The CAMROSE BOOSTER, July 19, 2022 – Page 4
Dear Tony... Dear Tony, last Thursday I read the not-apology your communications people crafted. You signed it, “Sincerely, Tony.” Under the hand-written “Tony,” was your name and title: Tony Staffieri, president and CEO, Rogers Communications. The not-apology appeared as a full page ad in daily newspapers–six days after Rogers Communications systems shut down for about 15 hours. After six days of silence, I was a little surprised. I didn’t know we were on a first-name basis, Tony. When I began reading your letter, I expected that, as CEO, you would apologize for the immense and costly outage Rogers Communications caused millions of Canadians. You didn’t. I’m not a Rogers customer so I assumed I would not be affected by the outage. Turns out Rogers is the telecom my bank uses. That meant I could not access any of my accounts or use my debit card, Tony. Many hours after the outage began, I was underwhelmed the first time I saw a Rogers spokesperson finally acknowledge the problem and said, “We don’t know what’s causing the problem.” I was even more underwhelmed later. I learned that, with over 11 million customers and 2.25 million retail subscribers, Rogers has no back-up system to kick in when there’s an outage. Wha-a-a-t? Officially the shutdown lasted about 15 hours. However, just because Rogers’ systems started functioning again doesn’t mean the banks and merchants and debit card holders could immediately restore services. I could not access bank accounts or use a debit card for two days. I was merely inconvenienced. But millions of businesses small and large could not process transactions. Who knows how much income they lost? Millions of individuals could not use their Rogers cell phones. With potentially lifeand-death risks, some people could not access Rogersbased 911 emergency call centres. The outage was a big wake-up call, Tony. I’d assumed that, like utility companies, telecoms had agreements to ensure that if one telecom is down, another one can cover off. It’s a relief to know the Canadian government is now forcing you to work with other telecoms to change that. Would have been even nicer if you’d thought of it yourself. Back to your not-apology letter, Tony. You said, “You have my personal commitment that Rogers will make every change and investment needed to help ensure that it will not happen again.” Frankly, your personal commitment does not make me feel confident. During the outage, Rogers did not communicate at all for many hours. When someone from Rogers finally did communicate, the person I saw stated that Rogers knew there was a problem but did not know the source of the problem. Later, “maintenance” was mentioned as a possible source of the problem. And then you personally waited six days to not apologize. This does not inspire confidence in the value of your personal commitment, Tony. I’m guessing you wish the outage had not happened at this time. Right now, you’re trying to convince Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to allow Rogers to purchase Shaw Communications. In March 2022, CRTC conditionally approved the sale. Conditions related to the sale being of benefit to Canadians. It’s easy to see what’s in it for you, Tony. Market share! More money! It’s not so easy to see what’s in it for Canadians. That includes people like me–not even Rogers customers–who didn’t until now know that we may be dependent on Rogers to be able to phone 911 or access banking information. Now that you’ve angered the Canadian government, it’s possible the Rogers-Shaw deal could be in jeopardy. In your letter, you said, “We can and will do better.” Uh huh. We’ll see. You know what else I’d like, Tony? I’d like an actual apology. One more thing. I’m now even more keenly aware of how dependent we all are on Internet and other systems that may be more fragile than we imagined. ***
I’d love to hear from you. If you have comments about this column or suggestions for future topics, send an email to Bonnie@BonnieHutchinson.com. I’ll happily reply within one business day.
Camrose Fire Department heats up a block party By Murray Green
Camrose Fire Department firefighters Lieutenants Nic Sampson and Sean Johnston, and Firefighters Angelina Terpstra and Randy Degenstein added to the fun of the culde-sac block party of 61A
Street and 35 Avenue on July 9. Children could explore a fire truck and meet some of the local fire department members. The firefighters explained some of their gear and equipment,
and spent the afternoon mingling with 30 adults and 13 children. The children were super excited to share in the wonderment of sitting in the seats of a real fire truck and spraying each other with mini hoses.
