Industry Committee on Sept. 29th, 2022

[Ian Scott]

On the second point, yes. The more information we have, the more specifics we have about the nature of campaigns and the nature of the calls, the better armed and prepared we are to educate consumers, to put law enforcement or other parts of government and the public on notice, so absolutely the more information the better.

On the first part of the question—

Steven, sorry. Go ahead.

[Steven Harroun]

On the first part of your question, on the telemarketing side we receive about 3,000 complaints a month. On the spam side—that's your SMS texts or emails—we get about 5,000 a week. We are not shy on complaints.

You're right. Canadians consistently under-report. They are either embarrassed if they have fallen for a scheme, or they just don't want to go through the motions of reporting it. My intelligence teams use those complaints. That's why we talk to service providers. That's why we talk to the banks. That's why we talk to other areas that have information on what Canadians are complaining about so we can slice and dice that and see where the common threads are and see where the common campaigns are and see if there's something we can do about it or if one of our partners can do something about it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much.

It's over to Mr. Lemire now for five minutes.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to ask the witnesses once again about the matter of smaller providers. Can they really respond as quickly as you require? Can they invest as rapidly as the major service providers? Do you believe that their capacity for protecting their customers can compare with the major providers?

[Ian Scott]

I think so.

Mr. Garneau, would you like to answer that question?

[Alain Garneau]

The answer is yes. Most of the new smaller providers are already using the IP network. It is therefore not an additional burden for them. Those that are not can rely on their upstream provider to handle this aspect on their behalf.

We have not yet received any complaints. To my knowledge, no provider has told us that this new requirement is too much of a burden.

The only hitch reported does not come from the industry side. For the STIR/SHAKEN technology to work, certain technical capacities are required, including software and switching equipment. There also has to be an IP interconnection agreement. It's with things like this that the smaller providers might sometimes have to wait longer, which is only to be expected. Agreements with the major providers like Bell Canada or Telus are generally in place earlier than for the smaller providers.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Further to the Rogers outage this summer, the Minister, Mr. Champagne, required more collaboration among telecommunication service providers, because this outage had revealed the limitations of our system.

Could collaboration of this kind be used to address fraud issues? How could the other providers come to the assistance of those that had shortcomings?

[Ian Scott]

That's not exactly the same situation, nor does it have the same goal.

Reliability measures are to protect against outages. The focus is not there on sharing information of this type, but there is co-operation within the industry to combat this.

Does that answer your question?

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Yes, for now.

I understand that there is still some work to be done, but overall, is there a concrete action plan in the works to modernize the networks?

To increase the level of security, there are also robustness and resilience considerations, as you mentioned. Is that where we are headed now?

[Ian Scott]

With respect to whether we're really focusing on the issue of the robustness and integrity of networks, that really falls first and foremost to the industry department, to ISED. They work with the industry. They deal with natural disasters, with emergencies. They operate CSTAC, that committee, so it really is they who are responsible for that. Our role as the regulator of their business...that's not so much our role.

With respect to telemarketing, it's the other way around. It's very much us, and us working with the carriers, but I would say on both fronts that there are both plans and co-operation between industry participants.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

One of the recommendations made by the committee two years ago was for the Government of Canada to launch a month-long awareness campaign in local and national media to help protect Canadians against fraud, particularly forms of fraud related to COVID-19. Do you know whether this recommendation was implemented and what steps were taken to make the public less vulnerable to attacks?

[Alain Garneau]

Every year, the CRTC works with the Competition Bureau and the Canada Revenue Agency on the Fraud Prevention Month campaign. Scams were identified early on in the pandemic and we played an active role in delivering messages to Canadians. In short, yes, there were meetings and communications with the Canada Revenue Agency and other organizations to coordinate efforts.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you. That's good news.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Lemire and congratulations once again on your ability to keep to your speaking time better than anyone else around this table. I'm grateful to you for simplifying my work.

Mr. Masse, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks for the heads-up warning.

[Ian Scott]

I thought it was directed at me, Mr. Masse, not you.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

It's all good.

You mentioned collaboration about the industry. Is there a formal working group in the industry? What CEOs or staff have they assigned? Are you part of those discussions? Give us a little more detail as to what's going on in the industry.

[Ian Scott]

Let me ask Mr. Harroun to respond to that. He's more in touch with it on a day-to-day basis.

[Steven Harroun]

Absolutely, and thanks for the question.

All the major providers, and even some of the smaller providers, participate in a couple of different working groups at the staff level so that we have the right technical folks on board and the right regulatory folks on board. When necessary, it is more of a technical group. We look at the intelligence they're seeing with respect to their networks, at what kind of traffic they're seeing, etc. They meet on a weekly basis.

On a monthly and quarterly basis, we have a larger group, which we call the VOIP telephony group, which talks about all the issues within that area.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Would it be helpful at this point in time to heighten or increase the responsibility on the carriers to also make this more public at a more senior level as well if there is going to be some more awareness? If it's a bunch of IT people meeting or on Zoom, it's one thing, and it gets real results, but also, is there something more we can do on the culture of this with regard to the telcos?

[Steven Harroun]

The telcos are definitely very actively engaged with us at the more senior levels. Obviously, that's at your discretion to make that more public and ask them to inform their consumers more.

I will say, as I've mentioned before, that of all the different partnerships we have, the telcos, the banks and others are very active in the space in informing their customers when there's a fraud. They all have blinking lights on their websites: “This is the latest scam.” Unfortunately, that changes on probably a weekly basis. They all are very public facing. Could they do more? Could we all do more? Absolutely.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Okay. The reason I asked about the fines and the penalties is that, at the end of the day, a fraud call, whether it's done by a carrier that is stretching the rules or whether it's an outright organized crime thing, it's still the same result for the victim. On the penalties you mentioned in your testimony, this is what I'm trying to get at.

For the $10 million you mentioned—that was your number—I'd like to know, what does that buy for the public in terms of an improved crackdown or stopping fraud calls? What type of an investment and return do we get on that? That's what I'm really seeking with regard to even having this come back to Parliament here. It's how far we've come, but also where we can go. You mentioned $10 million. What does that actually gain for our economy, our consumers and public protection?

[Ian Scott]

I'm trying to think of the specific reference. I'm not being disagreeable, Mr. Masse, but I think Steven mentioned that even if he had $10 million, it would be.... That wasn't the point of that.

I think there are different issues here. Telemarketing—

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

That's fair. I'm sorry but I'm just going to interrupt because I have a short amount of time.

This will be my final thing. All I'm looking for is that, hopefully, you can come back to us and give us a picture as to what, if we had some improvements, those would cost the CRTC, and if we invested in those, what our return might be. You don't have to come up with it now, but that's what I'm looking for. If we help with these things—just as with the communication piece and how you still don't get the proper communication because of sharing of information laws—I'm looking to see where we get value out of that. If you are missing some things later on, we'd love to hear that. That's what I'm looking for. How do we exercise that? How do we give you the proper supports to get the results? Could you to do that?

[Ian Scott]

That's a very fair request. We'll consider that. Thank you.