A retired Canadian business executive has started a petition asking the CRTC and the federal government to set enforceable customer service standards for telecoms, including a hard cap on how long you can be left on hold.
Frank Brown, former president of Wahl Canada, launched the Change.org petition after hitting his limit with his own provider, he explained to iPhone in Canada in an email. He waited 45 minutes on hold for a basic request, got transferred, and was immediately disconnected. On another try, the automated system would not even put him in the queue, telling him there were too many calls and to phone back later.
Anyone who has spent an afternoon fighting on the phone with incumbents such as Rogers, Bell, or Telus will recognize the pattern. Reddit threads about hour-long waits (or more) are a regular occurrence. Brown’s argument is that Canadians already pay some of the highest wireless and internet prices in the world, and getting a human on the line for a billing question or an account change should not be this hard.
His fix is a mandatory 10-minute maximum hold time for every telecom operating in Canada, backed by financial penalties for companies that miss it.
He points to Spain as the model, as the nation’s Congress passed a customer service law in December 2025 requiring companies in essential sectors, telecoms included, to answer 95 per cent of calls within three minutes. It also gives customers the right to reach a real person instead of being stuck in an automated loop, and fines for non-compliance run from €150 to €100,000 ($240 to $160,000 CAD). Spain has given companies one year to comply, so it is phasing in through 2026.
You can click here to sign the petition on Change.org. We know these types of petitions might not bring real change, but the hope is to bring light to the issue. The CRTC has already tried to limit how telecoms can charge junk fees. But big telcos already have come up with other fees to replace banned fees, and it seems the Commission can only do so much to control incumbents.
How long have you been on hold with telecoms lately while on the phone?
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Early 2000’s till 2012 ish (?) Telus mobile paid YOU if you waited for customer service agent for more than 2 minutes. Payment for waiting longer than 2 minutes came as credit on your monthly statement. On your birthday, Telus mailed you box of Purdy Chocolates. If you paid your monthly statement on time every month, for 6 months in row, you received 2 free Cineplex movie tickets as a “thank you”. Today, Telus customer service is terrible! Wayback Machine likely has archive evidence of Telus PERK program.
Petitions don’t work in 2026. But as we all know from influencers and media creators, that’s not relevant, it’s the experience!
I’d like to see Revenue Canada held to these standards,
sign me up
bce telus and rogers need to feel harm from from their “customers”
the executive management of these companies and their BOD…are….fat cats….. useless