies will look like?
1:10 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Rogers Communications Inc.
We're working collaboratively as an industry on the memorandum of understanding, which will encompass three important areas.
The first is failover measures in the event of an outage and the preparedness of each of us for that. The second, and it's probably the most critical, is how we ensure that 911 and emergency calls transfer over all the time without any failure at all. The third is communication protocols.
We've been working not only as an industry but together with the minister's office and ISED to move this along. It's our commitment to ensure that we conclude that within the 60-day time frame that the minister outlined.
