Consumer Groups Say CRTC Is Making It Harder to Fight for Canadians

Two consumer groups say the CRTC is making it harder to stand up for Canadians in phone, internet and TV cases, months after Ottawa pulled funding from consumer protection groups.

The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and the Forum for Research and Policy in Communications (FRPC) asked the CRTC on November 5 to change a new funding policy announced in August, according to an email the groups sent iPhone in Canada on Wednesday.

The CRTC has been able to reimburse consumer groups for the cost of taking part in its phone, internet and TV cases since 1975, when Parliament gave it authority over telecommunications. Those cost awards are meant to help public-interest groups participate in the regulator’s proceedings, including by covering research and legal bills.

The August rules are the first part of a review the CRTC started in May 2025, when it asked how it could better support public participation in its cases. The CRTC said it plans to announce more changes later. In August it raised the professional rates it uses to repay consumer groups, which it said were out of date, and added a new spending cap.

Under those rules, an individual consumer group will not get its costs repaid if they go over $75,000 CAD in a single case. That cap has applied to cost applications since August 8. The groups say the limit is too low when they need evidence about where Canadians stand, and that the CRTC did not explain why $75,000 CAD was the right number, or how the new process serves the public interest.

They also point out that a month before the cap, the CRTC paid more than $249,000 CAD for a single public-opinion survey.

The CRTC said about 90% of the costs it has awarded since the last rate review were below $50,000 CAD. PIAC and FRPC say the decision did not say which awards were counted, and that it looked at amounts the CRTC actually paid, which it can cut, rather than what groups asked for.

Most telecom companies supported a cap. Bell suggested starting as low as $15,000 CAD, with a chance to apply for more. Most consumer groups opposed the idea, saying caps are burdensome, unfair, and at odds with why cost repayments exist in the first place.

There is a narrow exception. The CRTC can still cover research or legal bills above $75,000 CAD, but only if a case’s comment window lasts three months or longer. Even then, the group has to show its plan, including what experts and evidence it wants, to the telecom companies and the CRTC. The companies get to comment. The CRTC can then cut the group’s work, limit the evidence it gathers, or both.

The groups say that will make it harder for them to hire experts or commission their own research in complicated cases, while the companies can still do that. This is the kind of work that comes up when consumer groups go up against the carriers, including after the CRTC banned $80 CAD activation and switching fees and opened a switching fee probe involving Rogers, Telus and Bell.

iPhone in Canada previously reported that PIAC and FRPC were among the groups that asked the CRTC to pause deadlines in that probe this summer.

“The CRTC said its new policy ensures predictability,” said Tahira Dawood, PIAC’s Acting General Counsel in a statement, adding, “but requiring pre-approval of consumer groups’ work will give telecom companies an early look at our arguments and evidence. Instead of supporting fair and effective participation on behalf of the public, the CRTC is raising new barriers.”

Monica Auer, FRPC’s Executive Director, said the CRTC cases with the most potential to affect Canadians are usually the most complicated ones.

“The CRTC’s decision has just made it harder for consumer-interest groups to advocate for the public interest,” said Auer. “How is the CRTC supporting participation in the public interest by restricting it?”

The request lands as the CRTC is also looking at a complaint from Cogeco, Eastlink and SaskTel over Rogers’ hockey add-on.