Telecoms not obligated to give rights-of-way to Calgary: Alberta court

Telecom companies operating in Calgary will not have to abide by a municipal bylaw granting the city rights-of-way, the Alberta Court of Appeal has decided. In a judgement issued on Monday, the court held up a lower court's ruling that Calgary's bylaw intruded "to a significant extent" into federal authority over the regulation of telecommunications. The effect of including telecommunications in the city's rights-of-way bylaw, the lower court ruled, is "to supplant the federal scheme and to assume a significant measure of procedural and substantive control over the location, construction, operation, maintenance and preservation of telecommunications.” In upholding the lower court decision, the Court of Appeal endorsed the observation that the City of Calgary did not work through the proper legal channels for ensuring it had access to rights-of-way from BCE Inc., Rogers Communications Inc., Shaw Communications Inc., and Telus Corp., and in doing so tread into the federal jurisdiction of the Telecommunications Act. Writing in the decision, Court of Appeal justices Patricia Rowbotham and Marine Paperny said subsections 43(3) and (4) of the Act state that telecoms will seek the consent of a city on acceptable terms, while the bylaw imposes its terms unilaterally. They further endorse the decision of lower court judge Jolaine Antonio, quoting her decision from October 2018. "The City may have a legitimate desire to safely and efficiently coordinate work on public rights-of-way, and this may best be accomplished with the cooperation of different levels of government," lower court judge Jolaine Antonio wrote. "The Telecommunications Act itself provides a vehicle for cooperation between Telecoms and municipalities, but the City chose to abandon that vehicle and pursue its own ends unilaterally.” In January of 2019, the CRTC denied the city of Calgary's request to approve the bylaw, and told the city to negotiate terms with the telecom companies.

Telecoms not obligated to give rights-of-way to Calgary: Alberta court

Brief | May 25, 2020

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Telecoms not obligated to give rights-of-way to Calgary: Alberta court

Brief | May 25, 2020

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